On the Edge of the Retina

Peter Zumthor: I like the idea that there are certain things we have to do by hand, that we can’t do everything with computers and machines and so on, that there is a quality that comes out of the making. How is it in photography?

Hélène Binet: As you know, I’m a staunch defender of photography. I love to photograph and I’m a firm believer in photography as a craft—which is also what I try to teach young people: that it’s a very special form of work. I, too, like to work with my hands, and for me every shot is like a performance. I have to be the best of myself, and that for several days or several hours or for as long as the sun is good. Besides, the material is expensive, and it’s heavy, so I have to really be there and be completely focused. You’re not focused if you have a computer between you and the world, because then the computer makes the decisions, which for you is a loss. I think the state we all strive for when we’re working is a kind of trance, a state in which you make decisions with a part of your brain that works in a very special way. So it really is like performance. You have to give—and there’s something magical about that! I don’t believe you can achieve that if there’s something else between you and the world.

How do you prepare?

How do I prepare a shot?

How do you prepare for that trance-like state?

By doing a lot of walking! I could, of course, prepare by getting to know the architect and trying to understand what makes him tick. But it’s basically about going somewhere and walking and walking and walking. There’s a very beautiful dimension to walking, because it enables you to feel space with your whole body, and how that space is changing all the time.

Walking means walking inside the building, around the building?

Around the building, inside the building, through different parts of the building—anything to get this feeling of something very beautiful unfolding. Because that’s what I’m going to capture in my photos. That’s the quality I’m going to freeze. Which is why I first have to open up all the many different possibilities. I always say that while preparation is important, a beautiful place and a beautiful building will always surprise me, too, and I have to catch that surprise in my images. I’m not going to say, “Oh no, this wasn’t part of the plan.” (laughs) I’m going to be there to catch that surprise. Maybe in improvisation you do the same. You have to be surprised.

You compose your images right there?

Right there. But mostly the composition comes of its own accord and I know when it’s right. Besides, I can’t stay there for hours dithering over when to shoot. You feel it when it’s right. And that’s very magical, that moment.

Photography is a two-dimensional affair, but then so is painting or drawing; yet you can still go into some depth with it. Is that when it becomes art? If you’re lucky? (laughs)

Yes, perhaps, although I don’t like definitions too much. I do what my gut feelings tell me to do. And if my work moves you, perhaps because I’ve reached some part of your inner world that it chimes with, then obviously it’s more than just documentation. 

You have your own personal signature, but you also respect the desires of your client. If, therefore, I were to ask you to photograph a building of mine, there would at least be a little bit of my building in it, right? (everyone laughs)

Yes, there would. I’m not going to take my photograph at midnight or in the moonlight and then say, “There you are, Peter, I’ve done it.” I’m not completely independent in that way, at least not when I have a commission.

Would you like to be independent?

That’s an interesting question, because what I do is rather like playing a piece of music. Musicians learn a lot from the score. So it’s a wonderful experience for me to work with an architect, to understand their thinking, and to try to express it, even if it’s a photo that shows only a small part of the building. For me that’s an enriching experience and I’ve never doubted that it’s worthwhile.

I remember once complaining to you, or rather relaying other people’s complaints, that there’s no human presence in your images. “Couldn’t we have some people in this space? Wouldn’t that be nice?” To which you replied: “There are people, you just can’t see them.” (everyone laughs) Can you please explain that?

Well, there are several reasons for this. First I want the viewer to be in the photos, so that there is at least one person present. Then there are the exposure times. Sometimes I work with long exposures, which means that people passing by are not recorded. But I’m not an absolutist. I’m not Bernd and Hilla Becher. I’ve done some photographs with people and they all looked perfectly natural, because they were there in the right place at the right time. On the other hand, if you have people you also have a narrative. But that narrative has to enhance the building, which is not so easy because the human body is actually a very powerful presence.

Can you tell us something about the difference between black-and-white and color photography — both in your own work and in photography in general?

Well, as you know I’ve moved away from the idea that I’m just representing buildings. My story is another story. I’m a photographer and I can do photographs in black and white if I want. I choose black and white as my main medium of expression because I want to get away from this other approach—all those wide-angle images and so forth. Besides, I think photography should make you feel the tension: that space is complex and that you can’t show it in two dimensions only. Some photographers try to force the issue with more colors, more wide-angle shots, and such like. But I do the opposite. Aristotle pondered the question of why sounds are more audible at night and it is certainly the case that reduction makes for a stronger image. So I’m more interested in saying just one or two things really well rather than trying to cram in as much as possible. Also, the tactile world is very important to me and it’s expressed better in black and white than in color. But I’m not exclusive and sometimes color comes in almost of its own accord, because it’s one aspect of the story.

