Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/01/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]again I agree Regards, George Lottermoser george@imagist.com http://www.imagist.com http://www.imagist.com/blog http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist Picture A Week - www.imagist.com/paw_07 On Jan 18, 2009, at 7:18 PM, Carl Socolow wrote: > You certainly brought up a subject that resonated with a lot of > LUGgers and engendered a goodly number of responses. And, > gratefully, there were hardly any having to do with equipment. For > my two cents, one of the pursuits of art, its holy grails, is the > pursuit of the thing itself. As Edward Weston wrote: "The camera > should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the > very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be > polished steel or palpitating flesh." > These photos may very well indeed be palpitating flesh. But they > are direct and honest views of the individuals photographed. You > have to take note that some are framed tight, some loose. I've just > finished a large portrait session of bank executives, albeit with > more dramatic lighting, and the framing varies. I think this > photographer worked hard. Some of the selections may be due to the > editing process given that there is a difference between pictures > and their framing. The use of the direct light and plain background > give us only the subject as subject; that and their universal cues > about human emotion. I think this is a pretty tight "shoot" and it > was well-executed particularly given the variables and logistics of > schedule and travel. With those limitations, too, you want to have > simplified set-up and equipment as you know you're only going to > get to work with the subject for a few mintutes. > > I also think that we fall into "canonic" ideas about what a picture/ > portrait should be; conventional ideas; idealized and formulaic > notions about lighting, positioning, viewpoint. In an image- > saturated world these get seen and forgotten fast. > > While I think it appropriate to question the esthetic values that > underly the making of these pictures, I don't know that it's > appropriate to infer that they're of nefarious intent. See Rimbaud > quote below.