By Alexandra Bensaïd

I had interviewed Frank Horvat some weeks before this conversation, on an assignment by a French magazine. At the end of our meeting, as I apologized for not being an expert on photography, he said: "On the contrary, you have made me say things that I never said before. I wish we could continue this interview - for my web site." When we met again, for that purpose, he took me to the two-floored space, which serves both as his day-light studio and his living room. It's a huge area, all painted black to avoid unwanted reflections, almost bare of furniture, but brightened by a stream of light flowing in from the glass-wall to the north. In its middle, Horvat had placed a black formica table, with two stools, and beside it a large polystyrene reflector. As we took place, he put a 35 mm camera between us, saying: "We could take a few shots of each other as we talk - don't worry about technique, it's one of those automatic cameras, you'll find it easy". And so it was: after each of my questions, Horvat would gaze into the blue for a while, as to weigh his words, and this left me ample time to catch his expressions. Then, having given his reply, he would pick up the camera to take a shot of me...
Here is an extract from our conversation :

A. Bensaïd
Why a retrospective on the web ?

F. Horvat :
Out of frustration (smile). You see, I have had many exhibitions and publications, in many countries - but never a comprehensive retrospective (be it as an exhibition or as a book), where people could see and compare the different periods of my work.

A. Bensaïd
Why is that ?

F. Horvat :
Possibly because curators and publishers have difficulty visualizing it as a whole. "Your work", they say, (or they think without saying it), "could be of ten different photographers". And in a sense they are right: many people know me as a fashion photographer. But when they see my photo-journalistic work, or my portraits of trees, or my book on the sculptures of Degas, or my digital images, their first reaction is to wonder: "Oh, there may be another photographer of that same name". In fact, our "global village" is so saturated with images, that people need to put some label on what they see - or else they feel lost. "The problem with your photographs", said one publisher", is that they are not recognizable enough."

F. Horvat :
The best answer I can give you is by refering to my own life: by the time I was thirty, I had lived and worked in seven countries: Italy, Switzerland, France, Pakistan, India, England and the US, and I was fluent in all their languages (except Urdu and Hindi, which I only jabbered). Of course this was due more to circumstances than to free choice - but nevertheless I enjoyed it. Every change of country and language was like discovering a different way of being - that is of being myself. The same is true of my "periods" in photography - that actually are not "periods" in time: I keep moving back and forth between directive and non-directive photography, between black-and-white and colour, between traditional techniques and digital imaging - just as I like moving from one language to another. Hence my desire for a retrospective: I need to perceive the continuity of myself as a photographer - and to see whether it can be made perceivable to others.

A. Bensaïd
Like the continuity of considering photography as "the art of not pushing the button"? What exactly do you mean by that?

F. Horvat :
One difference between photography and painting (or drawing, or other forms of art) is that it takes no talent, and practically no effort, to get an image on film. A modern camera - as the one we are using right now - takes care even of focusing and exposure. All my efforts are spent in holding back, in telling myself: "No, this is not yet the best light for Alexandra, not yet her most photogenic angle, not yet her truest expression." The reason for holding back is not only to spare some film - it's like storing my energy, or rather my expectation; it's letting the image I want take shape in my mind, by the very act of refusing the images I don't want. Until the moment when I recognize, in the viewfinder, the image that I want to see - and then there is no holding back any more.

F. Horvat :
Not quite as ideally as I make it sound. As you see, I use a 35 mm camera with a motor - which by itself is a temptation to push the button. Sometimes I push it just to make the model feel good, as if to say "you look great, Alexandra, carry on like that"; sometimes I shoot to be on the safe side, as if I thought "better get it into the box while it's there, what will come next may not be as good". But at the same time I keep telling myself to hold back, to stop squandering film and energy.

A. Bensaïd
But if this is your idea of photography - why did you choose to work with a 35 mm camera in the first place ?

F. Horvat :
Good question. I have often told myself that the decisive moment may be much more decisive for photographers who use large cameras, and who can only afford taking one or two shots of a given subject. On the other hand, there are many moments that one cannot catch with those cameras - and which happen to be the very ones that interest me. But sometimes, to keep myself from overshooting, I deliberately go work with only a couple of films in my pocket...

