RE: [Leica] Documentary photography - pj

["m" <matteo1970@fish.co.jp>]

mr Colen, 

your distinction between work made on assignment 
and personal work, is dangerously close -- for me --
to the criticism (by many, even by other PJ's like
Donna Ferrato for example) that Salgado makes a lot
of money selling his work and that's bad because
he shoots dirt-poor people. (Following this line,
Leicas and costly N- and C- digital cameras should be
banned too, "you photograph the poor with a 10,000
bucks equipment -- then everybody will work with Holgas
and Cardboard instant cameras...)

I think that we have to look at the image, just that.
I don't care about FDR's administration for requesting
images of poverty, I want to look at the image: 
is it good? bad? sincere? has it been staged? (like
the anti-Capa slander put to rest by Whelan's book)

You mentioned Peress. He said this: 
"Let me tell you something about my conception 
of the process of photography. Which is that 
in any photograph there is something like four authors. 
There is me, who makes some amount of decision. 
And there is reality, and reality always speaks 
very, very powerfully. And then there is the camera, 
who- which- the camera always does something, you know.
And then there is the viewer. 
So that's in a way is really the beauty of the process, 
which is that it's really open text 
in the sense that you are the other half 
of the text. It is not closed text. 
It is not me telling you what 
you should think or feel". 

These are words of huge wisdom, which I always try
to remember when looking at photojournalism.

Ms Manley, I agree with you, incremental change
is possible -- even tho I understand all to well
mr Colen's skepticism).
Audrey Hepburn, as goodwill ambassador for UNICEF
said:
"Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles 
is not a realist. I have seen the miracle
of water which UNICEF has helped 
to make a reality. 
Where for centuries young girls and women 
had to walk for miles to get water, 
now they have clean drinking water 
near their homes. 
Water is life, and clean water now 
means health for the children of this village".

Now I'm getting off my soapbox, don't worry.
But try to understand: I confess I'm a sucker
for Evans, and Frank, and Capa, and Nachtwey.
And for my friend, the late Raffaele Ciriello,
(his amazing work is still on line at
http://www.ciriello.com/site/index.html )


thanks,

matteo

Matteo Persivale
Milan, Italy
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