The Eternal Moment

In reading “On Photography” by Susan Sontag I was struck by two cited quotes:

“... the hundreth of a second caught so precisely that the motion is continued from the picture indefinitely: the moment made eternal.” Hart Crane

“The photographer is the contemporary being par excellence; through his eyes the now becomes the past.” Berence Abbott

Crane was referring to iconic imagery made by Alfred Steiglitz and yet it provides an understanding of the potential power of photography. I would never be so naive as to state that every image taken is eternal but one must realize that the taking of an image by a skilled photographer who has something to say provides the potentiality of the image to be eternal. This can be as limited as a family photograph which moves down the generations, or as wide as a pulitzer-prize winning reportage that takes the world by storm and becomes emblematic of a cultural time and place.

Once an iconic image enters the ken of man he proliferates it down the ages through his ideas and reproductions. Even a simple photograph of a birthday celebration “eternalizes” the image for the celebrant. It becomes a way of sharing the moment and becomes part of the familial or societal memory bank to a greater or lesser degree.

The following quote by Berenice Abbott provides an antithesis to the eternal concept yet fits hand-in-glove somehow. A photograph, as it travels forward in time is always suggesting the past. It is a record, a memory, a private or cultural imitation of what was. It therefore follows that the eternal value of a photograph travels not just forward but backward - creating a timelessness.

So it is commonly thought that photography stops time and this could be easily proved. However in reality it is false - a specious argument made by the philosophically inane.* In reality a photograph expands time. It allows a single moment, whether that be one-hundreth of a second, one-thousandth or whatever, to expand ad infinitum. Depending on the moment, the skill of the photographer and a myriad of aesthetic values - the single moment captured reflects on the past as well as travels to the future. Therefore instead of stopping time, we are dealing with the infinite from the viewpoint of the viewer.

*It is true only from the perspective of the photographer who is searching for the decisive moment in the now. But only from his perspective.