[Leica] When in doubt ask photographer

[pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein)]

I was wondering when someone would bring the Heisenberg uncertainty 
principle into the discussion.  :-)

I appreciate Jessica Dimmock's work.  From her own response to George, it 
seems that she does things much as Tina does--hangs out with the people she 
photographs, is accepted, and then takes pictures.  She may interact with 
the subjects more, but so do many other photographers. If she is not 
causing the subjects to do what they would not normally do, the photographs 
are not lying.  The problem might come if she gets too involved with them 
and they start playing to her, but this is even a problem in spot news.  I 
sense this in some of her pictures, but not all. This isn't Gonzo, it's 
just her way and her point of view.

Ask yourselves, why do some of us find these photographs a bit distasteful, 
but think 50s and 60s photos of heroin addicts are great examples of 
documentary photography?  Remember the Life magazine story about the young 
couple who were heroin addicts?  The photographer got involved with them, 
too.  I think it's partially that black and white makes the photos more 
abstract. It's partially generational.  And it's partially that this 
woman's style makes us look at the subjects in grainy color that looks like 
shots from somebody's late-night party.  Except that the photos are from a 
dingy apartment on the fringes of hell.  And today, we don't shrink from 
showing the most degrading stuff, whereas 30-50 years ago, the worst would 
have been self-censored by the photographer, or by the editor.

Somebody mentioned Kyle, and I was thinking, "why do many of us enjoy 
Kyle's stuff, but the same people don't like Jessica Dimmock's?"  In most 
of Kyle's stuff, there's a sense of playfulness and irony that buffers the 
subject matter.  Jessica lays it all out there, and the only filter seems 
to be that we get a sense of how she feels about it. That used to be called 
being a "concerned photographer."  It may not be the Magnum 1950s way of 
doing things, but it's valid.

--Peter

At 11:46 AM 1/12/2008 -0800, Michiel wrote:
>In physics you have the same phenomena. The result of the experiment is
>different because one does the experiment.