Don’t think, shoot

Isabelle, Brussels, 1979.

Don’t think, shoot

1979, stretch jeans were in fashion but I couldn’t care less about them, because in Isabelle’s bedroom I had other things on my mind. And yes, I’d lose my mind but stretch or not, those jeans were going to come out on the losing end too, and suddenly – quick reflex – it took me just 1/60th of a second to steal this aerial shot of paradise on Earth before sending that Olympus to hell and returning to our heady pleasure. Calmed in the aftermath, I thought of that feverish image taken, knowing it was a good idea, but deserving better. We tried with other clothes, tighter shots, on other days, in different light. We never did better. No re-enactment could come close to that first snapshot. When I’m painting and I start to think, it all goes wrong said Cézanne. Photographs must be the same; it’s not the brain that takes them.