F. Horvat :
To answer your question, I have to speak about what happens before that moment. Unlike Cartier-Bresson, who always carries his Leica and seems able to shoot anywhere, any time, I cannot take a photograph without first preparing it in my mind. This may only take a few minutes; but in some cases (as with my essay on New York) it took several years. During this time I look at my subject (or I imagine it if it's out of reach), and I try to decide which of its aspects I want to show and which technique will suit it best. I don't mean to say that I actually imagine a photograph - like Joel Peter Witkin, who even makes previous sketches. It's more as if I was preparing a matrix, or a mould, or a list of all the things I don't want to see in my photograph, of all the possible reasons for not pushing the button. And only when this mould is ready, I feel able put my eye to the viewfinder...

A. Bensaïd
And what then ?

F. Horvat :
Then it's almost as if "reality" had ceased to exist, leaving only those two-dimensional shapes, that - according to the situation - I may or may not be able to control, and that I have to compose in the viewfinder. Personal feelings, or even personal suffering don't seem to matter (I have been told that war photographers, when looking through the viewfinder, even forget the dangers they're in). All that is left is my expectation of seeing those shapes fit into the mould - almost as when a hunter waits for a prey to fall in his trap. If and when this happens, there will be a "decisive moment" or, as I prefer to call it, a moment of recognition.

F. Horvat :
The answer is both yes and no. That moment is "like the lightening, that has ceased to be, ere you can say 'It lightens'" : so short, that it's hard to know whether it has happened or not.

A. Bensaïd
You quote "Romeo and Juliet". You have also been inspired by Ovid's "Metamorphoses" for some of your digital images. Does literature always influence your photography? And who are the photographers who have influenced you?

F. Horvat :
My main reference, as you say, is literature. To me, photography is more a literary art than a visual one - in the sense that it is even more about telling stories than about achieving visual effects. Still, I can name three photographers whose influence has been important to my work : Henri Cartier-Bresson, August Sander and Irving Penn…

F. Horvat :
IIt took me a long time to understand him - and even now I wouldn't photograph his kind of subjects, with his kind of technique. What I admire is his sense of dignity, his extraordinary respect for whom or what he photographs. You see, photography per se involves a lack of respect... The mere fact of employing a mechanical device, in order to freeze a person's facial expression, to reduce someone's living reality to a two-dimensional still - this mere fact can be a betrayal. Sometimes I wonder what people from past centuries would think, if they could leaf through the pages of Vogue: I guess they would be terrified by the lack of dignity of their wide-open-mouthed, wide-open-legged grand-grand-daughters! The only thing that might comfort them are some photographs like those by Irving Penn, where human beings may still appear - to their eyes - like dignified human beings. But Penn's respect extends even to the inanimate, as in his large platinum prints of "street material", which are small wasted objects, like cigarette butts, more or less flattened by traffic on the asphalt: even to those butts Penn has managed to give a kind of dignity.

A. Bensaïd
And August Sander ?

F. Horvat :
He was certainly the greatest portrait photographer ever. He photographed his German contemporaries, mainly during the 20's and the 30's. In his pictures, there is nothing that doesn't bear his personal mark: the composition, the light, the expressions... But at the same time, he never betrays his models, never superimposes his own ideas on the reality of these persons - which again is a matter of dignity and respect.

F. Horvat :
I met him at Magnum, the famous photo-agency, where he was considered a kind of guru. Of course he wouldn't accept this label - but the fact is that he had built photography - or at least photo-journalism - into a sort of religion. Needless to say that from the day I met him I became a believer - though I turned into a heretic a few years later... (pause). But heretics are probably the greatest believers....

A. Bensaïd
What do you call Cartier-Bresson's "religion" ?

F. Horvat :
He prescribed certain rules: never employ artificial light (like flash); never use extreme lenses (like wide-angles or tele-lenses); never reframe; never interact with the situation you photograph. But I don't believe that the greatness of his photography comes from following these rules - in fact I know it doesn't, because none of the photographers who followed them has done anything comparable to his work.

A. Bensaïd
Do you mean that Cartier-Bresson taught you something else than his rules ?

F. Horvat :
I guess one may begin to understand music by listening to Bach, and eventually end up as a jazz musician - and one's jazz music may be all the better because of one's admiration for Bach. What I have learned from Cartier-Bresson - possibly even more from his personality than from his photographs - is what it takes and what it means to be a photographer. In fact it's only right here and now, and thanks to your questions, that I am realizing that my three "references" have a common denominator: it's their respect for themselves and for what they photograph - which is all the more remarkable, as photography offers so many possibilities of manipulation - which can lead to the exact opposite of respect.

