Light and what the camera captures
Negative: Hunting Will Life with Camera and Flashlight
translated from the chapter in “Above Flames” ：「負片，光與相機所捕捉的」
I will spend the rest of my life wondering what light is.
Albert Einstein-1879–1955, circa 1917
Since university, aside from daily life, no matter where I go, I always carry a camera. There have been countless times when fleeting images, like the faint footprints of a deer, appear for just a moment: a swallow darting through the gaps between the power lines and the light, a person walking their dog early in the morning brushing past me, the two dogs glancing back at each other in perfect harmony, puddles after the rain, a child waiting for their mother crouching down, staring at their own reflection, a brilliantly colored jewel beetle stopping on a branch within arm’s reach during a jog, refusing to leave no matter how close I got. Walking to the Jiajia Record Shop in Ximending, an old man rode by on a bicycle with a wide rear rack, slowly passing along Zhonghua Road, where the Zhonghua Market is no longer. The old man’s coat and the cap he wore were the same as what my father used to have.
And yet without spells, without a wand, and without a camera, the image drifted away without hesitation, no second thoughts.
An image is not a lost item, a departing lover, lost sleep, or a shirt missing a button. But photography is an activity that cannot be completed without a tool. It’s unlike words, which treat memory as a delicate structure, detachable, portable, capable of being reassembled and brought back to life. An image exists only in a specific time and place, and only for that time and place. Even if it’s the same location, the same scene, waiting for the same light… Hmm, waiting for light — what imprecise language. In reality, the place can never be the same, the people have aged by seconds or days, and the wavelength of light is never identical. Yet, the photographer still earnestly bears the weight of the camera, waiting for the light and the moment to press the shutter. In their heart, they always have an imagined image, believing it must appear just around the corner, much like how a person will eventually wait for a cherished goodbye kiss in their lifetime.
In 1994, I served in the Air Force Academy, in the Headquarters Company of the 204th Battalion under the Air Force Air Defense Command. At that time, I was an awkward kid, desperately wanting to leave home, romantically hoping to be sent to some small island for those two years. But when I actively requested to be assigned to an outer island, my request was denied.
Time is not a uniform gel. The days of being a soldier passed very slowly, but when I looked back, I feel that time flew by. For a long time, Taiwan, as a country with a conscription system, has created a unique coming-of-age tradition different from most countries. On this island, almost half of the population has been, is currently, or will become soldiers. Yet most people are not truly soldiers, nor do they really want to be soldiers. The other half of the population will, during their first love, mature love, midlife love, or twilight love, hear their suitors or lovers talk about their time in the military. It seems that in love, they all must attempt to be a temporary outsider once…….Your lover is far away, where he has to wait in line to make a phone call. He becomes a number, has to relearn how to pick up a pen and write letters. Kisses are always left in voicemails, and when he wakes up, the person next to him is another man, not you.
Many people don’t know that the Air Force also has artillery. During training, we had to practice gun drills, and even during downtime, we had to clean the gun barrels. However, we were using World War II-era weapons — the .50-caliber machine gun and the 40mm autocannon. The .50-caliber machine gun could barely be considered an electrically powered weapon. The gun mount consisted of four machine guns, with one gunner in the cockpit responsible for aiming, and two loaders standing on either side to feed ammunition. The gun mount could rotate within a certain angle electrically, and the gun captain stood behind the mount to give commands. In comparison, the 40mm cannon had more of a classic feel. It was a rather large, single-barrel gun carriage, with a gear-driven turntable on either side — one for horizontal adjustment and one for vertical. Each gun had a captain standing behind, giving commands both verbally and with hand signals, while two artillerymen followed orders, turning the gear-driven wheels to adjust the barrel and aim at enemy aircraft. I always felt that the operation of this kind of cannon was similar to that of a traditional mechanical camera — outdated, yet carrying a nostalgic charm.
At this point, such a machine gun can no longer accurately shoot down enemy planes. Its mission is to prevent enemy planes from flying too low, directly threatening the runway. After all, when faced with bombers that can fly above 10,000 feet, the barrage of gunfire it releases is at most like low-altitude fireworks. However, during exercises, when more than ten 40mm cannons and .50 caliber machine guns fire simultaneously, the scene is truly awe-inspiring. At a single command, the fire lines form a “barrage” in the sky, and the ground is engulfed in smoke, making it almost impossible to distinguish the neighboring guns, which stirs up excitement.
