Singing to Life（生命之歌）-Pedro Meyer（我花了四小時翻譯成中文請用心品嚐謝謝）－friendray的部落格

圖：January 2009 © Pedro Meyer / the credit for me from ZoneZero

圖：中文版網頁（http://zonezero.com/editorial/enero09/january09_chino.php）

原文出處：http://www.zonezero.com/

A few days ago Nadia and I went to visit her grandfather who is 94 years old and lives with his new girlfriend, Blanca, in a retirement home for the elderly, near Mexico City. As we were leaving the home were they live with about another hundred elderly people, I came across the lovely lady in the picture sitting on a small chair across from the entrance door.
幾天前我跟Nadia一起去拜訪了她九十四歲的阿公，他跟他的新女友Blanca住在一間墨西哥附近專門為老人設立的退休之家，裡面大概有一百多位老人家住在一起。當我們要離開時我遇見了這張照片中可愛的小姐，她正坐在門口對面的一張小椅子上。

Upon seeing her I felt I was looking at something very special which I had to photograph, I took the picture without understanding my motives. I still had no clear idea, why this person who I did not even know, caught my attention so much. But after studying the image, and looking at it for a while, I discovered what my fascination was all about.
在看到她之後我覺得我好像正在看著一件非常特別的事情，並且覺得我一定要把她拍下來，所以我在還不清楚原因的狀況下就拍下了這張照片。我仍然不清楚我的想法是什麼，為什麼這個我完全不認識的人會這麼吸引我的注意。但是在仔細研究過這張影像並且看著它一陣子後，我發現了我為什麼這麼迷戀它的原因。

I concluded that indeed the way she looked was a song to life. On the one hand, women be they elderly or young, often like to dress in black while this woman was dressed as a rainbow that seemed to come from the palette of a painter. Where women usually flee from being photographed at the slightest wrinkle or blemish on their skin, this woman smiled to me with a great inner peace and joy, making me feel that it was quite all right for me to take a picture of her. She looked happy and the wrinkles on her face were just the outcome of a face that had seen quite a lot of life. All her makeup while imperfect in execution, was yet another testimony that what was important was how she felt as a person rather than the tidiness of how the makeup was applied, all of this judging by how she looked at me through those blue-green eyes with such a fixed gaze.
我覺得她的樣子就是一首讚頌生命的歌！一方面來說，不管是年輕或年老的女人都喜歡把自己打扮成黑色，但是她卻把自己打扮成像是從畫家的調色盤出現的一道彩虹。另一方面，通常女人都會避免被拍下自己皮膚上一絲絲的皺紋或者疤痕，但這女人卻對著我擺出最平靜且喜悅的微笑，讓我覺得我拍她是沒有關係的。她看起來很快樂，臉上的皺紋對她來說只是一個這麼多年來看過許許多多生命的結果。她的化妝雖然並不完美，但卻是另一個證據顯示她覺得重要的事情是身為一個人的存在而不是表面上的化妝有多完美，這些判斷都是由她如何用那對漂亮的藍綠色眼睛，有自信的凝視著我的鏡頭而產生的。

I felt that the photograph was the perfect contradiction of everything that is desirable in society today in the manner women are depicted. From the perfect skin to the immaculate makeup, leaving on the wayside how women feel or even their own welfare. With the familiar claim that through digital means all traces of a full life can be prompty eliminated.
我覺得這張照片完美的說明了在現代社會中對於女性渴望的事物中的矛盾，從她們渴望擁有完美無瑕的皮膚到鬼斧神工的化妝，往往被遺棄在路邊的卻是自己真實的感受與健康。在相似的情況下，隨著數位的到來意味著所有生命的痕跡都可以輕易的被抹去。

The problem is that at a certain stage in life, caring for all these aesthetic details, can be the difference between getting a job or not, as an actress, model or an executive, or even the votes as a politician. Or the approval of a boyfriend over the internet. The public image seems to be all that matters.
問題是在生命中的某些階段，注重這些美麗的細節可以決定你能不能得到一份工作，像是一位女演員、一位模特兒或者高級主管，甚至是一位需要選票的政客。或者要在網路上交男朋友，公眾形象似乎成為唯一重要的事。

However, there is a time in life where everything changes, when we allow our wrinkles to be seen without any apparent problem or consequence. I think it is not a problem of age, but the conviction that we might have at whatever age it is, that appearances are just that, appearances.
不論如何，在生命中會有一個時刻將改變一切，我們開始允許臉上的皺紋被別人看見而不會產生任何心理上的問題及恐懼。我認為那不是年紀大小的問題，而是一種無論在人生任何階段都可以產生的信念，「外表」對於你來說，開始就只是「外表」而已。

I am sure that the irony will not escape you, that in these times where so much is discussed about the truthfulness of the photographic image, most people do not even want to see the truth, they prefer to live in a world of appearances.
我很確定你躲不過這種諷刺，現在這個時代一張照片的真實度一直被大量討論著，但大多數人卻根本不想看見真實，他們寧願活在一個充滿「外表」的世界。

（中文翻譯：徐聖淵 / CHINESE TRANSLATOR：HSU,SHENG-YUAN）