I hate cameras. They interfere, they're always in the way. I

Host: The studio was almost silent except for the faint hum of the lights.
A single spotlight cut through the darkness, landing on a blank backdrop — stark, endless, white.
The air smelled faintly of film, developer, and the slow burn of electric cables.
Dust drifted lazily through the light, like the ghosts of old portraits refusing to leave.

Jack sat behind the camera, his hands resting on the tripod, fingers tense — not with focus, but frustration.
Jeeny stood by the wall, her arms crossed, watching him. Her eyes followed the way his shoulders hunched forward, like a man at war with the thing he claimed to love.

Jeeny: “Richard Avedon once said, ‘I hate cameras. They interfere, they’re always in the way. I wish: if I could work with my eyes alone.’”
Her voice was calm, reflective, yet beneath it there was that gentle heat of curiosity.
Jeeny: “Strange, isn’t it? The man who changed photography — wishing he could see without the very tool that made him famous.”

Jack: without looking up “Not strange at all. Every artist ends up hating their instrument. It’s the middleman — the thing between you and truth.”

Host: The light flickered slightly. The camera lens gleamed, catching the faint reflection of Jack’s face, his eyes sharp but weary.
A small click echoed as he adjusted the focus ring, though there was no subject to capture.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that what art is — mediation? The translation of what you feel into something the world can see?”

Jack: “And in that translation, everything gets corrupted.”
He finally looked at her. “Avedon knew that. The camera lies. It flatters, distorts, dramatizes. You point it at someone and pretend you’re capturing truth — but all you’re doing is choosing which lie to tell.”

Jeeny: softly “And yet you still use it.”

Jack: “Because it’s the only weapon I’ve got.”

Host: The silence between them was thick, charged — like static before lightning.
A fly buzzed near the light. Jack’s jaw tightened as he turned the camera toward Jeeny. The metal creaked under his touch.

Jeeny: “You think truth is that fragile? That a lens can destroy it?”

Jack: “Truth isn’t fragile. People are. They can’t stand to be seen.”

Jeeny: “You’re not talking about them.”

Jack: pauses “No. I’m not.”

Host: Jeeny moved closer, the light catching the edge of her face — half illuminated, half shadow.
She looked directly into the lens, unflinching.

Jeeny: “So what are you afraid of, Jack? The camera — or your own reflection in it?”

Jack: “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Jeeny. I just want to see clearly, without all this… machinery. Without glass and focus and framing. Just the eyes, raw.”

Jeeny: “But that’s the problem. You think seeing is enough. You think vision equals truth. It doesn’t. Avedon didn’t hate cameras because they lied — he hated them because they couldn’t feel.”

Jack: “Feeling gets in the way of precision.”

Jeeny: “And precision kills empathy.”

Host: Her words landed like quiet thunder.
Jack stepped back from the camera. His shadow stretched long against the white backdrop, taller than him — distorted, exaggerated, inescapable.

Jack: “So what, you want emotion over honesty?”

Jeeny: “No. I want honesty that includes emotion.”

Jack: “That’s impossible. The moment you feel something, you distort it.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe distortion is truth. Maybe the blur, the grain, the imperfection — that’s where life lives.”

Host: A faint tremor of music filtered through the walls — a forgotten jazz record playing in the next room. The melody was fractured, haunting, like the echo of something unfinished.

Jack: “Avedon didn’t want to work with cameras because he wanted control. Eyes are pure. Cameras are compromise.”

Jeeny: “Eyes are biased. They see what they want. At least cameras give us a frame to question what we think we see.”

Jack: “So you trust the machine more than the man?”

Jeeny: “No. I trust the dialogue between them.”

Host: The light dimmed, then steadied. A long moment passed — the kind that stretches like eternity in creative spaces.
Jack’s hand hovered over the shutter. His breath slowed.

Jeeny: “Take the picture.”

Jack: quietly “Why?”

Jeeny: “Because you’re hiding behind not taking it.”

Host: The click of the camera echoed like a gunshot in an empty church.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The flash burned the room white, then faded into soft darkness again.
Jeeny blinked, her eyes wet but steady. Jack stared at the result on the digital screen — her face, vulnerable, unposed, almost defiant.

Jack: “You weren’t supposed to look like that.”

Jeeny: “Like what?”

Jack: “Like you already knew what I’d see.”

Host: He turned the camera around. The image on the screen was harsh — shadows cutting across her features, eyes gleaming with something deeper than confidence.
It wasn’t beauty. It was truth — the kind too sharp to hang on a gallery wall.

Jeeny: “See? The camera didn’t interfere. You did.”

Jack: bitterly “And what am I supposed to do with that?”

Jeeny: “Learn to forgive the distance between what you see and what you capture.”

Host: The sound of the rain outside began to grow — soft, rhythmic, a kind of mercy falling from the ceiling of the world. The studio felt smaller, warmer.
Jack put the camera down. His hands trembled slightly, the adrenaline fading, replaced by something quieter.

Jack: “You ever think that’s why he said it — Avedon, I mean? Maybe he didn’t want to stop using cameras. Maybe he just wanted the world to stop getting in the way of what he felt.”

Jeeny: “Maybe he wanted to love his subjects without the barrier of looking at them.”

Jack: “That’s dangerous.”

Jeeny: “So is art.”

Host: She smiled faintly, then stepped toward him. For a second, she reached out — not to touch, but to trace the air between his face and the camera, the invisible line that divides observer and observed.

Jeeny: “Every lens is a wall, Jack. But sometimes, if you look long enough… the wall starts looking back.”

Jack: whispering “And what happens then?”

Jeeny: “Then you stop photographing. You start seeing.”

Host: The camera sat quietly between them, a silent witness to everything unsaid. The light above flickered one last time before fading, leaving only the faint glow of dawn through the window.
Outside, the world waited — unframed, unfiltered, raw.

And for the first time, Jack looked up from the machine — and saw.