So, we have to make another move that takes us even further away from what cinema is. We have to figure out what a snapshot is, and then understand how a snapshot returns to itself again, thus gaining a new, objective life. So I propose that in order to get closer to the cinema, you have to go further by roundabout ways. Moreover, the way to approach cinema is to move away from the subject of cinema. I propose to return from cinema, or (re)return from cinema to a place where cinema is hypostasised in its possibility.

Bergson once said that Eidos is a snapshot. But we can ask what is the difference between a snapshot and Eidos, if we understand a snapshot as a record of what is, and Eidos as the principle of its formation? A snapshot captures the real, while eidos gives reality to the given. A picture depends on the object of the picture, while the formation of the object is determined by Eidos. Thus, Eidos gives and takes picture, but both are images. Eidos is the source of itself, it is a pure image. Eidos is constitutive of matter, which is itself (without) image. In short, Eidos forms reality. But Eidos is something beyond the world, preceding the world of things. Therefore, the image of a thing is only an echo of the proto-image, the great Eidos. When we take a picture of a thing, thereby revealing in it an imaginative (thought), we only imitate what has already been (c)created. If the world was created by the descent of eidos, then pictures of things are something fake, an imitation of the original. In a world where the world constructs itself, where man has found the source of a priori knowledge in himself, the snapshot and the creation of an image function as an Eidos, but an immanent one, deprived of the privilege of being the beginning, the principle, the Arche. The creation of images in such a world is therefore also self-creation, (self-)education.

Furthermore, it is clear that only the image can have meaning, that is, selfhood. But can meaning be without an image, be (un)figurative? Meaning is at least something complete, something that has found itself in itself. But where completion, there is a boundary, and where there is a boundary, there is a form - the formalized boundary is the image. (This means that the figurative is present even in thinking, where the sensual is given only in a ghostly way, as an evaporation). 

In this way, a clear picture (as an immanent Eidos) releases and illuminates the genealogy of the image in a new light. But how does the image appear and function?

A snapshot taken from reality can be developed on photographic paper, but it can also be displayed on a screen. A picture is always determined by the "point" of shooting, the position. The position taken determines the situation, that is, the way I, what is here, relate to something that is out there, not here. In this situation, presence in the world is individualized. Individuation is a process of acquiring the non-identical, it is ultimately a way of producing differences. Taking a picture means manifesting a situation (individual presence). But a snapshot only captures a moment. Although the shooting itself continues, the snapshot, by freezing, immobilizes what is being shot (fills it with emptiness). Here, reality is given without time, that is, it is all "in the now" (in the "where", that is, in some place, now is a place, not time), in the moment. One can imagine a snapshot of "everything" in the universe in this one "now". It is clear that in the now there can be no separation, no discontinuity, no emptiness, because the now is emptiness. There is "everything" and "at once". A snapshot in a situation, that is, a relative snapshot, is therefore also "at once", but "not everything". Such a snapshot is something inside the world that fills the world with multiple, actual positions, relations "between". 

It can also be said that a photograph is a frozen image, an image of the world. The difference between man and the world, among other things, is that the world "knows" only itself, while man knows himself in the world and the world in him. This means that the possibility of measurement, boundaries, and therefore and time, while the world always exists in eternity, in the eternal "now".

As I said earlier, a snapshot is the realization of a position, it is the fixation of a direction. A photograph is the "now" of a directed vision. Here I am standing on a bridge and looking at the river flowing slowly. I am here, this is somewhere that rests against "this", the flowing river. I take out my Leica, squint my left eye, and my right eye keeps going, through the four-angle viewfinder, to the river flow. I squeeze the shutter release. A click. The aperture opened for a moment and slammed shut again. I measured out an equal portion of light so that reality would appear on the photosensitive film as it appears to my eye, with all the contrasting transitions, shades, colors and lines. The light transferred the visible reality to the film. Or, to put it another way: light has left its mark on a material that is sensitive to it. For example, the river only reflects the sky, but does not preserve the reflection. The river changes along with the sky, they exist synchronously. Photographic film, on the other hand, makes it possible to preserve the moment captured. This means that the light trace here takes on a life of its own, no longer synchronized with reality. Preservation means at the same time holding on to what is happening, i.e. snatching the moment with the help of light, which is the measure of time, of the reality that is permeated by it. Holding on to reality through photography is also a step towards intervening in the flow of natural impermanence. The image as a result of shooting, by stopping (or breaking) the pro-going, opens up the "now", this dimensionless moment that continues in itself. Once again, if we "observe" what is happening (if we do "see" what we are looking at), then we are synchronized with what is, i.e. we are (in this case visually) interacting with what is happening. This means that the openness of reality is actualised through our perception. We are like a river for the sky. But the event/image we remember can come back to us. The return of what has been perceived is memory. For a person, time arises thanks to this return, memory. Memory, by remembering, connects the completed with what is in the process of becoming, what has become and is "now-presented-to-me". If perception presents, memory represents. A camera is also something that represents. Therefore, we can say that a photograph is an objectified memory; this, in turn, means that the camera (like memory) is a mechanism for creating time, given that photographs (something painted with light and preserved on film) will be recognised as something that "was", as something that has already passed and is only like this, taken.