On one side of the Air Force Academy’s airfield, there is an endless stretch of grass, lined with aircraft shelters, with only a few F-5 fighter jets, while most are small and cute T-34 and AT-3 trainer planes. During runs, you can hear the loud noise of T-34 propellers testing, and when someone falls behind the squad, some veterans would hide in the nearby bushes to smoke. The end of the runway is a green field, the grass always meticulously trimmed, though after occasional heavy rains, different species of grass would sprout.
Occasionally, when there was an opportunity to ride the Humvee into town or to other battalions for tasks, I would always secretly stash my FM-2 camera and a 24mm lens in my field duty bag. One day in 1994, while the Humvee rounded a village and passed by the Air Force Academy, I saw an image from the back seat that could become a photograph. Without much hesitation, I tapped on the driver’s window and asked if we could stop for a moment. I jumped out, pressed the shutter, and jumped back in. It was a dead chicken, its legs stiff, wings slightly spread, lying on the road. Through the viewfinder, I could see its sunken eye sockets — a perfectly coincidental arrangement. Next to the dead chicken, there happened to be an empty betel nut box with a nude woman printed on it. It was just lying there.
It wasn’t until after I was discharged that I bought a macro lens and started photographing butterflies. When I first got into nature photography, I was troubled by a few questions. For example, if there’s no natural light during a shot, would you decide to use artificial light for fill? And what do you do when the subject isn’t in the “right” position as imagined? After all, while many photographers will arrange people’s movements to suit the composition, you can’t ask a green-spotted swallowtail to slow down its flight a bit or land on a specific flower, nor can you ask a grey heron to perch on a branch within your lens’s reach.
Yet some people do try to do just that. I’ve seen photographers move a beetle around on a leaf like a small decoration, adjusting its position repeatedly to get the “best light.” I’ve also heard that some photographers use insect nets to catch fast-flying butterfly species, then gently squeeze them before placing them on flowers, pulling out their proboscis to pose them as if they were sipping nectar. Those who know a little about butterfly physiology understand that if you slightly squeeze a butterfly’s thorax, it will lose mobility for a few seconds due to disrupted blood circulation and breathing, as if it had fainted. But if the pressure is too much, you’ll hear the sound of its thorax cracking.
Such rough handling for the sake of photography usually happens to insects — or rather, when such roughness is directed at insects, photographers care the least. I suppose one reason is that insect compound eyes don’t radiate the same “life presence” as mammals or birds, so if the pose looks natural, it’s hard to tell. And when that slide is projected on a wall, making the viewers marvel at the beauty of the organism, it may already be a stunned or dead captive, though the audience remains oblivious. But it’s entirely different with birds; you can clearly “sense” it. Whether the bird in the viewfinder is alert, relaxed, confused, or has already noticed your presence. I think this is because birds always seem to have eyes that look as if they are on the verge of tears. On the other hand, killing a shrimp or a beetle for a photo seems to invoke far less guilt than killing a lark.
Why is that?
Of course, the chicken in the photo I took by the Air Force Academy wasn’t something I knocked out or strangled. It likely fell from a chicken truck or vendor’s tricycle and died. In other words, I was just a photographer, drawn to the scent of death like a vulture. At the time, I felt perfectly justified in taking that photo, even with a sense of pride as I jumped back into the Humvee. But later, as I walked with my camera along roads, forest paths, and riverbanks, whenever I encountered the body of an animal, I would recall the emotional reaction after taking that photo. What if, instead of a chicken from a farm, it had been a medium-sized land crab? What if it had been a red-billed starling? What if it had been a wild boar? Or a sperm whale?
If it were a chain viper that threatened my life, an Asian elephant that had carried World War II munitions, a black bear that escaped hunters’ bullets five times, a Sumatran rhinoceros that lost its horn but escaped poachers, a zebra with melancholic stripes, or perhaps even a person — what then? If it were a stranger, or someone I knew, someone I once loved at a certain moment?
Though many who engage in wildlife photography claim they love nature, love animals, I know that this kind of love is fundamentally different from what we commonly call romantic love. The only similarity between them might be their inherent fragility. Biologically speaking, some scientists believe that love is nothing more than an effect of serotonin — a chemical response. Since the serotonin effect fades with time and stimulation, passionate romance inevitably transforms into emotional attachment. When love turns into attachment, it might resemble familial love, and sometimes even sexual desire fades away.
