Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/10/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I'm very keen to see your documentary work. Now, before I decide to buy a book filled with these images, I would much like you to post some sample shots. Could you be so kind, Sir? Thanks for showing, Philippe Op 26-okt-07, om 09:09 heeft Marc James Small het volgende geschreven: > At 02:17 AM 10/26/2007, Mark Rabiner wrote: > > > >I agree where Slobodan is coming from I think but to avoid > ongoing purely > >philosophical pointless verbal points when talking about a visual > art form > >why not have a URL at the end of your emails, Marty like most of > us do now > >in this day and age (of walk the walk as well as talk the talk), > pointing to > >website gallery stuff. Uploads. Texas Tea. Swimming pools, movie > stars. > > Stuff we can look at other than Times new roman to see if the > writer knows > >what a properly balanced image looks like? I'm sure Marty does but > I'd just > >like to see so I have a ground of reference while reading emails. > Something > >to click on when the words get thick. > > Dear heavens, Mark! How deeply I disagree. Allow me to point out > some things. > > First, I haven't the foggiest idea of how to set up a website and I > really doubt that I'd be interested in doing so if I knew. I > might, but, then, I probably would not. I spent a half hour n the > telephone this evening with my son trying to convince me to use > Craig's List to sell a sofa, as he had done. He probably could > tell me how to set up a website but to what end? That would just > cut into the time I am now going to have to spend on Craig's List, > and this after I have finally managed to quit paying attention to > eBay. Gimme a break: I may be retired but I am trying to apply > some more "Times New Roman" script to a few books I am back at > writing. > > Second, I just do not see photography as some sort of gushing > display of perfection intended for public consumption. I take > pictures for my own pleasure not for the delectation of complete > strangers. This is my work. It is not a public art form. My wife > paints but she does not put on shows and she does not do murals on > large public buildings. She paints and she shows her paintings to > a select group of friends and family. And that is it. She is > happy. I take pictures. Over the past twenty years, I have taken > a lot of pictures. This is my work, and I really do not care if > anyone else feels that I have achieved some sort of mystical > "properly balanced image". My only critics on this work are a very > select number and that number is often just me: some of the shots > I have made which my wife or my son dislike are ones I like, and so > be it. I am a majority of one. I shall never win the Pulitzer > Prize but that is my choice. > > Third, I have taken very few pictures over the past six or seven > years and almost all of those shot within that time are documentary > shots of camera details for researchers or of items for sale or the > like. For that matter, I have about ten or fifteen rolls of film > stacked up to get processed someday, and I've just not had the urge > to take care of this. At the same time, I have a huge archive of > shots taken before this, most during the 1990's. Many are on > slides, and more are in black and white or C-41 prints. Going > through these is an unholy bitch: it took me until five in the AM > the other night to go through the first box I opened, one of twenty > boxes or so of chromes. (Almost all are happy snaps of family > affairs -- my son must have grown up thinking that I had a camera > lens instead of eyes.) It took me a LONG time and I didn't find a > shot there that I see as having anything save transient value to > those involved -- I have a shot of Ron Salmons working a Roanoke > camera show, and a picture of Pati Timmermann swimming at Cave > Mountain Lake and the like, but why would you folks give a hoot? I > have box after box beyond this to investigate but almost all will > be the same. How many of you really want to see my son bobbing > about with his mask and fins on at age 12? He is 25 now possibly > would want the shot destroyed. It has no artistic value. > > I do a very small number of shots beyond this but almost all are of > camera gear for researchers -- as I have suggested before, those > who are REALLY interested in reviewing those parts of my > photographic work which I find most satisfactory should buy my > books, as I took most of the pictures in THE ZEISS COMPENDIUM and > all but a very few in A 39mm DIVERSITY. Or come and visit me: if > I like you, I may dig out some framed shots of which I am > especially happy. Mark, I know you and like you, and so, when you > come, I certainly will share a few shots with you. Hell, you can > see them all, if you want to spend five or six days prowling > through boxes of slides or unprinted negatives. Just do not expect > me to go to the effort of scanning this archive of shots > meaningless to those outside my circle and then sharing them with > those to whom they must just be so much boring tripe.. > > Fourth, it has been said that only close friends really know how to > eat their own dead. A lot of you do this and in spades. Someone > posts a shot to some site. One of two things happens. Either we > get 49 gushy, "great shot, George" responses or we get 174 messages > tearing the picture down without providing a lot of helpful > commentary. The helpful level of either set of responses is > generally pretty low. > > Fifth, I am one of those you deride for talking through "Times New > Roman" instead of by showing you my pictures. Shucks, would you be > happier if I used some other font? I have hundreds from which to > choose, but I just happen to like Times New Roman. In the end, I > am a word person interested in photography and its processes and > history and quirks. That fits me and those like me into this List, > whether or not we choose to share our pictures to the rest of the > world. And, yes, Times New Roman is the font with which I am > writing my future books ... and, if I get around to finishing my > book on the history of the Leica M, I will probably take a lot of > the pictures myself and will thus share this small part of my photo > heritage with a broader world, those few who would buy the book. > > Marc > > > msmall@aya.yale.edu > Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir! > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >