Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Photography: The Language of Light

Author(s): Yousef Khanfar
Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 87, No. 2 (March/April 2013), pp. 28-31
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7588/worllitetoda.87.2.0028
Accessed: 10-06-2018 10:03 UTC

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cover feature

Jug of Light, from The Adandoned Collection

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 Photography:
The Language of Light
Yousef Khanfar

The beauty of photography’s language is that it has no rules

and follows no laws.

P
hotography changes the way we see everything, and chang-
es everything in the way we see. Photographers are the
Mont Blanc of the art enterprise, for they create with beau-
ty what they see with truth. And photographs are the pendulums of
experience that swing out toward life and in toward mankind.
Photography is a mirror with memory. It is an image-activated
language that remains mute until released by command. Each
photograph is a storage unit of reality and truth in the realm of
remembrance. Photography can rise to the most sublime moments
of humanity and transform the way we see ourselves and the world.
The language of photography can be a weapon to expose or a means
to comfort; it has provoked, inspired, and enlightened people.
The love affair between literature and photography has always
been passionate and fruitful. After Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen pub-
lished Daguerreotypes. After In Cold Blood, Truman Capote found solace
in Observations with Richard Avedon. Women, by Susan Sontag and
Annie Leibovitz, was a shared labor of love. Nadine Gordimer and
David Goldblatt used their art as a weapon
in Lifetimes: Under Apartheid. In Happy Rock, Photography is my
Brassaï writes about his intellectual relation-
ship with Henry Miller. In “The Dance of
language; I only
War,” Barbara Morgan and William Carlos Wil- speak with my eyes.
liams witness a bomb exploding over Martha
Graham, whereas in Libraries, Candida Höfer
The camera is my
and Umberto Eco find silence and peace. Of passionate pen, light
course, James Agee and Walker Evans’s Let
Us Now Praise Famous Men remains the most
is my infinite ink, and
famous twentieth-century example. film is my paper.
The beauty of photography’s language is
that it has no rules and follows no laws. There is no need for grammar
or punctuation. There are no worries about stubborn commas, step-
child semicolons, or hunchback parentheses. Style is out the window,
and personal taste is welcomed at the lens’s door. No need to tie your
tongue in pronunciation, but let your eyes sashay into images with

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 the same accent. And as the writer’s life some-
times hangs on a comma, the photographer’s life
hangs on a moment. Still, both photographers and
writers create art dipped in metaphors where they
focus on one thing to let us see something else.
To photograph is the ultimate pleasure for
photographers, and they are willing to starve for
their sin. They capture grand vistas and the small-
est details; in the dog they can see the fleas, in the
leaf they can see the forest. In general, writers grow
Yousef Khanfar is an up in a critical atmosphere, sharing their opinions
award-winning author and thoughts as much as they can. Yet some pho-
and photographer of tographers never utter an opinion in their work.
Palestinian origin whose They might escape giving their thoughts silently,
work has been collected but they exhibit their message loudly.
and exhibited in galleries, In literature, we can only read one line at a
cultural centers, and time. In novels, we can only communicate with
museums worldwide. He is one character at a time. But in photography, we
the author of three books, can see one or more perspectives at a glance.
Voices of Light (2000), In Voices leap out of the image from every corner,
Search of Peace (2006), all at the same time. Sometimes the writer has to
and Invisible Eve (2013). In create a whole paragraph or more to compose an
2003 Khanfar was selected image in the reader’s mind. But you can look at
as one of the world’s top one image and all the words are there. In writing,
landscape photographers the writer can revise, change sentences or para-
by RotoVision in London, graphs many times, but in photography there is
and his work is included in no forgiveness, no revision—the image must be
the permanent collection captured in a split second.
of the International There is something beautiful about creating
Photography Hall of art while you are moving. In photography, I enjoy
Fame, where he serves freedom of movement—seeing, thinking, and com-
as exhibits chairman. In posing between lights and shadows. In writing, I am
2009 the Fulbright Center shackled to my desk, tied down, confronted by my
for Peace in Washington, papers, with nowhere to go. I feel I am in a whirlpool
D.C., selected In Search of of ink, spinning with my imagination. Some days, I
Peace as the honor book write a whole chapter in one sitting, with no end to
for the Global Symposium my thoughts. And sometimes, I am more exhausted
of Peaceful Nations. in one hour of writing than a whole day of photog-
raphy. I adore both photography and writing, and
Editorial note: To in my devotion to each I cheat on the other. So far,
read Yousef’s list neither one has found out about the other mistress.
of recommended The more I get intimate with one, the more it clears
photography books, visit up my vision for the other.
worldliteraturetoday.org. All art has the same point of departure, which
is imagination. Artists can create their art from
within themselves or from their surroundings.
The honeybee creates her honeycomb by collecting
from the surrounding flowers; the spider designs
art from his own body. And to create a powerful
photography collection, sequencing and editing is
as important to photographers as it is to writers.
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To complete a body of work, I like to spread all the
images on the floor and hover over them, like Jack-
son Pollock over his canvas. I like to live, socialize,
and talk with them. Soon, they tell me where they
would like to be seated and which company they are
comfortable with. Finally I rest, when I see the full
skeleton and soul breathing together in the best
series of poetic moments. When a photographer
reviews his complete work, he sees his other self
and finds a witness of his own time, and a world
emerges out of his silver canvases.
I never like it when I have writer’s block,
and the worst is when I have both writer’s and
photographer’s block at the same time. I feel
frozen in time and space, searching in a desolate
orb. Then you realize how much we are bound
to our arts, yet at the same time separated from
them. I’ve come to recognize that artists are
containers that get filled to the rim by the daily
flood of news and information. The lucky artists
are the ones who are able to find a way to escape
and empty their containers so they can accept
creative new ideas and fresh dreams.
To photograph is simple, but to see is
much. A photographer’s eyes deny mere looking;
instead, they crave seeing. Photographers are
magnificent hunters; they hunt with their eyes,
stalking a visual surprise.
The ideal photograph occurs when the per-
fect moment, discriminately chosen, is captured
and all elements of the photographer’s vision
come together in unison. The supreme images are
autonomous and have strong bones to stand on
their own without a footnote. They communicate;
they have intellectual connection and emotional
depth. They have clarity, impact, and a flawless
sense of being timeless. Most of all, they have a
reason to exist; they have a big heart that pumps
life all the way to the outer reaches of their body.
They teach, inspire, and sometimes outrage.
•
B etween the ages of five and six, I still could not
speak. My father, concerned, took me to the
doctor, who ruled out physiological causes and pre-
scribed art to express myself. My father dutifully
took me out to the desert in Kuwait and taught me
how to use the camera. Excited by this new magi-
cal box and what occurred in the darkroom, within
seven months photography soon gave me a voice.
 khanfar

