RE: [Leica] Re: Rob &BD

["Phong" <phong@doan-ltd.com>]

Very, very well said, B.D.   It really is about
being "fair and balanced" to me, not about
avoiding image manipulation, which issue is more
between the photographer and the editor.

- - Phong


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of B. D. Colen
> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 11:03 AM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: RE: [Leica] Re: Rob &BD
>
>
> What you lay out here sounds pretty standard, in terms of a tweak here
> and tweak there in order to be able to get the shot; nothing that alters
> the 'reality' of the situation.
>
> I would also not suggest that your not wanting to 'pander' to western
> preconceptions makes the work propaganda - hopefully it makes it
> balanced. As long as the work includes the poverty, etc., that IS part
> of the scene - and it certainly does - then it seems to me is that you
> are documenting the reality of these people's lives, rather than
> capturing nothing but the poverty and filth - which would be its own
> form of propaganda.
>
> Once again, I would simply say that our obligation as
> journalists/documentarians, IF that is how we see ourselves, is to be
> honest in our reporting, to be what Fox is not - 'fair and balanced,'
> balanced in the sense of showing all aspects of the situation - which in
> the case of City of Crows means showing the 'positive' along with the
> negative that's always shown.
>
> Many years ago I wrote a lengthy feature about a couple of racist nuts
> who were home schooling their kids in Prince George's County, MD,
> outside D.C. This was in the days shortly after forced integration of
> the schools through busing, and these delightful ladies were teaching
> their kids - using McGufee's Readers - in one of their basements to
> avoid having their kids in the integrated schools.
>
> There is NO question that I thought these women were nuts, and evil nuts
> at that. And I spent the day with them well aware of my feelings. I
> wrote a long, colorful piece,which was almost entirely direct quotes,
> along with some physical description and scene setting.
>
> When the piece ran the next day, most of my friends in the newsroom
> thought I had really 'done a number' on my subjects - made them look
> like the racist knownothings they were. But my subjects LOVED the piece.
> They literally said it was the the only fair piece they had ever read in
> the Post, a paper they basically saw as taking its editorial direction
> from the Kremlin.;-)
>
> Why did they love the piece? They loved it because I quoted them
> accurately, and in context, and let them, in effect, tell their own
> story. Why did my friends think I'd done a number on my subject? They
> thought that because I quoted them accurately, and in context, and let
> them tell their own story.:-)
>
> I would suggest that doing photo reporting involves making the same
> kinds of moves - accurately recording what you see, making sure that you
> have the images necessary to tell the whole story you see before you. If
> you do that, you are being fair and honest - whatever your intent in
> telling the story. Because you are letting the story tell itself.
>
> Does that make sense?
>
> B. D.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Rob
> Appleby
> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 1:59 AM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Rob &BD
>
>
> > I think the current discussion is great. OK: Rob how much did you
> > maneuver stuff? Still love it, just want to know.
>
> The most I would do would be to ask people to move a bit for light, move
> out of the way, extend an activity they are already doing if I didn't
> get it and thought it was valuable, or maybe ask them to reschedule an
> activity if it wasn't a problem for them, they were going to do it
> anyway, and I wouldn't be able to photograph it if they didn't.
>
> For example, there is a picture - I don't know if it is online - in City
> of Crows of a woman cooking while two children watch TV. The situation
> here was that the room was crowded with furniture, and more and more
> children kept coming into the room in order to be in the shot. So I
> moved a couple of stools out of the way so as to get as far back for the
> 24 as possible and stopped more kids coming in and giggling and pointing
> at me.
>
> Another example is the picture of the beauty parlour. I was sent there
> by a contact, but it was closed that day. I was talking to the girl who
> runs it and she said that her sister had to go to a party that evening
> and if I wanted she could pluck her eyebrows in the beauty parlour
> instead of at home, or I could come the next day. I couldn't make it for
> the next day, so she very kindly helped me out in this way. I thought it
> was important to show a beauty parlour in the slum, and the activity was
> going to take place anyway.
>
> Finally, to address the situation that upset Tina: if a couple is
> playing with their baby and they're doing it in the darkest corner of
> the room so that I'm stuck at a 1/2 a second exposure, I might ask them
> if they could just move over to the doorstep into the light. The other
> alternative would be to use flash. Actually this has never happened, but
> using flash in such a situation would ruin the ambience much more than
> asking them to move if they don't mind doing so.
>
> I contend that this is the sort of thing photographers do all the time,
> even though they may not even be aware of doing it as a form of
> manipulation of the situation as John Collier pointed out. I certainly
> don't see how it turns documentary into propaganda, and it certainly has
> no effect on the emotional or aesthetic content of the picture - or on
> its "truth".
>
> As another example, is using flash less "true" than making do with dodgy
> light? After all, most people don't have flashguns going off in their
> rooms all the time. In City of Crows there are maybe three or four
> pictures shot with flash - are those therefore propagandistic?
>
> Sure, I did City of Crows with certain ideas in mind, about the
> misrepresentation of lower class Indian urban life in the media and the
> emerging middle class reality of the slums, and I consciously avoided
> emphasising aspects which would pander to western preconceptions about
> poverty and disease as the normal condition of such places, although
> some pictures do show drug addicts, ragpickers, and quite poor people. I
> had an agenda, partly to correct or give an alternative view of this
> "reality". I had in mind, for instance, Salgado's clichéd shots of the
> same place, and Hernando de Soto's critique of the black economy. So to
> that extent this is a form of propaganda. But I would suggest that
> Tina's pictures are equally propagandistic in the sense that they
> reflect her view of the situation she is photographing.
>
> -- Rob
>
> http://www.robertappleby.com
> Mobile: (+39) 348 336 7990
> Home: (+39) 0536 63001
>
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>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Roy Feldman" <royfphoto@aol.com>
> To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 10:24 PM
> Subject: [Leica] Re: Rob &BD
>
>
> > After all the junk that is talked about here, Rob and BD are having
> > private conversations about photography ethics? We get Tilly hats and
> > you two are actually talking about things that matter? I can't believe
>
> > that two of the greatest minds in photography today (well perhaps a
> > bit of a stretch) don't include us on that stuff and save us from the
> > 'If I put a leica lens on a canon digital am I still in the club?"
> > stuff. I think the current discussion is great. OK: Rob how much did
> > you maneuver stuff? Still love it, just want to know.
> > Roy Feldman
> >
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