Introduction to William Eggleston’s Guide by John Szarkowski (V)

Introduction to William Eggleston’s Guide
by John Szarkowski

FOR MANY excellent reasons, most of which involve the financial problems of book publication, it would be convenient if one could claim, or suggest, that this book of photographs answers, or contributes to the answer of, some large social or cultural question, such as, Whither the South? or Whither America? depending on one’s viewing distance. The fact is that Eggleston’s pictures do not seem concerned with large questions of this sort. They seem concerned simply with describing life.

基於許多出版的經濟考量，如果我們可以宣稱或暗示，這本攝影集是在試圖回答一些大型社會文化議題，比方說「何謂南方」「何謂美國」（取決於視者的距離），就會省事多了。事實上是，艾戈斯頓的影像並不像是對大型社會議題有興趣，那些影像看來更專注於描述生活。

This does not advance us very far, since it is difficult to conceive of a picture that does not in some sense describe life. That encompassing motif is itself so broad and hopelessly unformed, with so many aspects, angles, details, sotto voce asides, picturesque subplots, and constantly shifting patterns – and none of this clearly labeled – that in fact only the description itself identifies the thing described, and each new description redefines the subject. It is not possible to describe one subject in two different ways.

這樣說並沒有太大的幫助，因為幾乎所有的影像在某種程度上都在於描述生活。那無所不在的主題是如此廣泛又絕望地無法成型，它有太多的面向、角度、細節、低聲的旁白、 栩栩如生的情節、不停變化的式樣，而完全沒有清楚的標記。事實上只有敘述本身得以定義被描述的事物，而每一個新的敘述又會重新指向新的事物主體。因此每一個主體都只會有一種敘述方式。

One can say then that in these photographs form and content are indistinguishable – which is to say that the pictures mean precisely what they appear to mean. Attempting to translate these appearances into words is surely a fool’s errand, in the pursuit of which no two fools would choose the same unsatisfactory words. …

所以我們可以說，在這些照片中，形式和內容是一體的 ─ 也就是說影像的意義就是他看起來的意思。意圖以文字表達這些景象，必定是畫蛇添足又徒勞無功。…

（這裡網路版省略了接下來兩段針對書本第 75 頁照片的討論，僅節譯最後一句：But the meaning of words and those of pictures are at best parallel, describing two lines of thought that do not meet; and if our concern is for the meanings of pictures, verbal description are finally gratuitous.）

… 文字和影像的意義在最好的狀況下也不過是兩條平行線，兩道永不相會的思考；如果我們在意的是影像的意義，那文字的敘述終究是無所謂的。

One can say, to repeat, that in Eggleston’s pictures form and content are indistinguishable, which seems to me true but also unsatisfactory because too permissive. The same thing can be said of any picture. The ambitious photographer, not satisfied by so tautological a success, seeks those pictures that have a visceral relation to his own self and his own privileged knowledge, those that belong to him by genetic right, in which form matches not only content but intent.

再回到那句：艾戈斯頓照片裡形式和內容是一體的。對我來說，這說法好似正確但仍不太滿意，因為它適用性太過廣泛，也可以套在任一個影像上。有抱負的攝影師，不願自滿於這種套套邏輯式的成功，會去追求源於自身和自己專業知識的影像，那些生發於他的影像，形式不只和內容合一，也和意念契合。

This suggests that the pictures reproduced here are no more interesting than the person who made them, and that their intelligence, wit, knowledge, and style reach no farther than that person’s – which leads us away from the measurable relationships of art-historical science toward intuition, superstition, blood-knowledge, terror, and delight.

