Canterlot Quarterly presents a rare interview with the elusive Photo Finish.
This interview has been edited for clarity, and was conducted 03/01/1468 by Pipsqueak.
Canterlot Quarterly: Let me say, Ms. Finish, it’s a pleasure to be sitting here today before you.
Photo Finish: Yes. I’m sure it is.
CQ: In the past, you’ve said, rather famously, that you prefer to let your work speak for itself. Why speak now?
PF: To promote my exhibition, of course. Leap Before you Look: A Life in Pictures [link]. Go see it now! I want everypony seeing it. Don’t stay at home. Go, see it! Take the grandfoals.
CQ: You may forgive my scepticism at your response.
PF: I may. Then again, I may not.
CQ: You usually stay away from the promotional side of your art. I have a quote here that says you would, ahem, ‘rather stuff yourself into one of those ridiculous cannons’ than give another interview. What changed?
PF: Succinctly, this one’s special.
CQ: Your exhibition is based around your late muse Lightning Dust.
PF: Yes. A collation of much of my collaborative work with her.
CQ: You consider your work together a collaboration?
PF: Absolutely. Without Lightning Dust, without any of my muses, there is no work. They make the work. The work does not exist without them. I simply try to capture what they do.
CQ: Not all artists are so generous.
PF: There are many stupid artists.
CQ: Some of the ponies you’ve worked with consider themselves as having been exploited by your work.
PF: You are talking about Fluttershy. I consider her a special case. The trust that must be there between photographer and subject she was not comfortable giving. We did not work together long. Our collaboration was a failure.
CQ: Did Lightning Dust consider herself exploited by you?
PF: No.
CQ: She was not always happy with your pieces, though, was she?
PF: No.
CQ: What would she have made of this one, do you think?
PF: There are photographs in this collection going back 37 years. She’s seen most of it at one point or other. All together like this, I don’t know. I like to think she’d appreciate it.
CQ: What role did her death play in the creation of this project?
PF: Massive. Obviously. The thought of a collected project like this was not something that appealed to me at all before. But as soon as she died, it seemed like the clear route. Most ponies, when they lose someone, do not have 15,000-some images of that pony to return to. My goal with the photographs before had always been to try to capture some truth, some essence of the subject. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d succeeded.
CQ: This exhibition is your way of honouring her?
PF: Remembering her. Image and memory are very intimately connected. This is something all great artists understand. Each of my images is for me connected to a memory. Even becomes that memory. When I walk through this installation, I am surrounded by memories. Overwhelmed by them. It is an exquisite feeling. This is a very selfish reason to create an exhibition, I admit. Really most art is selfish. What other ponies will get from it, I cannot say.
CQ: Forgive me -- but safety violations, child endangerment, and more recently, assault. For many, Lightning Dust is a controversial figure. Why should she be remembered in this way?
PF: Ponies have a tendency to narrativise. Yes, there are those who see Lightning Dust as some sort of pony best forgotten. Even some sort of villain. You ask for apology -- she gave you none. I will not make one now. Neither will I forget her.
The gallery also has a tendency to narrativise. The events of her life are mostly very public events. The photographs I have chosen for this project, I chose because they are memories of the Lightning Dust that I have known. It is my hope that by visiting this exhibition, your memory of these events may be altered. That you may see an image of the pony I knew, also.
CQ: You knew Lightning Dust well. Did her death come as a shock to you? There are a few different narratives going around about what happened.
PF: I don’t pretend to know how or why these things happen. I know only the facts that everypony else knows. To me it was very sudden. I am one of the few ponies who was able to watch her rehearse ‘BURNOUT’. It was an amazing show. Lightning Dust had much, much more to give the world. It was dangerous, yes. More dangerous than most. Every show of hers was dangerous. She knew the risks.
CQ: But you don’t think she killed herself.
PF: No. Lightning Dust was an artist. You know artists! We can be obsessive. Lightning Dust was certainly obsessive. I don’t think she wanted to kill herself, but she was obsessive.
CQ: Tell us about your relationship to Lightning Dust.
PF: No.
CQ: Photo Finish, thank you for your time.
She’s perfect. Mix of confusion, bemusement, defiance. You chalk her surprise at your appearance up to your being 10 minutes late, until she asks you who you are. ‘Oh. Yeah,’ she says. ‘Yeah, yeah, I remember. The Pegasisters Perenially piece.’ Stepping out behind her clutter, saying you can take the photograph outside. You take many photos, far more photos than you need -- she catches the light just right, thin scowl not armour enough, not quite, to hide the chip of her yearning. You will make her a star! She doesn’t want to be a star. Not a model, anyway, she’d quite like to be some aeronaut star. You are contractually obligated to take 5 minutes and 3 photographs; you take 3 hours and 77. You will see her again. She doesn’t seem delighted by the prospect. Your take an image of her in profile, generic, stoic.
