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eng Automatic Translation

Annotated landscapes

Igor Savchenko 1994 – 1995
-1- //4.94-33, The one who is already walking towards him and will now appear because of this turn //4.94-35, The tree at the turn, where this rain will now find them //4.94-23, The one who is already waiting for him in their clearing around this bend //4.94-34, She who will now open her window to meet him //4.94-27, A picture he took while waiting for her to emerge from behind those distant trees //4.94-20, A picture taken by him when her light dress was almost invisible because of those distant poplars //4.94-1, Photo taken by him while her song was still coming from the other side //4.95-15, The light from her window blending with the remnants of daylight, helping to bring this image to his camera lens //4.95-16, Trying to intercept the exhausted sunlight that rushed to her window in the hope of finding shelter there until tomorrow morning //-2- //4.94-65, That cherished place to which this road leads //4.94-22, The road to the distant forest, in which a light flickered every now and then //4.94-39, The rain that greeted him twice that day at this place //4.94-43, The wind that did not want to be photographed and subsided at the moment when he took this picture //4.94-2, The wind that subsided after sunset, preparing this lake for the best perception of moonlight //4.94-36, Fearing to fall into this rut on the way to the bright distance //5.95-2, Trying to figure out which of these clouds _ is really passing //5.95-3, Cloud recognized as passing //4.95-24, On the coordination of wind directions, river currents and sunlight //-3- //4.94-38, The moon, which loves to pass over this place, being hidden behind the clouds //4.94-29, The moon, which will be directly above this road tonight //4.94-26, The moon that will bypass this field tonight //4.94-37, The moon, to the appearance of which this snow wanted to have time //4.94-40, The moon, which this snow still wanted to catch //4.94-41, A forest that has hardly changed at all since the low moon shone on it last night //-4- //4.94-53, Light, which does not yet know that he made a mistake by choosing this path //4.94-60, The light of an autumn day, quietly wandering along this coast yesterday //11.94-6, Light avoiding a direct path to the lens and getting there, only reflected from surrounding objects //11.94-7, Still the same light, as always avoiding a direct path to the lens and getting there, only reflected from surrounding objects //4.95-2, Trying to recognize the intention of sunlight //4.95-17, Everything that, mixed with sunlight, helped bring this image to the camera lens //4.95-18, Everything that determined the path of sunlight to the camera lens at the moment the shutter was released //4.95-26, Trying to recognize the intention of sunlight //-5- //4.94-12, The light frost of that March evening, thickening the old lubricant of his camera shutter //4.94-11, A speck of dust that got inside the camera and managed to get on the film just at the moment when the flying bird was already at the very edge of the frame //4.94-4, The faint light of the not yet fully thickened twilight, nevertheless managed to slightly illuminate this film in the short time when, forgetting about it, he opened it and, recovering himself, quickly slammed the camera //4.94-16, Barking dogs from a nearby village, barely audible in the gathering twilight //4.94-17(2), The first (second) of two photographs taken with a "bulb" exposure, counted from two raindrops falling one after another on dry spruce needles //5.94-8, A strange feeling from something that just flashed over the grass to the right //4.94-3, Something that just flashed in the sky above the trees //4.94-7, Something that got in his eye and made him take this shot almost a minute later than he wanted //-6- //4.94-62(2), Landscape to be photographed from this point in six minutes this section contains text //-7- //4.94-55, A long chain of events, the beginning of which was yesterday's choice of this road by the spring light //4.94-56, A long chain of events, where the first link is a shadow that tomorrow will slide along this road from a large black bird flying over the forest //4.94-58, A long chain of events, the beginning of which is the wind from under the wings of this bird when it perched on a tree //4.94-57, A long chain of events, where the first link is the sound of the wings of one of the birds that will now take off from this tree //4.94-44, That "decisive moment" in the past, which predetermined that now he would no longer find a large white cloud that had just been reflected in this lake //4.94-54, That "decisive moment" in the past, which predetermined that now he will still find this already almost completely melted cloud //-8- //4.94-45, Long chain of all events leading up to this snapshot //4.94-47, Long chain of events, the beginning of which is the appearance of this snapshot //4.94-63, Long chain of events, one of which is the appearance of this snapshot //5.94-5, Everything that led to this picture //5.94-6, Everything that made this snapshot impossible to avoid //5.94-12, Everything that tried and failed to prevent this snapshot from appearing //4.94-64, That "decisive moment" in the past that predetermined the appearance of this picture //4.94-46, That "decisive moment" in the past, after which the appearance of this picture became inevitable //5.94-11, That, still distant and unknown, but already inevitable event, to which the appearance of this picture will inevitably lead //5.95-4, That, still distant and unknown, but already inevitable event, to which the appearance of this picture will inevitably lead //4.95-14, Will bleaching help to avoid that distant and yet unknown event, to which the appearance of this image should have inevitably led?... //-9- //5.94-9, Another failed attempt to stop the ever-elusive moment //-10- //4.95-25, A picture that no doubt means something //4.95-27, About this picture