這也說明了這裡重現的影像不會比攝影者更有趣，它們展現的智慧、才氣、知識和風格也僅止於攝影者的程度 ─ 這個認知讓我們遠離了藝術史學裡可分析度量的關係，而走向直覺、迷信、體悟、恐懼和樂趣。

These pictures are fascinating partly because they contradict our expectations. We have been told so often of the bland, synthetic smoothness of exemplary American life, of its comfortable, vacant insentience, its extruded, stamped, and molded sameness, in a word its irredeemable dullness, that we have come half to believe it, and thus are startled and perhaps exhilarated to see these pictures of prototypically normal types on their familiar ground, grandchildren of Penrod, who seem to live surrounded by spirits, not all of them benign. The suggestible viewer might sense that these are subjects capable not only of the familiar modern vices (self-loathing, adaptability, dissembling, sanctimony, and license), but of the ancient ones (pride, parochial stubbornness, irrationality, selfishness, and lust). This could not be called progress, but it is interesting.

這些影像迷人的原因有一部分是因為跟我們預期的相矛盾。人們不斷告訴我們典型美式生活的人造無味、光滑平整，舒適卻空虛，毫無生氣，模造壓印的千篇一律，簡言之，無可救藥的單調，說到我們都已半信半疑地接受了。所以當看到這些影像時會覺得驚訝，甚至興奮。這些像是模型般正常的人們，彭羅德的後代們（譯註：「彭羅德」（Penrod）為布思 ‧ 塔金頓（Booth Tarkington）1931 年所寫，類似湯姆歷險記的頑皮小男孩的故事，這裡應是指有同樣的童年，共同的記憶打造出來的人們），在他們熟悉的地方，被並非全是好心的幽靈包圍著。敏感的人也許感覺到這些主角不只可能犯上現代常見的病症（自我憎恨、入境隨俗、掩飾假裝、故做虔誠、縱容放肆），也會有古老的惡習（驕傲、我行我素地固執、非理性、自私和貪慾）。這不能稱作進步，但甚是有趣。

Such speculations, however, even if not simple nonsense, presumably relate only to Eggleston’s pictures – patterns of random facts in the service of one imagination – not to the real world. A picture is after all only a picture, a concrete kind of fiction, not to be admitted as hard evidence or as the quantifiable data of social scientists.

這類的觀察即便不是毫無意義，也很可能只和艾戈斯頓的影像 ─ 一種個人想像隨機事物的排列 ─ 相關，而非關現實世界。影像畢竟只是影像，是種具有實體的假想，不能作為物證或是社會科學裡可計量的數據資料。

As pictures, however, these seem to me perfect: irreducible surrogates for the experience they pretend to record, visual analogues for the quality of one life, collectively a paradigm of a private view, a view one would have thought ineffable, described here with clarity, fullness, and elegance.

然而作為影像，對我來說即是完美的：它們假意要去記錄攝影者的生活經驗，本身卻成為完美的替代品；它們是生命特質的視覺類比。這些影像的集合，清晰、完整、優雅地描述了原本看似不可言喻的觀點，成為私人觀點的典範。

（全文完）

- John Szarkowski

— 我是分隔線 —

終於把五篇翻完了，呼～。越到最後，越是出現高來高去的詞彙，是不是有讀懂英文都還有點擔心。不過這也是翻譯的功課之一，強迫自己得反覆推敲直到好像有個合理合意的描述。當然還得靠 m 的校稿潤飾。

最近看到英奇_獨立攝影師（也正是 HC 的婚紗攝影師 ）很有感覺的一句話：「攝影，必須融入你的生活才有其價值。」（可以看看相機世界雜誌的專訪）Szarkowski 倒是把它反過來說了：「（影像）的智慧、才氣、知識和風格也僅止於攝影者的程度」而已（唉～苦笑）。的確，好的攝影作品得要進入攝影者的生活，從個人經驗裡去挖掘，才有可能。同時攝影者也得不斷地去拓展自身的生命經驗，作品也才能夠成長出廣度深度。如同寫作是作家表達自己思緒的具體方式，攝影也是攝影者轉化自己生命經驗的具體表現。只有打破自己宅男生活的框架，才有拍出新的照片的可能（握拳！）