antonkusters:

#image_by_image
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Dear Ivan,
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Yet again in a lone hotel room on my travels. Glad they exist of course, but sometimes one longs for a little change.
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I started The Blue Skies Project to try and understand. I went to Auschwitz four years ago, trying to comprehend what my grandfather would have faced if he wouldn’t have escaped the SS raiding his house that night. There in Oświęcim that winter morning between the camp barracks, the snow barely covering the earth below, a thin veil not hiding, a thin cloak not sheltering, I looked up at a cold blue sky.
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Many must have looked up at that same sky, without hope. But what if the perished were still up there. What if I photographed that sky, full of them, what would the chance be that I’d have literally photographed every single victim? Impossible, of course. Yet I already felt their presence.
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Since then, I’ve been traveling. Experiencing the reality down here, the memorials, the houses, the streets, the fields, the forests. 1075 camps. The life that goes on below. And every time I look up, standing on that very ground, and look directly at every victim. Tiptoeing and reaching does not bring me closer, yet I catch myself doing it, every time. Days of silence.
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We have the benefit of hindsight, of course. That’s why the film “Son of Saul” is so gripping to me. Choosing that particular camera point of view, over-the-shoulder, extremely narrow, exactly as it was for the deported: nobody could understand the broader context of what was happening. László Nemes powerfully makes that clear to us, forces us to look and understand as the victims did. Without hope.
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I bought a chair yesterday. A chair to take with me, so that when I see a place with a distance I can stop, sit, and stare into it. Sitting and staring into the distance once in a while, is a good thing to do. I think I’d like to sit and stare into one of your sunflower fields someday.
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/// #image_by_image is an ongoing conversation between photographers @ivansigal and @antonkusters ///