Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/01/13

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Subject: [Leica] When in doubt ask photographer
From: leica at rcmckee.com (R. Clayton McKee)
Date: Sun Jan 13 09:49:45 2008
References: <C3AF0A5A.83F4F%mark@rabinergroup.com>, <0JUL0049ZBZ43D10@l-daemon>

Quoth the Ted Grant :
> 
> "Our responsibility during a documentary is let the subjects always
> do their
> thing. And it's our responsibility to find pictures within what they
> are doing without direction nor posing."
> 
> And it's as simple as that and be there in body but not influence.


Texas Monthly magazine used to rate the legislators after every 
session (Molly Ivins always had fun with that).

They had three categories:  The Best, The Worst, and the Furniture.

I've always aimed for "Furniture" when working.  I'm not ever going 
to lose enough weight to get to "invisible" and nobody's ever going 
to be able to look through me to see what's on the other side unless 
my head's turned and you can look through my ears, but in some 
fashion appropriate to the moment, I CAN become a presence of no 
importance to the action taking place, and simply not be a focus of 
my subjects'  attention.  Depending on the dynamic, I'm either a 
poorly designed and overlarge hatrack,  or simply another member of 
the group that nobody's really noticed before (and whose absence will 
not be remarked after).  It's not at all uncommon that when I pull 
back from a group before leaving, the first person to become aware 
that I'm packing up or opening the door will ask when I'm going to 
come back to actually shoot pictures...  or will be utterly 
astonished that I'm still there at all.

If people have something else to focus on that's more effectively 
absorbing than the photographer, then as long as the photographer 
doesn't do anything to break that focus, s/he's just not going to be 
there.  It's not invisibility in the optical sense... it's "blending 
in" kicked up several notches.

Zen....  I am one with the chair.

--


R. Clayton McKee                           http://www.rcmckee.com
Photojournalist                               rcmckee@rcmckee.com
P O Box 571900                           voice/fax   713/783-3502
Houston, TX 77257-1900                   cell phone #  on request


Replies: Reply from mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner) ([Leica] When in doubt ask photographer)
Reply from s.dimitrov at charter.net (slobodan dimitrov) ([Leica] When in doubt ask photographer)
In reply to: Message from mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner) ([Leica] When in doubt ask photographer)
Message from tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant) ([Leica] When in doubt ask photographer)