To photograph is simple, but to see

is much. A photographer’s eyes deny
mere looking; instead, they crave
seeing. Photographers are magnificent
hunters; they hunt with their eyes,
stalking a visual surprise.
The patient camera did not get angry
with my young, inquisitive mind. I saw
the film travel from corner to corner on
the short train track inside its cramped
metal cage. It graciously allowed my child-
ish eyes to visit it in solitary confine-
ment. I felt like a liberator every time I
released these images from their peni-
tentiary. This small box of magic, this
silver teacher, was mysterious, precise,
and methodical. And when my anxious
eyes looked through the glass lenses, my
mind ignited with creativity. Together—
through the camera’s eyes and my own—we saw art, I must abandon my masks in order to be above Justice Sandra Day
an entirely new world that fertilized my mind; free. I must balance between the supremacy of O'Connor at the U.S. Supreme
vast sky, luscious landscape, wild animals, and the image and the mood of the message. Such Court, from The Portraits
beautiful people. I never knew then, when I took an accord is demanding, for all my inspired art is Collection
my first photograph, that photography would done alone; it is a solitary union of soul and spirit
take me everywhere. in a distant void.
I live my artistic life between two blanks: Eventually, at the humble axis of the arts,
black film and white paper. I photograph like photography will not be praised for its technology
a child and write like a demigod. Photography but for its advancement of humanity. We continue
is my language; I only speak with my eyes. The to find answers to questions we mostly ignore,
camera is my passionate pen, light is my infinite learn the rhythms of nature and rituals of man.
ink, and film is my paper. When I no longer can But mostly, photography helps to conquer fam-
express myself with images, I lay down my cam- ine, denounce wars, expose injustice, and display
era and call on my pen. When I no longer can the nobility of humanity. And when we cross the
express myself with messages, I lay down my pen milestones of history through images, we see the
and call on silence, for it is my only speech. fullness of human intercourse, mixed with vic-
I came to the understanding that if you want tories and defeats, bound together in values and
to capture the ferocious lion, you must have a experiences, without blurring their distinctness.
strong steel net. To capture the delicate butter- And today, as I dash out at dawn to the world
fly, you must have a fine silk net. But to capture and photograph nothingness, there is a lonely
the soul of an image, the photographer must be photographer with only one eye. His name is Curi-
that net. osity, roving the planet Mars, and he is sending
I do not go out to photograph landscapes, more photographs so we can unveil the universe
cityscapes, or people. I only go out to capture to man, and hopefully unveil man to himself.
one thing. I go out to photograph the mood, and So let there be photography, the universal
everything else is detail. All the trees, rivers, language of the eyes.
buildings, streets, faces, and eyes become details,
but the aim is the mood. And before I can create Edmond, Oklahoma

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