A. Bensaïd
When you say "manipulation", I cannot help thinking of your present experiments in digital imaging. Doesn't this involve a lot of manipulation ?

F. Horvat :
Of course it does - but so does all photography, even Cartier-Bresson's, whatever he may say to the contrary. It's only a matter of degree. But what I've learnt from Cartier-Bresson (as well as from Penn and from Sanders), and what I'm trying to practice as best I can, is being conscious of these manipulations, and applying them in such a way so as not to betray either my own meaning, or the meaning of the person (or the object, or the event) that I am to show. This is what I mean by self-respect and respect of my object.

F. Horvat :
You see, if moving from photo-journalism to fashion - that is from non-directive to directive photography - was heresy to Cartier-Bresson, then my next step - to digital imaging - could be nothing less than atheism! (Smile). With the computer, the "decisive moment" is no more. Take my "Bestiarium": I first photographed the animals, then the landscapes (or vice versa), then I made a montage, then I perfected or changed that montage, over and over again. Of course there is nothing new about this method of work, writers and painters have always done it - and so has human imagination, even before there were any writers and painters. Some photographers say that working with a computer is not photography any more. So what? I don't mind calling it something else.

A. Bensaïd
Strange words for a photographer...

F. Horvat :
It may be that I had reached a limit - not so much of photography, as of my own potential as a photographer. This seems to happen to some of us, if we are lucky enough to reach that stage: Nadar became a writer, Cartier-Bresson went back to drawing, Robert Frank (at a much earlier age) decided to make films... On the other hand, I occasionally do return to traditional photography - for instance in the case of "Boulogne-Billancourt". In fact, the diversion to digital imaging may have reloaded my potential...

F. Horvat :
On the contrary! But let me answer with a more general thought. All human inventions are some imitation or some extension of our original being: when the first cave man used a stick to hit his enemy, what he invented was an extension of his arm. The invention of wheels - even though they are different in shape - can be thought of as an extension of our legs. The written word is an extension of voice and memory. The camera, an extension of the eye. And the computer - which is like the cherry on the cake - is obviously an extension and an imitation of the brain. This is why to me it seems more important - and more rewarding - than the camera - just as the brain is more important than the eye. Photographers, after all, do have a brain !

A. Bensaïd
But don't you deprive yourself of the miracle of photography - the "decisive moment"?

F. Horvat :
No doubt... Though I could say that the decisive moment is split into several, less decisive ones: the moment when I photograph the lion, the moment when I photograph the landscape, etc. And then there is one moment, a little more decisive than the others, when it all comes together. I shall try to describe it to you. I usually work with two screens: on the smaller one I may have opened ten different images of lions and ten different landscapes. I first "select" the lions, i.e. I outline them, so that they can be "exported" from one image to another. Then I bring one of the landscapes to the larger screen, enlarge it, and try many different kinds of combinations - very much as, in traditional photography, I try different compositions in the viewfinder. At some point, among the many combinations on the screen, one will seem right - and I shall click on the mouse to "save" it, just as I pushed that button. In other words: I shall recognize something that I expected, very much as at the "decisive moment".

F. Horvat :
You win! All I can answer is that, from that point of view, digital imaging may be closer to writing, or to painting, than to traditional photography. When I write, I tend to read my texts over and over, and keep adding corrections - though even in that case there comes a moment where I decide to leave it at that. But I agree with you: the "decisive moment", as something unique, irreplaceable and final, may remain a privilege of traditional photography (and possibly also of some other forms of expression, like improvisation and so called "action painting").

A. Bensaïd
My last question is one that another interviewer might have asked in beginning: why did you become a photographer in the first place?

F. Horvat :
For several bad reasons... Like the advice of an older friend, when I was fourteen or fifteen, telling me that this was the best way of meeting girls (laughs). Another bad reason was that it seemed easier than writing or drawing - both of which I had tried without success... And of course there were some good reasons, which I may have felt, but of which I became aware only much later. I could sum them up by saying that taking a photograph is like responding to an appeal: as if a person, or a tree, or a situation was calling me, crying out to me "I wish to be made visible, and you are the one who can best do it""