THE LANDSCAPE WHICH WILL HAVE BEEN SHOT IN SIX MINUTES FROM THIS SPOT WHEN…
 

…when a drizzle has started sprinkling, while the dogs from the nearest village which are not almost heard in the falling brown twilight, will lull completely;
when a big bird has sashayed down by a shadow over this meadow, a branch has crackled in the forest near the road, and a black cow has risen its head;
when the sun has set so deeply beyond the horizon so that it will be quite difficult for the light to get there;
when the wind has murmured in the still green grass, having covered the cold mirror with ripple-like marks it will fly quickly to the lake, then it will unthink, will turn back, and curving these trees it will bring the smell of the pond scum to the very edge of the forest;
then it will fade away somewhere in the forest, and the cow will start to munch the grass.

And this will be the moment he will have to click the shutter.

The light from its expanse will have heard this sound, it will reflect from the plain clouds' field and having stolen down the lake, it will out-rush to his camera's lens barging on its way into menhirs, cows, ensnaring into wire, trees' crowns and losing its forces in the dense grass.
When the light has beaten by the cone the front lens and has started dapping into sparkling deepness of this six lens anastigmat, the shutter' blinds which have just been a stiff reel, will be already unrolling not believing completely in their freedom; and by this very moment when the light-flow has filled spongy the whole lens' air-gap given by the diaphragm, trembling under the light's inrush the blinds will have come to the right side of the film frame and opened themselves by the strict vertical hole which has started moving along the long side of the shot and in which having thrown its part of the image out on the film's greedy emulsion depascent all the beamy energy, the first beam will rush.
This hole's run will not be too blistering – some fractions of a second – and it will be enough to catch his hands trembling and to let the eddy of light which is not embraced at full by the inner surface of the lens, swing a little bit and touch the most lurking places which are left untouched yet.

Having gone along the whole film frame to its left side, quivering awearily the hole will close up still remembering this inrush which have been felt so voluptuously by its walls, until the image being disgorged by the lightflow has covered the whole, given to it part of the film. Having given all its energy the played-out light will become extinguished in the quickly darkened deepness of the lens having continued itself in the newly-formed life of the photographic image yet hidden in the interior of the film. 

The sound of the produced click will make the cow raise its head, and it will understand everything. The magpie from the very top of a tree will snatch its glance, will get jerry too, and being ready to carry the news all around the neighbouring forest, will already open its beak, but having bethought it will fly away quietly to the place where the sun slithering scapelessly down deeper and deeper beyond the horizon, will know about everything – know and even meditate in the reflection, be it not very sharp, on the screen of the same plain clouds. However, all these will not touch the sun – such accustomed and mediocre will it be for the diurnal star. While the wind…

…The wind will return from the forest's depth and will touch the camera carefully wishing to check whether it all has just seemed to it, whether there has taken part what that maple leaf has been thinking of for many times – thinking and has known all its life not telling anybody, not even to the maple itself, that it is what will be its main epitome, only just through its – the leaf's life all that unimaginable abundance of events and lives which did lead to its appearing, will have managed to embody in what will have to take place – and has just taken part – tonight. Only the wind will know this secret of the leaf right from that their first spring meeting which the wind will actually recall after for several times it has overturned the leaf – already fallen from the branch – choosing what side of the leaf it will put it in the grass.

For some time the leaf will still have been trying to figure out what would be next? – but it will have seen nothing but gloomy images and will have come down. While the spider which spider-net will be shivering in the air that will be getting away from the maple to the other side of the lake into the far-off forest, will know something: something about the events caused by the shutter's click which did let this landscape's image be put into the medium speed film inserted into not brand new range measuring camera with a slightly scuffed matted metal body…

…the dogs will bark again. After that it will have become completely dark.
 
 

Igor Savchenko
Minsk, June 1994;
(version of May, 2000, Boswil, Switzerland)

Russian-English translation: Andrey Bursau, Minsk