I’m reading The Uses of Photography by Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie. It’s a joint memoire that mixes text with photographs made during their time together to reflect on the transience of life and passion. The photographs were taken on film and Ernaux describes their ceremonial reveal.
‘There was a delay of one or several weeks (the time it took to finish the film and bring it to the Photo Service for development) between our taking the photos and viewing them for the first time, which was done according to a ritual:
the person who went to collect the prints was not allowed to open the packet;
both of us had to be sitting on the sofa, side by side, with a drink in front of us and a CD playing in the background; and
the photos were to be removed from the envelope one at a time and viewed by both of us.’