Peter Beard was a provocateur.
Something never before captured on screen?
That might be dressing it up a bit more romantically than it was, actually.
Peter Beard at his home in Montauk in 1981.
And still he looked to provoke, to prod, to probe.
Maybe successfullyIll let you decide, based on the work.
Certainly, perfectly arranged photos werent what Peter had been after.
Portrait of artist/photographer Peter Beard in front of a house leaning (falling) to one side *** Local Caption *** Peter Beard;
They would have bored him silly.
He wanted something electrifying, something dangerous perhaps, effecting, definitely.
And I knew damn well what he would have done to create the moment if it werent just happening.
He lived to dance into the danger zone.
At times we describe his sort aslikingdanger, and so explain away his courting it whenever he could.
I have no idea what the point is, he said.
No one knows the answer… We dont know what consciousness is.
We dont know what reality is.
We dont know what time is.
We are just ants on an ant hill.
Lost in a void, in nature.
And, as he wouldve said, there is no morality that matters in nature.
Nothing man-made will last, all save the desecration we have wrought.
And so he did.
But he carried on, as he had to do, because thats just the way we are programmed.
To what extent do we still carry programming from our ancestors?
And what instructions or talents have they handed down to us?
So, I said, are Kalahari Bushman, Chatwin wrote.
They also follow the lightning.
For where the lightning has been, there will be water, greenery, and game.
I imagine hell get the shot.
