[Leica] How about this one?

[pswango at att.net (Phil Swango)]

Tina Manley wrote:
I am very interested in that book and have ordered it.  The
documentary tradition that I learned and have tried to apply is that
you change absolutely nothing for a photo.
================================================

That's how I have worked too, when doing documentary things. But still, any
two photogs will have their own visual ideas, stylistic and otherwise, and
it's hard to call one neutral and the other biased.  Your familiarity with
your subjects in domestic settings allows you to notice significant details
that I would probably miss.  I bet if we worked together in the same
setting we would come up with very different "stories" in our pictures.
Both might be accurate and true, but I'm not sure I'd call either one
"neutral."

I recently had an interesting talk with a museum lecturer about a photo by
a famous southern photographer.  She was obviously having strong reactions
to elements in the picture that spoke to her own childhood memories, where
I wasn't having the same thoughts.  The same impulses (emotions and
memories) are at work when you're *taking* pictures too.

In the Muybridge book I mentioned earlier, the author uses the examples of
Muybridge and Carleton Watkins to contrast two distinct approaches to
photographing Yosemite back in the day.  Watkins looked for serene majestic
beauty and found it; Muybridge was attracted to wildness and complexity,
and he found that too.

And thank goodness we have both versions today.


-- 
Phil Swango
307 Aliso Dr SE
Albuquerque, NM 87108
505-262-4085