Frank Horvat : This book will be like a family history. We all depend a little upon each other. We have shared common experiences, we have influenced one another, especially you and I. In Paris we began at the same time, with the same magazines. In New York we shared a studio. We have both been members of Magnum and we left it at the same time, for the same reasons. We have specialized-or rather we have refused to specialize-in just about the same way. It was only later, after the 1960s, that we followed different paths. Sometimes I have criticized your work. Probably because I expected it to resemble my own: only those who share the same religion can accuse each other of heresy - infidels are never seen as heretical. The more two people are alike, the more that questioning of the other implies a questioning of oneself. That's why I shall start with one of the differences between us: our attitudes about ease and difficulty. We both know that there is nothing easier than to take photographs, and that at the same time it is difficult. But I tend to put the accent on the difficulty, whereas you give the impression of doing it without effort. Is photography really that easy for you?

Jeanloup Sieff : Sometimes I say, in jest, that I am a lazy fellow who works eighteen hours a day. It's about the same for easiness. Things do seem easy to me, apart from the difficulties in human relations, especially in our profession. I love to work fast. I have the feeling that I can solve problems rapidly, even though later it may turn out that I was wrong. I don't wake up at night wondering "Was I right in doing this or that? Should I have done it differently?" I have the kind of confidence of one who would call heads or tails with the certainty that the coin will always fall on the right side. But that doesn't mean that I don't attach importance to what I do.

Frank Horvat : You find it easy to make photos that will please yourself and others. But the fifty, hundred or two hundred photos that will survive, at the end of a life, will they have been easily made?

Jeanloup Sieff : That's the difference between us! I don't give a damn about what will survive! I have never thought of building a monument to my own glory, however relative that may be. I do things as they come and because I like doing them. There are subjects I want to show, others that don't interest me, there are photographs that I wouldn't know how to make, even though I regret it and admire those who make them. Koudelka, for instance: I couldn't live the life of Koudelka-which doesn't prevent me from admiring his photos. But I am totally indifferent about what may survive. If I had to, I could burn all my negatives and all my prints! After all, they are nothing but paper. Even if some of my images have been important to some people, just as some images made by others have been important to me. They exist in my head as a memory, the disappearance of the original wouldn't make a difference. The role of an image is to live its life independently. Sometimes I discover that an image I made has influenced someone, that it has modified his relationship to women, or that it has made him want to change his profession. This may move me. But then I get the feeling that the image doesn't belong to me, that I didn't make it for that purpose. I just never think in those terms.

Frank Horvat : It's odd that when someone says something true, and I have no doubts about your sincerity…

Jeanloup Sieff : I am completely sincere!

Frank Horvat : …when one expresses an idea, even a true one, all of a sudden its opposite comes to mind. What comes to my mind in this case, is that I know few photographers whose prints are as well finished as yours, who keep them as carefully in drawers so well designed to protect them from dust and humidity, who handle them with such delicacy and respect.

Jeanloup Sieff : It is a purely physical respect. For me, there is a physical side to photography, independent of what the subject may signify: it's the sheer pleasure of looking at a print and of touching it. Maybe because this is the point where I started. I was fourteen years old when I had my first darkroom, and I have kept a rapport with the print that is a little like that of the sculptor with stone. I wouldn't say that it's what I most care about, but it's the foundation.

Frank Horvat : If I had to talk about you to someone who had never seen your photos, I would say: "Sieff is a photographer of surfaces, he loves surfaces, he stays on the surface, the first subject of his photos are surfaces."

Jeanloup Sieff : Absolutely. Possibly you think of it in a slightly pejorative way but, I take it positively. Obviously "to be satisfied with the surface" may sound like a criticism. But as far as I am concerned, I have some doubts about what one calls the "content" of a photograph, I believe that nine out of ten times the intentions of the creator have nothing to do with what is perceived by the viewer. The impulse that led you to make an image is a thing that you cannot share with anyone, even if you explain it. What remains is a surface that will live its own life, that will belong to everybody. I accept that surface.