‘Done?’ she asks you.
‘Not yet!’ you say, and take the photograph a second later. Heroism melting middle distance, just a hint of eyeroll.
The last time you had talked had been tense. Bad energy in the air. Anger. Now here at Backburners tour: Fillydelphia, the weather seems to match your mood. A storm is thundering, no doubt brewed for this occasion, and Lightning Dust has gone all-in on her name and set up a series of slender metal lightning rods, to which the dark clouds send lightning bright enough to crack the sky. It’s as if you’ve been struck yourself: the weather wrenches you back years. Sitting tied to your chair inside a transport chariot, wind tearing at the walls. Rain rattling the entire vehicle, stinging on your cheek, spattering the camera. You can’t see the picture that you’re taking, not really, can only hope it’s picking something up, your previously untested rainshield doing something to protect it.
The clouds split open, and a cheer goes up: a slower Lightning than the rest, but not by much. Streaking down into the stands, sound trailing far behind, darting and twisting between the blinding bolts as if one with the weather herself. Leaving everything behind, even light, even you.
Hanging on the edge of the transport in her protective suit, hovering above the hurricane, about to fall, about to fall, about to...
Fair and square, a friendly match. A little competition, old times’ sake. Easy back and forth, ball rolling through the air like banter. ‘How’s being Bolt Captain’ -- ‘Pretty awesome to be honest’ -- ‘Congrats, deserved, etcetera.’
‘Once upon a time,’ says Lightning Dust, dropping heavily down next to where you’re watching, ‘I swore that me and her would be rivals for life.’
‘Once upon a time?’ you give her a look. ‘Why, who won?’
Her smile might have melted butter. ‘I mean, she’s literally on the Council of Friendship, let’s not kid ourselves. Don’t worry, everything’s good between us now.’
Examining Rainbow Dash through your camera lens, all speed and preening arrogance. Zooming in. A toss of rainbow mane, a stare of above-this-worldly confidence.
‘Yes,’ you say, leaning down to catch her ear, ‘but does that make her a better flier? No!’
She snorts. ‘You’re just saying that cause she’s friends with Fluttershy.’
‘Maybe. You could beat her anyway, though.’
You watch her calculation. Speed against cunning against daring. When the next match begins, she leaps for the ball blindly, running on instinct -- catching -- scoring -- soaring -- disappearing beneath a rainbow crackle. The next goal is considerably rougher. Foul play is called three times. The ball is reset. Lightning Dust takes Rainbow’s hoof to shake... That’s your girl. Lighting. Click.
Tock. Tick. Like a heartbeat in the stagnant room. Your head feels heavy, you find yourself beginning to drift. No! You mustn’t. Have to be there for her when she’s there for you being there for your cat. Curled in the chair across from you, close to closing time at Fillydelphia Veterinary. Tock. Tick. She yawns, suddenly, dramatically. Is silent once again. You are strangely moved. Her gaze is somewhere far, she doesn’t even notice when you raise your camera.
She is saying something round the toothbrush, but you can’t really make it out and stopped paying full attention minutes ago. She carries on the conversation quite well by herself -- you help by interjecting a ‘Yes!’ or ‘Really?’ when appropriate -- but then you ‘Yes!’ when you should have ‘Really?’d, and you’re found out. She pokes her head out of the door, and you look up just in time to catch her look, just in time to be caught by it, surprised. There is something in her glance you cannot put your hoof on. It surprises you, delights you, thrills you. Scares you. In an instant you are filled with maybes. Futures and presents and possibilities that flutter to be grasped, held and nurtured in that gaze.
‘Whath?’
You say nothing. Click.
Instead she begins to explain her new plans. She is older. Minutes, decades. Explaining carefully ideas for tour 17. The retirement tour, she’s taken to calling it. Though how much retirement will be left, after all this is paid for, is anypony’s guess. You sit across from her and listen. You sense your mind drifting. No! Yes, like so: and you take up your camera, capture the image, lower it down. You seal the moment away. Quite safely.
A line from the past makes its way to your head: ‘You think you know me, but you don’t.’ Probably it was shouted, once, but you can’t be certain. Memory has leached it of all expression. You are no longer sure what connection, if any, it has to the image of a bandage white against grey grass.
Cannonflight dancing the edge of destruction.
Laughing at straight-backed S P I T F I R E ! sternness.
Aftershow striding across for a picture.
Lazing about above it all and further.
Sunrise workout wings spectacular.
Flying towards the camera, about to escape. Any minute, about to break free. One second longer...
After three months, the whole exhibition is packed up in days. Ponies come in with ladders and suction cups and screwdrivers, stripping the walls of image after image. Frames are packed in boxes, sent to storage. Photos sold to collectors, hanging on the walls of strangers, slowly forgotten. Ink fades. Paper, too. Photos turn to dust.