The Bloog

Widely known as Jack Bauer in the hit TV series 24, now in its seventh season, Kiefer Sutherland was recently interviewed by Popular Photography & Imaging magazine.  The interview is a good read, giving some insights into the behind the scenes action and people. There is one particular answer that left me thinking and I wanted to share this here. When asked about his view of the still-camera vs film, Kiefer said:

It’s the antithesis of what we do in film. We’ve often made jokes that sometimes it doesn’t matter what dialogue you have in a scene, it’s the energy and the speed and the ferocity with which you can deliver that dialogue and the energy that you can create off of that which creates a sensation for an audience. Basically not giving them enough time to digest anything. It’s just a blur and it creates a sensation. With the still image it’s the exact opposite. It allows your imagination to examine a moment rather than having it examined for you. As closely related as they are, the still imagery of photography is almost the polar opposite to me of telling a story through moving film.

I, for one, have no experience with film. Reading these lines by someone who is not only familiar with film and movies, but an accomplished actor, made me appreciate this addictive realm of photography that much more. I’ve always believed that photographs are not only works of art (some of them at least), but little monuments and more particularly, monuments in time; much more so than a film or a video. The greatness of an image doesn’t only consist of the moment it was taken, but also of how it inspires and what it makes us remember, to great extent, long after the snap.