Why do you think that is—that the tactile is better expressed in black and white?

The little shadows that define texture are simply more expressive in black and white; and there are fewer distractions than there are with color. With color you don’t know if it’s the color that’s getting darker or what it is, whereas with black and white you really feel the volume and feel what’s happening on the surface.

So color is too overwhelming—is it something like that?

Yes, overwhelming and distracting. I feel that very strongly—not that I can prove it scientifically, but when I see the same photograph in color and in black and white it seems obvious to me.

Yes, I understand, the abstraction helps us to see other things. But you’re not against color as such?

No, not at all! I don’t reject color and I don’t want my interpretation of the world to be too dark either.

Then let’s talk about black and white. Tell us something about black.

Black is wonderful, but it’s also an absence of energy. If we go back far enough in time, everything was darkness—and then the sun came, so there’s this quality of vastness in it, like space. Then the moment you touch a shadow you immediately stimulate the imagination. There have been so many things written about the world of shadows, that other world with all its dark connotations and what it represents. But for me it’s not only dark; it’s about something else in the sense that—well, take this table for instance. There’s a shadow here because the table is casting a shadow. But I can only see the shadow, not the table.

So the shadow speaks of the table? Shadows speak of things without showing them?

Yes, that’s it. And they can trick you, too. I mean if you take the very silly example of the rabbit that you do with your hand. It can trick you but it can also take you somewhere else, to something that is not what it seems. So the world of shadows is a very rich world. Of course we have shadows on the body and shadows that model volume and vitality. And then we have that in-between realm of chiaroscuro and penumbra—a world without light, which is still a very beautiful world.

You work a lot with this penumbra, with darkness, with black.

I try to, yes. They belong to my palette. There are photographers who work a lot with white. Walter Niedermayr for example, who produces really beautiful photographs that are very, very white. He, too, is stimulating the imagination—but with burning white, with transparency, with brightness. I really admire his work, but that’s not the way I do it. It has nothing to do with logic; it’s just the way it comes, which is dark. Not that I want to be obscure. So some of the photos in your monograph were in color, too, just as they were with Le Corbusier’s La Tourette, where there were all these amazing reds and yellows.

I remember for my book you did these little color vignettes every ten pages or so that function almost like a grid.

Yes, that’s right. Let me tell you a little story about the time I took those photos of the Therme Vals. I was there at night when the lights were off and I was sitting there in complete darkness. You can’t see anything, but of course you can smell. And if you swim, you can feel the water—can feel everything in fact. And then the lights came on and I saw all the colors. And I really had the feeling that the space and the volumes were given to us first in black and white and that the colors came only later, when the lights came on. Did they even exist before there was light? They didn’t. They came with the light. That was a very important moment for me, because it was then that I realized that we have this different perception of things when we see them with the lights on: that it’s light that brings color to the brain. Then there are the different parts of the eye: We see colors with the cones, but the first ones to react are the rods, which are the sensors right on the edge of the retina. So for a fraction of a second, our rods give us a black-and-white image.

The rods for black-and-white vision are on the outside — the periphery?

Yes, that’s right. So all the things we need to be aware of for our own safety we see first in black and white and only then in color.

That’s a scientific fact, right?

Yes, it is, although we’re talking here about a fraction of a second. So while I don’t know if we can make use of this effect, I still like to know that this is what happens.

What is photography’s subjectmatter?

Well, we work with the world. We’re not making something new—a sculpture, say—where before there was nothing. We work with the world. So the world is our palette — and light. Light is very important.

And dark?

And dark. But you cannot have light without dark. It’s like silence in music. You have to have silence in order to structure a piece of music. It’s the same for us with light. So we have this world which is sometimes overwhelming, and it is up to the photographer not only to represent what is there, but also to take it somewhere else: To a news network, for example, or to people far away, or to a family photo album—there are lots of potential uses for photography. I think that’s why I like photography so much: because there are so many different ways to approach it. It’s also a very simple tool. It’s not complicated. You don’t have to spend years and years learning how to do it. Although maybe that’s also a drawback—that an image can be produced so easily. So it’s all about saying: “No, no, no, no,” and then, finally: “Yes,” because it’s there. It’s just there.

So it’s about representing. But it’s about many other things, too, about the world and about looking at the world. 

For me, photography is about celebrating life. I need the world. I need people, too. I need sun. And I need nature. So when I go out into the world with my tripod and my camera and all my gear, I’m certainly doing something very physical, but I’m also celebrating life.

Excerpt from: Dear to Me, © 2021 Peter Zumthor and Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess AG, Zurich