I'm driven by pure passion to create photographs that tell stories. Photography can be described as the recording of a single moment frozen within a fraction of time. Each moment or photograph represents a tangible piece of our memories as time passes. But what if you could capture more than one moment in a photograph? What if a photograph could actually collapse time, compressing the best moments of the day and the night seamlessly into one single image?
純粹的熱情驅使著我 創作會說故事的照片。 攝影可以說是 把某一個瞬間記錄下來, 凍結那片刻。 每一個瞬間,或說每一張照片, 都將我們時間長河中的記憶 以有形的物體表現出來。 但是,如果你在照片中捕捉到的 不只是某個片斷會怎麼樣呢? 如果攝影能瓦解時間, 將白天黑夜中最好的各個瞬間 都壓縮起來, 合成為一張影像,會怎樣呢?
I've created a concept called "Day to Night" and I believe it's going to change the way you look at the world. I know it has for me.
我創造了一種稱為 「從白晝到黑夜」的概念, 我相信這會改變 你看世界的方式。 至少對我的確如此。
My process begins by photographing iconic locations, places that are part of what I call our collective memory. I photograph from a fixed vantage point, and I never move. I capture the fleeting moments of humanity and light as time passes. Photographing for anywhere from 15 to 30 hours and shooting over 1,500 images, I then choose the best moments of the day and night.
整個過程從拍攝 幾個著名的地標景點開始, 我把這幾個地方稱為 「我們的集體記憶」。 我從一個固定的有利據點拍攝, 而且我不移動。 隨著時間推移, 我捕捉轉瞬即逝的人性及光影。 在每個地方都拍攝 約 15 到 30 小時, 拍超過 1,500 張影像, 然後我選幾個 白天及黑夜最好的瞬間。
Using time as a guide, I seamlessly blend those best moments into one single photograph, visualizing our conscious journey with time. I can take you to Paris for a view from the Tournelle Bridge. And I can show you the early morning rowers along the River Seine. And simultaneously, I can show you Notre Dame aglow at night. And in between, I can show you the romance of the City of Light.
用時間作指標, 我將這幾個瞬間的影像 合成一張相片, 將我們隨著時間 而產生的意識旅程視覺化。 我可以帶你到巴黎 從托內爾橋上賞景。 我還可以秀出清晨的槳手 沿著塞納河划船。 同時, 我還可以讓大家看 夜裡閃耀的巴黎聖母院。 在之間,我還可以展示 這座光城的浪漫。
I am essentially a street photographer from 50 feet in the air, and every single thing you see in this photograph actually happened on this day.
基本上我就是街頭攝影師, 不過是在 50 呎高的空中, 你在這張相片中看到的每一樣東西 都是當天發生的事。
Day to Night is a global project, and my work has always been about history. I'm fascinated by the concept of going to a place like Venice and actually seeing it during a specific event. And I decided I wanted to see the historical Regata, an event that's actually been taking place since 1498. The boats and the costumes look exactly as they did then. And an important element that I really want you guys to understand is: this is not a timelapse, this is me photographing throughout the day and the night. I am a relentless collector of magical moments. And the thing that drives me is the fear of just missing one of them.
「從白晝到黑夜」是全球性計畫, 而且我的工作總是跟歷史有關。 我著迷於一種概念, 就是去某個地方,比如說威尼斯, 然後從某個特別的活動 來觀察這個地方。 我決定我要去看 歷史悠久的貢多拉船比賽, 這項活動從 1498 年就開始了。 船隻與服裝都與當年一模一樣。 我真的很想讓大家明白 一個很重要的因素: 這不是縮時, 這是我從白天到黑夜所拍的相片。 我持續不懈地收集神奇的時刻。 驅使我的是害怕自己 錯失任何神奇瞬間。
The entire concept came about in 1996. LIFE Magazine commissioned me to create a panoramic photograph of the cast and crew of Baz Luhrmann's film Romeo + Juliet. I got to the set and realized: it's a square. So the only way I could actually create a panoramic was to shoot a collage of 250 single images. So I had DiCaprio and Claire Danes embracing. And as I pan my camera to the right, I noticed there was a mirror on the wall and I saw they were actually reflecting in it. And for that one moment, that one image I asked them, "Would you guys just kiss for this one picture?" And then I came back to my studio in New York, and I hand-glued these 250 images together and stood back and went, "Wow, this is so cool! I'm changing time in a photograph." And that concept actually stayed with me for 13 years until technology finally has caught up to my dreams.
