“What quality fascinates and entrances me in the photographs I love? I believe it is this: for me, photography in some way captures The Last Judgement; it represents the world as it appears on the last day, the Day of Wrath. It is, of course, not a question of subject matter. I don't mean that the photographs I love are ones that represent something grave, serious, or even tragic. The photo can show any face, any object or any event whatever. This is the case with photographers… who practice what could be called photographic flânerie: walking without any goal and photographing everything that happens. But “everything that happens” – the faces of two women riding bicycles in Scotland, a shop window in Paris – is called forth, summoned to appear on Judgement Day.”
Profanations: Chapter 3 Judgement Day
Giorgio Agamben