the swimmer
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conceit, but I have faith and conviction. It came to me. And I worked it out.
I used to suffer from a lack of it, and now that I’ve got it I suppose it seems
self-centered. I have to have faith or I can’t act. I think that what I am doing
is valid and worth doing, and I use the word transcendent. That’s very
pretentious, but if I’m satisfied that something transcendent shows in a
photograph I’ve done, that’s it. It’s there, I’ve done it. Without being able to
explain, I know it absolutely, that it happens sometimes, and I know by the
way I feel in the action that it goes like magic — this is it. It’s as though
there’s a wonderful secret in a certain place and I can capture it. Only I
can do it at this moment, only this moment and only me. That’s a hell of a
thing to believe, but I believe it or I couldn’t act. It’s a very exciting, heady
thing. It happens more when you’re younger, but it still happens, or I
wouldn’t continue. I think there is a period of esthetic discovery that
happens to a man and he can do all sorts of things at white heat.
~Walker Evans
