Went back to see Willy Ronis‘s photo exhibition at Hôtel de Ville, as I didn’t have time to see all of it last time — I mentioned this exhibition at the bottom of this post. There was an interesting movie about Ronis, in which he talks about his life and his photographer’s career, and how he loved photographing people. At one point he quoted Trotsky who said that Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man. …Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man. –Trotsky Ronis then went on to tell how at age 85 or so, his legs betrayed him and he couldn’t walk around Paris taking photos any longer as he had to use two walking sticks. It was a case of either walking, or taking photographs, as he needed both hands to lean on his sticks.
He went on saying that for a while he took nude photographs (very beautiful ones), but that it was not what he really wanted to do. So he just stopped taking photographs.
Of course, I totally identified with him, as one of my greatest pleasures in life is to walk around my city and take photographs of it, even though I don’t compare what I do to a life’s dedication like his. I have been thinking about this a lot, but once more, I cannot start to imagine myself being unable to take long walks… Another bridge I’ll cross when I come to it, no doubt.