china4 stack007

Text :

Story of the photo I never took

I never knew how to "take" Hong Kong, whether in moving or still images.
The city escapes from the eye that secks it, it saturates the gaze with false
exoticism, discourages it with real poverty, suffocates it with too much heat..
Only Robert Cahen, in his Hong Kong Song, was able to capture something
of its shifty arrogance, through the reinforcement of electronics. For example,
one photo I didn't want to take: a man lying down on the sidewalk on Nathan
Road in Kowloon under the blazing sun. He had hitched up his shirt to provide
a good view of the swelling tumor on his stomach, and next to him a scrap of
paper weighted down with stones informed the passers-by of his misfortune,
inviting them to help him out with a few coins. Some gave, the rest just wove
around him in the press of the traffic. An image, a symbol, whatever you wanted.
and so easy to take (the passers-by indifferent, his face hidden from the sun
beneath a piece of cloth)... I didn't want to take that picture, I was curious to
see what he would do with his small change, so I followed him when he got up
an hour later. He lingered for a long while in front of the movie posters, then
finally chose his film and went in. It was Emmanuelle