Regarding familial love, I think of the well-known “Attachment Theory.” This was proposed by British psychiatrist John Bowlby, influenced by Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz’s theory of “imprinting” and psychologist Harry Harlow’s research on rhesus monkeys. Imprinting is what Lorenz discovered — after hatching, young geese will imprint the first sound they hear and the first shape they see deeply into their minds, as it’s crucial for their survival. This is how love, in the form of familial affection, begins from birth.
From 1957, Harlow conducted a series of studies on rhesus monkeys. He took newborn monkeys away from their mothers and provided them with two surrogate mothers: one made of wire mesh that supplied milk, and one soft doll that resembled the form of a mother but provided no milk. Harlow observed that the monkeys would go to the wire mother for milk but would seek comfort from the soft doll. When the monkeys were frightened or threatened, they always clung tightly to the soft doll.
Harlow’s “love experiment” proved that the tactile sensation of an embrace, similar to one’s own skin, was very important to the monkeys. After the baby monkeys became accustomed to the safety provided by the soft doll, Harlow conducted a third phase of the experiment. He made the soft doll spray water jets or attack the monkeys with metal spikes. Initially, the monkeys recoiled from the harm, but when they were frightened again and sought comfort, they still ran to the soft doll, though their attachment to it became hesitant.
Harlow’s experiments lasted a long time — until these surrogate-raised monkeys grew up and had their own offspring. He found that compared to monkeys raised normally, these monkeys exhibited noticeable symptoms of autism, self-harm, or violent behavior. When they had their own offspring, most of the mothers could not provide the same intimate care and affection to their young as normal monkeys.
Bowlby analyzed these two theories and concluded that love is a form of attachment. Emotionally, “every separation, no matter how brief, must produce an immediate, automatic, and intense response.” To avoid losing the object of attachment, people will react in a way that remains true to Bowlby’s words: “At first, they urge the one who left to return, and then they blame them…” even though they know that such efforts are futile, and blaming is irrational. I find that this description applies equally well to romantic love.
It is natural to feel pain when family members or loved ones leave. Charles Darwin said, “The grief expression of an adult seems to be a contradictory combination of two emotions: they want to cry out like an abandoned child, yet try to prevent themselves from doing so.” This reminds me of what British geneticist Richard Dawkins once said: “We cannot expect children to be born knowing how to love; this is something we must teach them.” Although Dawkins believed that all life is the product of the “selfish gene” and that even altruism is a form of self-interest, he also said that humanity has transcended the behavioral rules of most animals. As civilization progresses, another “cultural gene” becomes more influential, sometimes even suppressing our animal instincts.
I do not doubt some people’s declared love for nature and wildlife, but that kind of attachment fades with the proximity of relationships and is adjusted according to different social situations. We grieve for a pet dog that accompanied us through the years of preparing for exams, but we don’t necessarily mourn a stray dog killed by a car on the highway. We may sigh over a fledgling pigeon that died while learning to fly in our garden, but we are not necessarily moved by a documentary on the extinction of the passenger pigeon. We may be disheartened by the death of plants in our garden but are not necessarily heartbroken by the destruction of swamps that nurture countless lives due to industrial development. Love is graded, love counts the cost, and love is sometimes even seen as a matter of morality or immorality… even if the object of love is the same person.
However, some animals may exhibit altruistic behaviors or actions that seem to stem from empathy, yet they do not actively assign “moral meaning” to their interactions with life. A pride of lions won’t consider whether the antelope they are hunting is endangered. Cobras won’t feel any guilt for their kills. An overbreeding flock of sheep that grazes the grasslands bare doesn’t need to worry about whether the ecosystem will collapse or if other animals will have grass to eat. Humanity has built civilization and also constructed a mind that is no longer purely driven by biological needs. Perhaps this is why environmental ethicists say that humans are the only “moral agents” among living beings — because being a moral agent comes from two things: emotional education and knowledge.
Love is the foundation for soothing the pains of life, so it is an innate instinct. However, it is the behavior of the previous generation, and the knowledge and cultural experiences we encounter, that tell us how and when love should be given in accordance with the rules of the group we belong to.