Frank Horvat : But surface could be associated with superficiality…

Jeanloup Sieff : Even superficiality is not a notion that I reject. I am totally superficial, I know. But I believe superficiality can be very serious, can be a defense against the gravity of things, a manner of discretion.

Frank Horvat : Formerly this was expressed by the character of the dandy.

Jeanloup Sieff : Exactly. There is nothing more serious or more intense than a dandy. I'm not a dandy, alas! But I would have loved to be one.

Frank Horvat : I would like to return to my question about the easy and the difficult. I understand that, according to your role of "superficiality", you would tend to say: "for me photography is easy," But I can't help wondering if it is really as easy as you make it seem.

Jeanloup Sieff : If I dug truly to the depths…I wouldn't know, I'm not sure that today I could dig into something, where I have avoided digging for thirty years. Maybe I only try to persuade myself that it's easy, I want it to be easy and I do my best to make it seem so. If I suddenly discovered that what I've done all my life has been difficult, and that I only disguised it as easy, that could lead me to a crisis. Then again, one cannot measure everything by the same standard. I have done different kinds of work, in different situations, I have spent time on images that didn't seem important to me, that I only made to earn my living. Even though one often gives oneself an alibi, in order to find some interest in the work. I hate to say "this photo is for myself" and "this one is for the client." I often say that assignments are nothing but personal projects that I'm getting paid for. Which of course is at once true and false.

Frank Horvat : It's the judgment of others that can mislead our own judgment. Right now I am preparing an exhibition of my commercial work, and I have difficulty in making the selection: the judgments of others are so attached to the photos, that it is difficult for me to see them objectively.

Jeanloup Sieff : Nonetheless, I have made a few discoveries, over the last thirty five years. In my beginnings, the judgments of others were a major influence, a photo seemed good or bad according to what people said or to how they used it. Now, it's almost the opposite: when a photograph that I'm satisfied with is rejected, I feel almost certain that it's OK!

Frank Horvat : Are your photographs often rejected?

Jeanloup Sieff : Very often. But now I make use of the opinions of others, in a contrary way. When people whom I don't respect like my work, it raises an alarm: I tell myself that I've made some mistake.

Frank Horvat : And when they please a public who looks for an easy sensuality - like the readers of Photo ?

Jeanloup Sieff : We are not responsible for what people feel in front of our images.

Frank Horvat : But can you disregard their judgment?

Jeanloup Sieff : I know that these magazines have done me harm. Lots of people dislike my work without knowing me, without having seen other photos, only because of the images they see in those magazines. For them, my work is "ass and wide angle." I don't regret having made those photos, but I shouldn't have accepted that they be used in such a way. I was amused by counting that out of three hundred of my photographs exhibited at the Musée d'Art Moderne, there were only fifty four wide-angle photos and only seventy nudes. People want to pigeonhole you. It's as if one day you went out with a red tie, and then everyone remembered you as the one who wears a red tie, when in fact you rarely wear a tie at all. That said, I absolutely do not disown those photos, which in fact are not photos of asses, but of bottoms - for me there is a big difference. As for the wide angle, I must tell you that I am claustrophobic. I bought my first wide angle in Tangiers, in 1954, because it was the least expensive lens I could find. It was by using it that I discovered a kind of view that made me breathe better. A purely physical thing. That didn't stop me from working a whole year, for Jardin des Modes, with a 180 mm lens. You can change your focal length as you change cars, to air out your head, to see things differently. Little by little, you adapt to what the technique imposes on you, at first it's the technique that is in charge, then you become stronger and take over. But if someone, thirty years later, compares your photos made with the wide angle, the telephoto or the Rolleiflex, he will sense a continuity of what you wanted to show and of your way of showing it.

Frank Horvat : It is true that your photos are often recognizable, and not only because they are in black and white and taken with a wide angle: but by the importance of the skin in your portraits, and of the various surfaces in your landscapes. In other words: by a continuity of criteria. I imagine that, while editing, you say to yourself something like: "this works" or "this doesn't." But what works? And how does it actually work?

