Waiting for Robert Capa by Susana Fortes Read Free Book Online Page A

… That’s all it was. In just a few weeks, she learned how to use the Leica and develop film in the bathroom using a piece of red cellophane to cover the lamp. André taught her how to get close to the object in question.
    â€œYou have to be there,” he’d say, “glued to your prey, lying in wait, in order to be able to shoot at the exact moment, not a second before, not a second after.” Click.
    As a result of the lessons, she became more cautious and aggressive. Though when it came time to finding the perfect composition for an image, she lacked determination. She would just stand there on some corner near Notre Dame, focusing in on an old man with a thick beard and astrakhan hat, seeing a fragment of his thin cheek in relation to the Gothic portal of the Last Judgment, and lower her camera. She could capture it all with her eyes, except when it came to the temporal. The gray cobblestoned streets and silvery skies were not of interest to her anymore. It was something else. Perhaps she started to realize that what she was holding in her hands was a weapon. The reason why those long walks began to increasingly become a place to escape oneself, her special way of peeking out into the world—still easily surprised, maybe a tad too contradictory. The way you look at things is also how you think about and confront life. More than anything, she wanted to learn and to change. It was the perfect opportunity to do so, the moment when everything was about to happen, in which life’s course could still alter itself. Many months later, just before daybreak in another country, beneath the rattling of machine guns in minusfive-degree weather, she would remember that initial moment when happiness was going out to hunt and not killing the bird.
    â€œPhotography helps my mind wander,” she wrote in her diary. “It’s like when I lie down on the roof at night and look at the stars.” It was one of her favorite things to do during their vacations in Galicia. She’d climb out of her bedroom window and up to the rooftop, position herself face-up, and carve a hole in the night sky with her eyes. Taking in the summer breeze, not thinking about anything, in the middle of complete darkness. “In Paris, there are no stars, but there are the cafés’ red lanterns. They look like new constellations created by the universe. Yesterday, while sitting at an outside table at Le Dôme, I sat in on a passionate debate about the visual power of the image between Chim, André, and that skinny Norm who joins us occasionally. He’s an interesting character, that Henri, well-educated, from a good family, but at times you sense that guilt that people from the upper class have, their conscience conflicted because of their family’s origins, and who then try to excuse themselves by being the most Leftist person at the table. André always teases him, saying that Cartier-Bresson never answers the telephone before reading the editorial in L’Humanité . But it isn’t true. Other than being quick-witted and déclassé, Henri likes to consider himself free. They argue whether a photograph should be a useful documentation or the product of an artistic quest. It seems to me that the three of them think alike, but with different wording. But I don’t fully understand.
    â€œWhen I walk around the neighborhood with André, I’ll look up at a balcony and suddenly, there’s the photo: a woman hanging out her clothes to dry. It’s something that has life, the antithesis of smiling and posing. Enough with having to know where one should be looking. I’m learning. I like the Leica; it’s small and doesn’t weigh a thing. You can take up to thirty-six shots in a row without having to carry around a light stand with you everywhere. In the bathroom, we’ve set up a darkroom. I help André, writing the photo captions, typing in three languages, and