Kumhar Toli
1990
What do you see?
There are images that speak very obviously in photography; A language composed of visual gymnastics, of moments snatched from the flow of time, captured, shot, taken and clicked.
It is a language we have become familiar with, or rather trained to be, over generations. “The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the camera as well as the pen”, wrote the Hungarian artist Lazlo Maholy-Nagy in the early 20th century (allegedly).
It takes you a split second to notice him. And it should, as the language of photography is also one of pauses. But once you see him, and you understand, the photograph has had its first death. Now, and forever hence, you will know, and your eyes will seek him out. No longer surprised, now simply reassured in the stillness of this forever moment of the god-man’s becoming.