Jeanloup Sieff : I've been wondering about that for thirty years. You say: "this works." I prefer to say: "this is satisfying." It's an expression that I often use, and not only while editing. There is a wall along my staircase, a white wall, and each time that I walk down the steps I touch it, I find it satisfying to touch it, the feel of the paint is pleasant. Again something purely physical. It is that surface quality that counts for me, be it skin, sky or wall. On top of that, there are many other parameters involved-the subject, the emotion, the organization of forms, the convergence of all the elements at one point-to use Cartier-Bresson's expression. All that can make for a satisfying whole - or not. As you well know, we may disown an image, even if it shows what we wanted to show, simply because a bit of hand is in the way, or a tree not in the right place. To many people such reasons may seem stupid or futile, but to us they make an essential difference: when we quickly look over our contacts we recognize a good photo right away, even though later it may take us hours to be sure of our choice.

Frank Horvat : But do you recognize the good photo at the moment of shooting it?

Jeanloup Sieff : Rarely. Sometimes I feel it happening, it's like hearing a tiny noise. But not often. At other times the photo I expected to be good turns out to be insignificant. Or another one, in which I didn't believe, says all I wanted to say. One makes mistakes all the time!

Frank Horvat : As if somehow, at the time of shooting, we had to work through a kind of blindness, or of confusion.

Jeanloup Sieff : But in spite of that we are responsible for the result. Only it happens so quickly, in such a small fraction of a second, that we don't have the time to be conscious of it.

Frank Horvat : How do you prepare yourself for a shoot? Do you think a lot about it?

Jeanloup Sieff : All the time, but in bits. Tomorrow I am going to shoot posters for an anti-AIDS campaign. I want to photograph couples, a young boy, 18 years old, fragile, with a young girl of the same age, and another couple, two slightly older boys - it shouldn't be quite clear if they are gay or just two friends on the make. I want to walk around with them and improvise. Even though, in another way, everything is already set in my mind, in terms of the scale of reproduction (which will be a poster, three meters by four, with text on the right, and so forth). I see them placed in a certain way, with a certain physical relation between them. The miracle that I expect may come from some unexpected lighting, from an uncovered shoulder, from a hand in the right spot: nothing but small accidents, which nonetheless I have in mind. Though possibly I may get something very different from what I imagine - in fact I don't know what I shall bring back tomorrow, even though I've been thinking about it for ten days. The danger, when one prepares too much in one's mind, is of seeing only what one is prepared for. I would like to remain open-minded, but can't always. Sometimes I shut myself in and don't leave enough room for improvisation, particularly when I am tired, or when I have a headache, or when time is too short, or when the client annoys me. And that's when I go wrong.

Frank Horvat : When looking at my old contacts, I have noticed that some photos at the beginning of the shoot, which may be unrelated to the subject, are sometimes the most interesting ones. There comes a moment when I define my purpose too precisely, and from then on I limit myself to that direction, neglecting whatever is not in line with my aim. This makes me miss some opportunities. There are sessions from which I only keep one photo, made at the beginning of the first roll, possibly of some detail that struck before my assigned subject was ready. If I could live those moments again, I would try to look beyond the subject a little more often.

Jeanloup Sieff : I don't believe that one can change one's way of seeing. The point you are aiming at is the result of your own decision. And what you consider a lucky accident, the photo that is slightly beside your aim, is also connected with some part of yourself.

Frank Horvat : Still, I have this regret. But coming back to your photography: do you ever tell yourself, "Here I made a mistake, I followed the wrong path, I blew a chance."

Jeanloup Sieff : All the time.

Frank Horvat : Can you give me an example?

Jeanloup Sieff : There could be so many! I could tell you about portraits. During four or five years, I had the chance to get some fascinating people in front of my camera. Sometimes for magazines of little interest, or for improbable reasons. But people whom I admired, interesting personalities, great faces. Béjart, the choreographer, Atahualpa Yupanqui, the guitarist, Professor Jacob, the scientist, people who stimulate me by what they are and by what they do. Still, nine times out of ten, I felt disappointed by those portraits. Sure enough, the photos were sharp and anyone could recognize the sitters. But I didn't go far enough. More often than not, these people were not used to posing, were uncomfortable in front of the camera. I made them come to my studio, because I wanted them to be available, far from their telephone, from their protective environment. So here they were, unprotected and fragile. Not that I wanted to exert any power over them - in fact what took place was exactly the opposite: at some point, I would put an end to the session, by saying: "Great! Excellent! We got it!" - just when I felt that it was becoming interesting - only because I sensed their discomfort and didn't want them to suffer any longer. So they would shake my hand and be gone and I would remain alone, raging against myself: "Why didn't I shoot four more rolls? Why didn't I go on making them nervous?"