整個概念大約在 1996 年成形。 生活雜誌 LIFE 委託我 製作一張全景相片, 拍攝巴茲·魯曼影片 《羅密歐與茱麗葉》中的全體劇組員。 我到了片場才發現:它是方形的。 我要做全景相片唯一的辦法就是 拍 250 張相片,然後拼貼起來。 所以我叫李奧納多·狄卡皮歐 及克萊兒·丹妮絲抱在一起。 在我向右平移鏡頭時, 我注意到牆上有面鏡子, 我看到鏡子上正反映著他們的樣子。 為了那一剎那,那個影像, 我要求他們:「你們親一下吧? 我要拍這張相片。」 然後我回到在紐約的工作室, 親手把這 250 張相片黏在一起, 退後看了一看, 然後說:「哇!好酷! 我正在改變照片的時間。」 那個概念其實跟了我 13 年, 直到科技終於趕上我的夢想。
This is an image I created of the Santa Monica Pier, Day to Night. And I'm going to show you a little video that gives you an idea of what it's like being with me when I do these pictures. To start with, you have to understand that to get views like this, most of my time is spent up high, and I'm usually in a cherry picker or a crane. So this is a typical day, 12-18 hours, non-stop capturing the entire day unfold.
這張影像是我在加州聖塔莫尼卡碼頭 創作出的「從白晝到黑夜」作品。 我要給大家看一小段影片, 讓你們了解 我在製作這些照片時的狀況。 首先,你得明白 要得到像這樣的景觀, 大部分的時間都要待在高處, 通常我會用活動吊車 或起重機。 所以這是很典型的一天, 12 至 18 小時,不休息, 一整天都在照相。
One of the things that's great is I love to people-watch. And trust me when I tell you, this is the greatest seat in the house to have.
有一件事很棒,就是我喜歡看人。 而且你一定要相信我,只要我說 這裡是整個廳裡最棒的位置。
But this is really how I go about creating these photographs. So once I decide on my view and the location, I have to decide where day begins and night ends. And that's what I call the time vector. Einstein described time as a fabric. Think of the surface of a trampoline: it warps and stretches with gravity. I see time as a fabric as well, except I take that fabric and flatten it, compress it into single plane.
但是我真的是這樣做出這些相片的。 一旦我選好了景觀及地點, 我就要決定白天從哪裡開始, 黑夜從哪裡結束。 這就是我說的時間向量。 愛因斯坦說時間就像布一樣。 把表面想像成一張彈簧床: 它會隨重力扭曲和延伸。 我也把時間看成一塊布, 但是我把布弄平,壓縮成單一平面。
One of the unique aspects of this work is also, if you look at all my pictures, the time vector changes: sometimes I'll go left to right, sometimes front to back, up or down, even diagonally. I am exploring the space-time continuum within a two-dimensional still photograph.
這份工作有個獨特之處, 如果你看我所有的照片, 會發現時間向量也會改變: 有時候是從左到右, 有時候是前到後,上或下, 甚至是斜角的。 我用二維靜物攝影探索時空連續統。
Now when I do these pictures, it's literally like a real-time puzzle going on in my mind. I build a photograph based on time, and this is what I call the master plate. This can take us several months to complete. The fun thing about this work is I have absolutely zero control when I get up there on any given day and capture photographs. So I never know who's going to be in the picture, if it's going to be a great sunrise or sunset -- no control. It's at the end of the process, if I've had a really great day and everything remained the same, that I then decide who's in and who's out, and it's all based on time. I'll take those best moments that I pick over a month of editing and they get seamlessly blended into the master plate. I'm compressing the day and night as I saw it, creating a unique harmony between these two very discordant worlds.
我做這些照片時, 真的就像有塊即時拼圖 在我的腦海中。 我以時間為基礎來建構一張相片, 這個是我說的母版。 我們要花好幾個月來完成這個。 這個工作好玩的地方是 無論我在哪天上去照相, 都沒有任何控制權。 所以我不知道誰會出現在照片裡, 那天的日出日落好不好看 都無法控制。 只有到了攝影最後, 如果那天我真的運氣很好, 每件事都還保持原樣, 我才會決定誰入選誰出局, 這些都以時間為基礎。 我會在費時一個月以上的編輯中, 選出最好的幾個時刻, 然後把他們合成進母版。 我把白天黑夜壓縮起來, 照我看到的樣子, 在這兩種非常不協調的世界之間 做出一種獨特的和諧感。
Painting has always been a really important influence in all my work and I've always been a huge fan of Albert Bierstadt, the great Hudson River School painter. He inspired a recent series that I did on the National Parks. This is Bierstadt's Yosemite Valley. So this is the photograph I created of Yosemite. This is actually the cover story of the 2016 January issue of National Geographic. I photographed for over 30 hours in this picture. I was literally on the side of a cliff, capturing the stars and the moonlight as it transitions, the moonlight lighting El Capitan. And I also captured this transition of time throughout the landscape. The best part is obviously seeing the magical moments of humanity as time changed -- from day into night.