Many years later, when I saw the photograph of that dead chicken again, I thought that perhaps I had pressed the shutter back then, drawn by some sense of mysticism, alienation, or the composition of chance. The clouds had blocked the sun, and the shadows were gone. At some point, this body will be called a corpse and no longer be referred to as a living being. Yet at the same time, I realized that when I took that photo, I was almost emotionless toward that dead chicken. It was an image that might have had some meaning, but for me, it lacked emotional significance.
When a photographer approaches another person with a camera, there is often a certain level of tension, shyness, and hesitation, along with consideration for the subject’s reaction. But when photographing animals, these concerns don’t apply. Animals may refuse, attack, or flee, but they won’t question whether we have the right to capture their image. They understand the danger of guns but can hardly grasp the meaning of a camera lens.
However, as I ventured deeper into the mountains, gradually building my own knowledge of the wilderness and forming a distant emotional connection with many living beings, I began to contemplate the circumstances of these creatures’ survival. I know that the great purple emperor and the broad-tailed swallowtail are on the verge of extinction. I know how many years of cold winters, storms, and lightning strikes it takes for a red cypress to become part of the forest. I also understand that encountering a chain viper, which terrifies me, is both dangerous and incredibly fortunate. This awareness leads me to feel a certain weight when I come across a snake carcass exposed on a forest path. I would rather search for the butterfly’s host plant, waiting for the moment to capture the image, than use harmful photography methods. I try to use an upward gaze through the lens to portray the red cypress’s lofty isolation and my own insignificance.
Regardless of what kind of animal I am photographing, I always attempt to make eye contact with them through the viewfinder, even if the animal is already dead. It seems I have gradually been educated that this is how I can capture a photograph that will be effective, both for myself and for those who view it.
I recall two photos that were effective for me, both related to the eyes of the subjects being photographed.
During my time in the military, there were several dogs that would automatically appear near the sentry post. Since there were leftovers from every meal, feeding them was not an issue, and the bored soldiers enjoyed having dogs accompany them during their runs or drills. One of the dogs that left the deepest impression on me was called Xiao Huang.
Unlike the other stray dogs that looked skinny due to skin diseases or hidden illnesses, Xiao Huang had beautiful fur and a pair of eyes like those of a young girl. Every time I was on guard duty, Xiao Huang would stay beside the post. She was the longest-serving guard in our unit. I particularly enjoyed night guard duty because during those shifts, I could often listen to the stories of other guards, making me feel like I was collecting tales.
Sometimes Xiao Huang would also join us during morning runs, her steps light and brisk, and keeping up with the troops over 3,000 meters was not too difficult for her. However, there were times when officers would stop her from running with the unit. If you glanced back at Xiao Huang in those moments, you would see her gazing at the departing troops with those girlish eyes, and you’d believe there was a trace of grievance in them.
Xiao Huang’s territory included the firing range and the military housing village next to the base. Sometimes when we were on leave, she would walk us all the way to the bus stop before turning back. Once, when I was wandering around the village with my camera, I encountered Xiao Huang and took what might have been the only photo of her in her lifetime. In the picture, Xiao Huang was just about to come over and rub against me, but because the shutter was too slow, her figure appeared slightly blurred.
Later, a supervisor who disliked dogs came to the camp and demanded that if we were to keep a dog, it had to be tied up. From then on, Xiao Huang was chained in a small space behind the canteen. Perhaps because of this, fewer and fewer people (including myself) went to visit her. Eventually, when I saw Xiao Huang again, she had developed a skin disease, a tumor had formed at the corner of her mouth, and her eyes had lost their luster.
One morning, I heard that Xiao Huang had died. I happened to be on guard duty at the time. A few comrades brought Xiao Huang’s body to a post near the sentry tower using a small cart. They dug her grave at the edge of the village. I still remember that morning: the T-34 trainers at the Air Force Academy were testing their engines, and the sound of the propellers filled the air with the scent of grass from the airfield. Xiao Huang still had a thin iron chain around her neck, and her once-beautiful eyes had sunken into hollow pits.
The other photo was of a young girl from East Cambodia, taken at the temple of General Ta Som.
Cambodia is a country that has risen from brutal war and genocide. A local, experienced guide told me that during the civil war, someone like me — wearing glasses — would certainly have been killed. “No reason, just because you wear glasses,” he said. His Chinese was very fluent after years of being a guide. “Wearing glasses suggests you might be educated.”