Here is a photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson. This picture was taken by the master of the situation, in Mexico (Oaxaca). Bresson is a master of the situation, which means that Bresson can capture the peak of the situation. The peak of the situation is when objects/events are arranged (or unfold) in such a way that new events (connections, associations, contexts) are born from this arrangement (always fleeting). That is, if we capture the moment when objects are arranged in a certain way, then this type of connection (arrangement) itself creates something on top of (a new layer or plane of) what is already given. This is how the potential of the world of objects is revealed.

There are at least two types of arrangement of objects during photography. The first type of arrangement is chosen by the artist on the basis of proportionality in search of a harmonious relationship. Here, the objects should form a balanced or unbalanced whole. Here, the artist is looking for a point of view from which what is revealed refers to something whole, recognisable as beautiful or ugly, to the sublime and the lowly. The composition is constructed in such a way so that the image emerges only when contemplating the arrangement of objects. That is, the image here is always a whole of parts arranged in one way or another, which fully serve this whole. 

Another way is that the arrangement of objects (in their dynamics or in their static) is captured so that the objects (in one way or another relating to each other) do not "represent" something, but continue to give rise to images from themselves. In the first case, the images/parts seem to be assembled, the artist is active here; in the second case, the artist only peeps at the objects, which at certain moments combine in such a way that they give rise to new images. In the latter case, the artist acts as a hunter. For such an artist, the images "already" exist, and they need to be tracked down and caught up, filmed, but filmed at a certain moment, because they will immediately escape him in the illegibility (ugliness) of what is happening. Thus, Bresson is a master of the situation, a master who allows the parts to develop independently (he is looking for this creative dimension of reality), that is, such an interaction that they themselves begin to produce new parts. Of course, for the artist, these parts are in this way some autonomous whole. This means that for Bresson, the photograph represents a certain multiplicity, but a dynamic multiplicity, because in his photographs we can see (follow with our eyes) how the independent parts of the photograph create images from themselves, from their internal communication, from a certain position to each other.

In the black-and-white rectangular image, we see first of all a massive column (in the Doric style) and steps that rise above the middle of the image and then turn, presumably to go further up. Light and shadow divide the image exactly diagonally, from the lower left to the upper right. Behind the column, we see the back of a woman, and on the steps above, a human shadow (probably a teenager), which seems to be descending the stairs (which are not visible). Only the shadow is present on the stairs, the person is still hidden. While downstairs, near the column, the person is given, but only partially, from the back. A game begins between the woman by the column and the shadow on the steps - the images come to life, they are no longer indifferent to each other. How much is there about a person. It seems that much about his essence is revealed here. A person here is the result of a game between light and shadow. The shadow of a person is a midday dream on a bright day, while the person himself (from the back) is always "this", "something there", behind the column. Perhaps this game between light and shadow, which is outlined by a simple, verified symmetry, refers to a certain duality of human existence? We come out of the shadows, we reveal ourselves only as a pure presence in the world and leave without ever meeting the world (face to face). There is no human face in the picture, we don't make eye contact. At the top there is only a hint, only a sketch of a person who can only become, embodied. At the bottom, we see a person who may be hiding from the scorching sun. It is impossible to withstand the appearance of being. Man is a dream of the shadow, the ancients said. Perhaps, the situation did not arrange the objects in the picture by chance, and the Doric column here is a sacred sign that the being that came out of the shadow will be burned without protection, without a pillar... without culture. The Doric column is a sign of great culture. You can see that the objects in Bresson's photograph have an internal dynamics. In a static picture, we can see a live movement of images. That's why Bresson's work is something between (photo)graphy and (cinematic) graphy.