用镜头捕捉佛教的真谛

Photographing the Part of Buddhism That Can’t Be Seen
By JAMES ESTRIN July 30, 2013

用镜头捕捉佛教的真谛
JAMES ESTRIN 2013年07月30日
When David Butow decided to spend 2012 traveling the world to photograph Buddhism, he knew there would be a rich abundance of visual material: colorful clothing, vibrant decorations and precisely choreographed rituals.
当戴维·布托(David Butow)决定在2012年奔赴世界各地拍摄佛教主题的作品时，他知道会有海量的视觉素材：多彩的服饰、鲜艳的装饰和设计精巧的仪式。
But the challenge of capturing the essence of spiritual experience became apparent to him quickly. While sacred rites are visually lush, and obvious, spiritual experience is interior and hidden — and it is difficult to photograph something that is not visible.
不过，他很快就遇到了挑战：如何捕捉心灵体验的精髓。尽管宗教仪式具有丰富的视觉效果，然而明显的心灵体验则是隐藏而内在的，拍摄不可见的事物难度很大。
[要查看本链接请先注册并登录] used a variety of strategies — and camera formats — to try to capture the heart of Buddhism. He layered reflections, employed camera motion and made metaphoric images that suggested stillness. He included double exposures, used diptychs and even physically altered negatives with a small blade.
布托运用了多种技巧和相机格式，试图捕捉佛教的精髓。他将映像叠加，并运用动态捕捉模式，还以暗喻般的图像表现静态感。他也使用了二次曝光手法、双联图像、甚至用一把小小的刮刀，对负片进行物理修整。
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除了宗教仪式和服饰，戴维·布托希望能通过摄影作品展现佛教徒的精神世界。
His journey last year, as he worked on “[要查看本链接请先注册并登录],” spanned 10 countries including Bhutan, Cambodia, Japan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and the Tibetan exile community in Dharamsala, India. Along the way, he discovered that Buddhism and photography have much in common, including observation, empathy and being fully in the moment.
去年，他为了自己的作品集《见佛：摄影之旅》([要查看本链接请先注册并登录])走访了十个国家，其中包括不丹、柬埔寨、日本、缅甸、斯里兰卡和位于印度达兰萨拉的藏人流亡群体。在途中，他发现，佛教和摄影有许多共同点，都需要观察、同理心，以及当时的全情投入。
“Among the core concepts of Buddhism is the idea of understanding your individual experience of living and the way that you are connected to other people,” he said. “As a photographer, you observe your subject, try to become connected and then capture that in a single moment.”
他说，“佛教的核心理念是，洞悉你的个人生活体验以及你和他人建立关系的方式。作为一名摄影师，你观察你的对象，设法与它沟通，然后在一瞬间捕捉这种感觉。”
Mr. Butow started the project after many years as a photojournalist who often covered conflicts and disasters for U.S. News and World Report, as well as for the photo agencies Saba and [要查看本链接请先注册并登录]. He said that empathy in the face of suffering and a sense of shared humanity were important both in photography and in Buddhism.
在开始这个项目前，布托曾是一名工作多年的摄影记者，他常为《美国新闻与世界报道》(U.S. News and World Report)、以及Saba和Redux图片社报道冲突和灾难。他说，在摄影和佛教中，面对苦难时的同理心，和共同的仁慈之心，都是相当重要的。
So, too, is patience.
耐心也同样重要。
He recalled photographing a small group of monks for two or three hours while they were chanting, but not moving at all. Finally, there was one moment in which light came through the window and illuminated a monk (Slide 2). Mr. Butow can’t know exactly what the monk was thinking or experiencing, but the image reflects what the photographer perceived.
他回忆了自己用两到三个小时时间，拍摄一小队僧人纹丝不动念经的过程。最后，有那么一刻，光线穿过窗户，照亮了一名僧人（图2）。布托并不确切知道，这名僧人当时在想些什么，或者有什么样的体验，但是图片反映了摄影师对此情此景的感受。
“Perhaps that’s all I could do,” he said. “The pictures are as much a reflection of my own experience as they are of the people who are in the shot.”
他说，“也许，这就是我所能做的。照片反映了我自身的感受，就像它们反映了片中人物的感受一样。”