Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/06/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Phil Swango ASKED: Subject: [Leica] How about this one? > Ted Grant wrote: >>My job was to cover the event! Not make a journalistic statement or >>political > justification one way or the other! > > > I agree that that's the ideal posture from a news perspective, but I > wonder > how easy it is to keep your emotions and your seeing separate. Here's a > book that explores the question. I haven't read it yet but Errol Morris is > a respected documentary filmmaker so I expect he's thought quite a bit > about this.<<<<<<< Hi Phil, Actually for me and I suppose 62 years of published assignments, books and lectures illustrating how and why not to be one side or the other allows me to shoot what others see as cold and heartless? My assignment is covering the event....... not who is right or wrong! As a documentary photographer you shoot what you see and what motivates, not which side is right or wrong. You cover it all simply because you are a story teller with your cameras regardless of subject! Right or wrong! I suppose there are a great number of people who wouldn't agree with this, but that's quite simple really. They are not story tellers with the camera and recoding life as it's happening. That doesn't mean photojournalists are cold hearted don't care folks. People who know me personally, know I'm without question, quite as I refer to myself..... "An emotional jerk!" I have photographed nearly 200 child birthings and I can honestly say I have shed a tear at each one simply because one minute there is a humpy bump and next thing it's a little brand new human being sometimes howling it's head off! At the Olympics, Canada wins a Gold Medal and I'm trying to photograph the athlete with medal about their neck as our national anthem is played and manual focus a 400mm 2.8 and doing that through tears running down my cheeks. However covering riots, war or major demonstrations it's a whole different ball game! You are shooting everything good, bad or ugly being done by either side simply because that's the assignment. Not that one side is right or wrong! "AND CERTAINLY NOT WHAT YOUR EMOTIONS ARE ABOUT ONE SIDE OR THE OTHER!" If one is a true recorder of life? IE: "A photojournalist/documentary photographer" you shoot every motivating bit of what's happening before you without feeling. Yep a tough call at times, but the "in their hearts, souls and mind" people who claim to be "photojournalists" and have shot real life horrors of day to day living without direction or a bias attitude one side or the other, do it as a job. As tough or easy as that can be at times. But I can say wihthout reservation.......... the emotions can kick in later when we least expect them depending on what we've just gone through as a photojournalist/documentary shooter. cheers, Dr. ted