繪畫一直都對我的工作 有很重要的影響, 我一直是阿爾伯特·比爾施塔特 (Albert Bierstadt) 的大粉絲, 他是哈德遜河派的偉大畫家。 他啟發我做出最近的系列作品 ──國家公園。 這是比爾施塔特的優勝美地; 這是我做出的優勝美地照片。 這其實是 2016 年一月 國家地理雜誌的封面故事。 這張相片裡我拍了超過 30 小時的照片。 我真的就在懸崖的一邊, 在星月交際時拍攝星星月亮, 月光照亮伊爾酋長岩 (El Capitan)。 我也捕捉到整個景觀 時間轉換之際。 最棒的部分,很明顯, 就是看到人文的神奇時刻 隨著時間轉變, 從白晝到黑夜。
And on a personal note, I actually had a photocopy of Bierstadt's painting in my pocket. And when that sun started to rise in the valley, I started to literally shake with excitement because I looked at the painting and I go, "Oh my god, I'm getting Bierstadt's exact same lighting 100 years earlier."
在我的私人筆記本裡, 我其實在夾層中塞了一張 比爾施塔特的畫作影印。 那天山谷日出時, 我真的興奮到發抖, 因為我看著那張畫作然後大叫: 「不得了,我取得跟 比爾施塔特一樣的光線, 跟一百年前一樣!」
Day to Night is about all the things, it's like a compilation of all the things I love about the medium of photography. It's about landscape, it's about street photography, it's about color, it's about architecture, perspective, scale -- and, especially, history.
「從白晝到黑夜」包羅萬象, 它就像我心所愛的攝影媒介全集。 它跟景觀有關, 跟街頭攝影有關, 跟顏色、建築、 角度、比例都有關, 還跟歷史特別有關。
This is one of the most historical moments I've been able to photograph, the 2013 Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama. And if you look closely in this picture, you can actually see time changing in those large television sets. You can see Michelle waiting with the children, the president now greets the crowd, he takes his oath, and now he's speaking to the people. There's so many challenging aspects when I create photographs like this. For this particular photograph, I was in a 50-foot scissor lift up in the air and it was not very stable. So every time my assistant and I shifted our weight, our horizon line shifted. So for every picture you see, and there were about 1,800 in this picture, we both had to tape our feet into position every time I clicked the shutter. (Applause)
這是我能夠拍攝的東西裡 極具歷史性的時刻, 2013 年巴拉克·歐巴馬 總統就職典禮。 如果你仔細看這張照片, 你其實可以在這幾個大電視裡 看到時間的變化。 你可以看到蜜雪兒與孩子一起等待, 總統現在與群眾打招呼, 他宣誓, 發表就職演說。 我在做像這樣的照片時 其實有多方面的挑戰。 就拿這張照片來說, 我待在一部 50 呎高的 剪刀式起降機上, 還不太穩。 所以每次我的助手和我移位時, 我們的水平線就跟著移位。 所以你看到的每張相片, 這張裡約有 1,800 張照片, 每次我按下快門,我們兩個都得把腳 牢牢黏在位置上不動。 (掌聲)
I've learned so many extraordinary things doing this work. I think the two most important are patience and the power of observation. When you photograph a city like New York from above, I discovered that those people in cars that I sort of live with everyday, they don't look like people in cars anymore. They feel like a giant school of fish, it was a form of emergent behavior. And when people describe the energy of New York, I think this photograph begins to really capture that. When you look closer in my work, you can see there's stories going on. You realize that Times Square is a canyon, it's shadow and it's sunlight. So I decided, in this photograph, I would checkerboard time. So wherever the shadows are, it's night and wherever the sun is, it's actually day.