At every tourist site in Angkor Wat, you would see very young children selling postcards, T-shirts, or books in Mandarin or Taiwanese to tourists. Before you entered a temple, they would often secretly take your photo, then quickly print it out at a nearby stall, paste it onto a rough piece of pottery, and sell it to you. These children would stare at you like small animals until they lost all hope, and in that moment, their pleading gaze would immediately turn vacant. They would tear off your photo and toss it in the trash, ready to stick another tourist’s photo in its place.
These young children were not necessarily selling goods for their families. I had read reports suggesting that some of them were controlled by gangs. Aaron Cohen, who spent much of his life involved in rescuing slaves, wrote in Slave Hunter that Cambodia might currently have the highest number of child prostitutes in the world. In addition to local children, some were brought from Vietnam or Myanmar, usually between the ages of eight and fourteen. Cohen risked his life multiple times by infiltrating brothels to gather evidence. He had no choice but to make eye contact with these children — who often had unusually beautiful eyes — but each time, he would vomit upon returning to his hotel, recalling what he had seen, which he likened to “the gates of death, the doors of the underworld” from the Book of Job. He said, “If I can get one child to express her dreams, I will know that the traffickers haven’t completely destroyed her soul.” His life’s mission was to save children whose souls hadn’t been entirely destroyed.
The girl selling postcards and T-shirts at General Ta Som might not have been a school dropout; perhaps she was just like me when I was younger, working to help support her family. Maybe my response was overly influenced by the reports I had read, but I did see an incredible maturity and weariness in her eyes, and perhaps something else that I still cannot fully explain. Even though she indicated she was willing to let me take her picture in exchange for a T-shirt, I couldn’t shake a sense of guilt. She knew that tourists liked to take their photos, and she had to agree if she wanted to sell the T-shirt, and I knew this too — that might have been the key. When I made eye contact with her through the viewfinder, I knew immediately that this photo would be effective for me. It would stay with me until the day I lost my sight.
The word “effective” was originally used in medicine, but later it surprisingly became a term for love and art criticism. Only your words are effective for me; they cut through the layers of dreams and reality to become a unique sound. I can only hear your praise, your sighs, and even the soundless footsteps when you leave. It’s effective.
When a photographer presses their face to the viewfinder, only they know what they are seeing, what they are trying to see. A conscious subject will understand the intention in the photographer’s eyes. They communicate through layers of convex lenses, like a miner searching for ore from the surface or a spear-fisher scanning the sea for the fins of a marlin. Emotions that even the subject might not be aware of are inscribed in the film by the light, and only when it is developed does the photographer faintly sense that this photo might be effective. But it is only when another viewer stands before the photo that such speculation has the chance to be confirmed.
Standing before such a photograph, the shadow suddenly detaches from our body. It crouches down in pain, or perhaps it emits an invisible smile, or sheds tears lighter than air. A shadow always remembers more than its owner, like a spent matchstick, accidentally thrown out from the photograph, falling into the African tropical savanna in our hearts, where the fire, hungry, is rekindled.
We say that such a photograph is “effective,” “impressive,” “wounding.” It is effective, like your praise, your sighs, and even the soundless footsteps when you walk on the forest floor, thicker with fallen leaves than the ocean, or like the sound of a heart breaking. And then we realize that we are being watched by the photograph. Though we once aimed the camera’s eye at the life captured in that moment, their eyes will gaze at us for a lifetime.
The Sicilian philosopher Empedocles believed that all things are composed of four elements: water, earth, fire, and air, brought together or torn apart by “love” and “conflict.” Love unites the elements, while conflict divides them, and the universe itself swings back and forth between absolute love and conflict. He also believed that humans or living beings emit an effluence that enters the observer’s senses, creating perception. Light, he claimed, emanates from the eyes, as though they are lanterns with a fire burning inside. When we look at the world, the fire’s light pierces the watery part of the eye and reaches outward, touching the effluence of the observed object. In this way, everything returns and reflects the world we see.
Of course, no one in today’s world believes that Empedocles was right. But when I hold a camera, there are moments when I believe he was. Light streams from our eyes, flowing toward the world. Only in this way is everything the camera seeks to capture, and everything worth capturing, truly revealed.