Frank Horvat : Still, you didn't manage so badly....

Jeanloup Sieff : One always manages somehow, that's the problem, one always gets away with it, there are always some people who say, "How great, you can count every eyelash, you can see the texture of the skin." One gets away with it, but that's not enough. Besides, there is no proof that making them suffer one more hour I would have achieved something better. With Béjart, I had a great conversation about what's photogenic. It was fascinating to photograph him. Halfway through a roll, I stopped to say "Your gaze is so bright, that I have the impression it will overexpose my film, like x-rays." So we began talking about people who are photogenic without being good-looking, and on the contrary about girls who were attractive, but whose eyes were just as empty as the eyes of a cow watching a train. About the fact that some people seem "inhabited" and some not. What's photogenic is what is projected by people who are "inhabited".

Frank Horvat : Which is what Walter Benjamin called " the aura".

Jeanloup Sieff : Exactly. It can happen with idiots, though this is rare. Béjart listened to me and said, "Yes, I agree, but you forget an important element: the desire to give. With you, I feel like giving. Just as there are nights when one dances better because there is a better audience." He was right: a portrait can go wrong because the sitter doesn't let himself go. Even a tiny gesture, a light relaxation, a very small movement can lead a sitting into the right direction. A good portrait is the rapport that is established between two people, there has to be someone in front of the camera and someone behind it.

Frank Horvat : Though one could also say exactly the opposite: that the "aura" appears when the sitter stays within himself, when he keeps his distance.

Jeanloup Sieff : Like Atahualpa Yupanqui. His is one of the rare portraits of which I am truly satisfied. There was absolutely no contact between us, it was like photographing a cliff on Easter Island. You stand in front of him, you set your lights, you shoot, and when you have finished he shakes your hand and leaves.

Frank Horvat : Would Béjart say that "he gave?"

Jeanloup Sieff : Atahualpa Yupanqui? He couldn't have cared less.

Frank Horvat : Possibly that was his way of giving.

Jeanloup Sieff : It sure was. But when Béjart said "giving", he did not mean "giving something phony." Why do some portraits from the nineteenth century, when the poses were three minutes long, appear truer than those of today, made in a thousandth of a second? Why would the expressions of people held in place with a neck support be more believable than those in snapshots?

Frank Horvat : What is your explanation?

Jeanloup Sieff : Because they were not making it up. It's impossible to hold a fake smile for three minutes - unless it's one's nature....

Frank Horvat : Another reason could be that they had to concentrate on being still. Today's problems come from the sitter not knowing what to do with himself.

Jeanloup Sieff : However, the opposite is equally true. A physical discomfort can also be revealing. I made a portrait of Doisneau, against a gray background, with his camera in his hand.. He felt so ill at ease that he kept bending forward. But that was typical of him. His discomfort was his truth.

Frank Horvat : There are things that models give and others that photographers take. And they are not necessarily the same …

Jeanloup Sieff : What's important is to have a point of view about the model. Bad portraits are portraits of people about whom you sense nothing. If you decide that the creases of an outfit are revealing, they may become important. That's part of what I call "the surface."

Frank Horvat : What we are saying about portraits makes me want to make some. I didn't make enough of them.

Jeanloup Sieff : Me, it makes me want to make some good ones. The good ones I made are too few and far between. Though for me, every photo is either a portrait or a landscape. Fashion photography can be both. My main interest in it, apart from meeting beautiful girls, is that it allows me go in either direction.

Frank Horvat : The two categories have a common denominator: before showing a person or a place, every photograph shows a moment in time.

Jeanloup Sieff : Absolutely. And it's even more so in the case of landscapes than in the case of people: never again will such a light, such clouds be the same. I make photographs in order to show what will never take place again, even though I know that photography has no value whatsoever as an objective documentation.

