The old beggar was lying on an old rug in a dusty alley in the Moroccan city of Ouarzarzat. His clothes were torn and shabby, his eyes were red and his face was unshaven. A sooty black kettle was lying on the rug beside him. I knelt down to take his picture but for a brief moment, a second before I clicked the camera, our eyes met. I remember his blood red eyes looking at me. With a short nod of my head I asked him, without talking, if I could take his picture. With a brief nod, almost unnoticeable, he approved. Actually, I didn?t really want to take his picture, but the moment I did, he pulled himself up, grabbed my wrist and told me in French:
?Sit down and have some tea?.
He ordered, didn?t ask.
I sat down.
He poured hot sweet tea from the kettle to a little glass cup, offered the cup to me and said: ?If you hadn?t asked my permission to take this picture I would have stabbed you, but since you did, you are invited for tea?.
It was a lesson I have carried with me for years: people are not objects. First of all they are human beings, no matter where they live or how they look. It is emphasized when I take pictures in remote places or ?exotic? countries. I keep reminding myself that the only thing which is exotic in those places is me. I am the stranger, the exception. I have to adjust myself to the local habits and not vice versa.
I have never really liked to take pictures of people secretly, with a telescopic lens, without being noticed. I have always felt that there is a deceiving kind of fraud taking pictures of people without their knowledge. I can?t wait for approval all the time. It is impossible. But whenever I feel discomfort, reluctance, in the person I want to photograph, I?d rather give up a good picture and not embarrass the person.
The confirmation isn?t always verbal and it doesn?t necessarily involve a long conversation. In most places I have been I didn?t know the local language. With the camera, sign language, or head movement, an eye contact was created, that was stronger than most conversations.
Slowly I realized that I was longing for that eye contact, and visual conversation with the people I met .It started from the first time I began taking pictures in the world back in 1977.
I was not aware of the contact I had with the people whilst I was taking their pictures until I submitted the first pictures for my book ?Food Markets of the World?. The American editor asked, if I could also take pictures of people who were not looking at me or were not aware of my presence. I accepted her words as they were and tried my best to be the invisible man – the one that could see but couldn?t be seen. It didn?t take long for me to realize that I am not interested in taking pictures of people who don?t know I am there. I guess that their gazes confirm, in a way, my own existence.
I was thinking that my desire for contact showed something about my own loneliness. It happened many times when I was wandering alone in remote and strange places that the camera was kind of a communicating device, which helped me start a conversation with people whom, in regular circumstances, I could not get to. The camera created a kind of shield and protection and gave me security. I love to look and sometimes I forget and find myself staring shamelessly at people. When I am holding a camera I am not just a man staring - I am working, just like the people I am looking at.
That eye contact is an elusive, accidental moment, which disappears in a fraction of a second. Rarely it happens when people are standing in front of me asking to be photographed. This is a glance, a gaze that stops for a second to get a closer look and goes on- a closing of ranks with looks for a brief moment of intimacy, followed by a lowering the eyes in embarrassment, or staring shamelessly. These are the moments I am looking for.
The look of a man is different from that of a woman and the look of a child is something totally different. A child?s gaze is innocent, wondering and shamelessly curious. Women, especially in conservative countries, have defiance in their looks, flirting and challenging. I can still remember their gaze burning through their veils.
Looks change according to places. In some countries they are blunt, direct, daring. Other places they may be angry, and I feel like I?m invading people?s privacy when I lift the camera, and I?m embarrassed. There are places where people lower their eyes, can?t make eye contact, shy. On the other hand there were places where I had to struggle with people who were dying to be photographed, or pushed a shy companion to stand in front of the camera.
Sometimes the camera and the man behind it serve as an excuse for an effusion. At first I didn?t know what to do with those who thought I was a television photographer, stood in front of my camera and made a speech. I tried to tell them that I am not filming but after a while gave up and let them express themselves. They said what they wanted to say, shook my hand gratefully and went on their way as though a burden was lifted from them.
Sometimes I had arguments with people who insisted to know why I was taking pictures, what I was going to do with the pictures, or asked for money in return for their approval to be photographed.
When the demand for money was aggressive and unpleasant I pretended to be angry and told them that they have to pay me, because I was a professional photographer who charged lot of money for his work. To calm the atmosphere, I said that I was going to make an exception that time, and I wouldn?t charge them for my work. Every time people understood the point, realized its absurdity, and burst out laughing.
Sometime people asked me to send them the picture I took of them. I made a habit of doing that, although the addresses I got sometimes seemed quite dubious and I had my doubts whether the picture would reach its destination. In most cases I never got a reply after I had sent the picture, but since no letter was ever returned to me with ?address unknown?, I hope that the pictures reached their recipients and made them happy.
When I did get an answer it was an exciting moment. For me that was the only way I could thank those anonymous people who made eye contact with me and became my friends, even for a brief moment, in a foreign land.
This book is dedicated to those people.