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our mythic dcnial of an apprchcnsion of dcath), Photog-raphy is a kind of primitive theatcr, a kind of Tableau Vivaiu, a figuration of thc motionless and made-up face bcneath which we scc the dead.

I imagine (this is a)l I can do, sińce I am not a photographcr) that thc cssential gesture of the Operator is to surprisc something or someonc (through tl»c little hole of the camera), and that this gesture is rherefore pcrfect when it is performed unbe-knownst to thc subject being photographcd. From this gesture dcrive all photographs whose principle (or berter, whosc alibi) is "shock’'; for the photographic "shock” <quite different from the punctum) consists less in trau-matizing than in rcvcaling what was so well hidden that thc actor himself was unaware or unconscious of it. Hencc a whole gamut of "surprises'* (as they are for me, the Spectator; but for thc Photographcr, thcsc are so many "pcrformances”).

The first surprisc is that of thc ^ł'rarc’’ (rarity of thc referent, of coursc); a photographcr, we are rold admir-ingly, has spent four years composing a photographic an-thology of monsters (man with two heads, w oman with thrcc breasts, child with a taił, etc.: all smiling). The sec-ond surprise is one habitual to Painting, which has fre-quently reproduccd a gesture apprchcnded at thc point in its coursc where thc normal cyc cannot arrest it (I have clscwhcrc called this gesture rhe nu men of hisrorical painting): Bonaparte has just touched thc plague victims of Jaffa; his hand withdraws; in thc same way, taking advantage of its instantaneous action, thc Photograph immobihzes a rapie! sccnc in its decisivc instant: Apeste-guy, during thc Publicis fire, photographs a woman jumping out of a window. The third surprisc is that of prowess: “For fifty ycars, Harold D. Edgerton has photographcd thc explosion of a drop of milk, to thc millionth of a second” (littlc need to admit that this kind of photogra-phy ncithcr touchcs nor even incerests mc: lam too much of a phenomenologisr to likc anything but appcaranccs to my Own mcasure). A fourth surprisc is thc one which thc photographcr looks for from thc contortions of tcchmgue: superimpressions, anamorphoses, deliberatc cxploitation of certain defects (blurring, dcceptivc perspectives, trick framing); great photographers (Gcrmainc Krull, Kertćsz, William Klein) have played on these surprises, without convincing mc, cvcn if I understand their subversive bear-ing. Fifth type of surprisc: thc trouvaille or lucky fipd; Kertćsz photographs the window of a mansard roof; bc-hind thc panc, two classical busts look out into the Street (I like Kcrtćsz, bur I don’t like whimsy, ncithcr in musie nor in photography); thc scenc can bc arranged by the photographcr, but in thc world of illustrated media, it is a "natural" scene which thc good reporter has had the ge-nius, i.e., thc luck, to catch: an emir in nativc costumc on skis.

All these surprises obcy a principlc of defiancc (which is why they are alicn to me): the photographcr, like an

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