Frank Horvat : As Barthes puts it, the essence of photography is: "this has been." Which makes any comparisons with painting seem absurd.

Jeanloup Sieff : Absolutely. I would like to add: "and this will never be again"-which for me is even stronger that "it has been." Which reminds me of all the dead people in our files. It must be the same for you. A few weeks ago I got a call from a young man-at first I thought it was another assistant looking for work - I get ten of those calls every day-and I started to say, "Thanks, I am not looking for an assistant." He interrupted me, saying, "No, I'm not calling for that. I saw one of your photos on a postcard. It shows my mother, who died seven years ago. If you have more images of her, I would like to see them." He came over and I gave him some. I imagine he pins them on all the walls of his room, he showed me other ones, yellowed and covered with fingerprints. Her name was Maria Solar, surely you remember her. She committed suicide one evening, on her way back from Deauville.

Frank Horvat : About "this has been," another question comes to my mind. Your prints are often recognizable by certain darkroom effects: vignettes, zones, blackened skies: manipulations that you don't conceal. Do you do that to make the photo seem less realistic?

Jeanloup Sieff : It began as an accident, as with Pasteur, who discovered his vaccine because he had forgotten something in a drawer. I was always bothered by skies that were too light. I like to see texture, I like prints with deep blacks, as long as some details remain visible in the shadows. So I would give more exposure to the skies, using traces that exist in the negative, but which a straight print wouldn't bring out: as you know, the negative records a range from one to a thousand, while paper only reproduces from one to fifteen. But I did it poorly and it came out as a vignette. Besides, I had a bad enlarger, casting more light in the center, which obliged me to overexpose the four corners in order to compensate. By another accident, I overdid it and the corners became too dark. Then I realized that I liked the result, it created a kind of depth. In a way, it's the same concept as framing.

Frank Horvat : But that also introduces another layer of time, a darkroom event that is imposed upon the moment of exposure. A second "this has been".

Jeanloup Sieff : I love closed images-even though I am claustrophobic. I close off the sky, I close the angles, often I say to my printer, "Be careful, the spectator could escape." If the white of the sky flows into the white of the paper, your eye escapes from the image. In fact, the viewer has to be given a direction. His gaze has to be led to the horizon, in order to leave the image from there - it shouldn't be allowed to escape towards the right or the left. It's like Alice entering the mirror. There should be a way out, but one only.

Frank Horvat : In other words: you want to be the one who shows the way. But isn't there a conflict between this technique and the "decisive moment?"

Jeanloup Sieff : Cartier-Bresson leaves a thin black border around his images, which comes from the overexposure of the borders and which is meant to say, "I didn't crop." That also is a kind of enclosure. However, I don't always agree with him, his "decisive moment" is too limited by his geometry. Once I told him so, talking about a photo made by Depardon in Lebanon, while running and dodging bullets, an image in which everything seems to run, to explode, to smoke, it's quite extraordinary. But Henri kept saying, "It's not a good photograph." So I said, "Henri, there are moments when the "golden rule" doesn't matter all that much!" "No!" he replied "it's geometry that matters."

Frank Horvat : A life is made of millions of moments, how is one to decide which is the "decisive" one? Cartier-Bresson decides by the geometry; Winston Link, the American who photographed trains, decided by the passing of a train; Eva Rubenstein decides by her guts. Geometry seems as good a criteria as any -in fact, I can't see a better one. Winston Link put himself in a situation where he could only make one photograph, at the instant when the train went by. Cartier-Bresson gives himself a series of rules that keep him from pressing the shutter if certain geometric rules are not met. The world may explode, and Cartier-Bresson may be there to watch it, but he will not make a photo unless it is composed according to his geometry.

Jeanloup Sieff : Actually I prefer Penn's definition, "Moments preserved." The idea of preservation seems to me to go further than the idea of the "decisive moment."

Frank Horvat : It's true that a good photo doesn't only say "this moment has been" but also "this moment has been precious."

Jeanloup Sieff : "This moment has been, it has been precious, I felt it as precious and I made this image." This is what we are trying to say.