在這份工作中我學到很多厲害的事。 我想最重要的兩點就是耐心 及觀察的力量。 你從上方拍攝像紐約這樣的城市時, 我發現在車子裡的人, 可以說是每天和我一起生活的人, 他們看起來一點都不像 車子裡的人了。 他們感覺像一大群魚, 以一種湧現的行為模式存在。 有時候大家在說紐約的能量, 我想這張影像抓住了精髓。 如果你仔細看我的作品, 你會看到裡面在說故事。 你會發現時代廣場是座峽谷, 它的陰影、它的陽光。 所以我決定在這張影像中, 要以棋盤格表現時間。 所以只要有陰影的地方就是晚上, 有陽光的地方就是白天。
Time is this extraordinary thing that we never can really wrap our heads around. But in a very unique and special way, I believe these photographs begin to put a face on time. They embody a new metaphysical visual reality. When you spend 15 hours looking at a place, you're going to see things a little differently than if you or I walked up with our camera, took a picture, and then walked away.
時間是很厲害的東西, 我們永遠也無法完全理解。 但是以這種非常獨特和特別的方法, 我相信這些相片 能讓我們更了解時間。 他們體現了一種新的、 形而上的視覺現實。 當你花 15 小時看一個地方, 你看事情會有一點點不一樣, 比你或我背著相機去某處, 照張相,然後就離開不一樣。
This was a perfect example. I call it "Sacré-Coeur Selfie." I watched over 15 hours all these people not even look at Sacré-Coeur. They were more interested in using it as a backdrop. They would walk up, take a picture, and then walk away. And I found this to be an absolutely extraordinary example, a powerful disconnect between what we think the human experience is versus what the human experience is evolving into. The act of sharing has suddenly become more important than the experience itself. (Applause)
我有個很棒的例子, 我稱為「聖心堂自拍」。 我觀察了 15 個小時以上, 這些人連看都沒看聖心堂一眼。 他們比較想用它當布景。 他們會走到前面,照張相, 然後走開。 我發現這是個絕妙的例子, 非常強大的脫節感, 存在於我們以為的人類經驗 及人類經驗演變的結局之間。 「分享」這種行為突然間變得 比經驗本身更為重要。 (掌聲)
And finally, my most recent image, which has such a special meaning for me personally: this is the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. And this is photographed in the middle of the Seronera, this is not a reserve. I went specifically during the peak migration to hopefully capture the most diverse range of animals. Unfortunately, when we got there, there was a drought going on during the peak migration, a five-week drought. So all the animals were drawn to the water. I found this one watering hole, and felt if everything remained the same way it was behaving, I had a real opportunity to capture something unique.
最後,我最新的影像, 對我個人有特別的意義: 這是位於坦尚尼亞的 塞倫蓋提國家公園。 這張是在塞羅勒那中央拍的, 這裡不是保留區。 我特別挑在 動物遷徙高峰時期去那裡, 希望能捕捉到最多種動物。 可惜,我們到達的時候, 那裡正面臨乾旱, 就在遷徙高峰時期, 為期五週的乾旱。 所以動物都被吸引到水邊。 我發現這個水坑, 而且覺得如果一切的表現 都保持原樣, 我的確有機會捕捉到獨特的東西。
We spent three days studying it, and nothing could have prepared me for what I witnessed during our shoot day. I photographed for 26 hours in a sealed crocodile blind, 18 feet in the air. What I witnessed was unimaginable. Frankly, it was Biblical. We saw, for 26 hours, all these competitive species share a single resource called water. The same resource that humanity is supposed to have wars over during the next 50 years. The animals never even grunted at each other. They seem to understand something that we humans don't. That this precious resource called water is something we all have to share.
我們花了三天研究它, 然而什麼都比不上 我在攝影當天親眼目睹的現象。 我照了 26 個小時, 躲在一個離地 18 呎高、 密不通風的鱷魚偽裝裡。 我目睹的現象令人想像不到。 坦白說,還真符合聖經原則。 這 26 個小時,我們看到 這些競爭性物種 共享一種資源,就叫水。 人類應該會在未來 50 年 為同樣的資源打仗, 這些動物卻從未彼此吼叫半聲。 牠們好像都明白 我們人類不明白的道理。 這種稱為水的珍貴資源 是我們必須共享的。
When I created this picture, I realized that Day to Night is really a new way of seeing, compressing time, exploring the space-time continuum within a photograph.
我做這張照片時, 我了解到「從白晝到黑夜」 真的是觀看的新方法, 壓縮時間, 在照片中探索時空連續統。
As technology evolves along with photography, photographs will not only communicate a deeper meaning of time and memory, but they will compose a new narrative of untold stories, creating a timeless window into our world.
當科技隨著攝影演進, 照片不只拿來溝通 時間與記憶的深層意義, 還是一種新的方法 敘述不為人知的故事, 為我們的世界開啟一扇 不受時間限制的窗口。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)