You must feel an affinity for what you are photographing. You must be part of it, and yet remain sufficiently detached to see it objectively. Like watching from the audience a play you already know by heart.
Interpretation
To capture great photographs, one must connect emotionally with the subject while maintaining an objective perspective.
George Rodger emphasizes the duality required in photography: a deep emotional connection to the subject while also maintaining a distance that allows for objective observation. This balance enables the photographer to portray authenticity and truth in their work, similar to how an audience member engages with a familiar play.
In practice
During a photography workshop, I shared this quote to inspire participants to connect with their subjects.
I probably get a deeper satisfaction of having taken a very good photograph than of having written something very good, a very good story. Maybe it's because the element of magic is so present in a good photograph - luck and magic, but also hard work and being ready and all that.
Hail holy light, offspring of heav'n firstborn!
There is nothing so necessary for men as dancing.
Fiction leaves us so much work to do, allows the individual so much input; you have to see, you have to hear, you have to taste the madeleine, and while you are seemingly passive in your chair, you have to travel.
Fiction does not spring into the world fully grown, like Athena. It is the process of writing and rewriting that makes a fiction original, if not profound.
Every grain of experience is food for the greedy growing soul of the artist.
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