[Leica] New Yorker - Now literalism

[bdcolen at MIT.EDU (B D Colen)]

Richard Taylor observed that the Gladwell New Yorker article while 
interesting,
had nothing to tell us about "Leica photography" because, after all, unless a
photo is an abstract, we can look at it and instantly know what it's about 
and
what's going on...Which leads me to observe....
-------


Ah, but let's here it for the literal minded! 
Richard, surely you aren't suggesting that photographs of people and 
situations
- 1/2 to 1/8000th of a second slices of reality - can't be interpreted many
different ways by many different observers? We all bring to our observation 
of
every photograph our entire life experience - and all our life experiences 
are
different. A group of us can look at the same photo and come up with either
slightly, or widely varying interpretations of the scene before us. Last 
spring
at the end of each week's class I'd show my students a photograph and ask 
they
to write the first 250 words of a short story based on what they saw - the
variation in what they came up with was astounding. Granted, they were
reaching, but go to Bill Clough's PAW - I believe for '03, but it might be 
'02,
to see Madison.

The bottom line for me is that without ambivalence, it's the incredibly rare
street photo or public scene - non-news photo - that's worth the time it 
takes
to even look at it.

B. D.