Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/06/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 10:07 PM 6/26/98 +0200, you wrote: >Deep down Eric, I think you agree with me. Anybody can take unobrusive >candids. But GREAT photographs are made not found. Anticipation with >a helpful nudge from the photographer Absolutely not. The exact opposite is true. Constructed photos are phony, they look phony, and they are, at their hearts, phony. I can't make it any plainer. It is more difficult to make great candids in the sense of it being difficult and time-consuming to find great pictures. Non-candids certainly might be harder to do in terms of time to waste constructing the scene, lighting it, and having an art director breathing down your neck watering down your vision more than it already is by producing phony pictures. :-) Really, phony pictures are the ones that people create hoping they'll pass as real, because they're too lazy or untalented to capture them for real. It's a lie. Pictures that are created for advertising and commercial work are a different animal altogether. Nothing wrong with them, but "nudging" a picture to make it better is absolutely unacceptable when it's photojournalism. Candid is candid or it's not. Posed that looks posed are perfectly legitimate. It's when the two get confused. >You are a typical photojournalist. An artist looking for a way to break >the mold without breaking your ethics. That's a tough one. I'm reading Miller's book on Magnum - enlightening on this subject. - -- Eric Welch St. Joseph, MO http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch As far as I'm concerned, treachery will sometimes bring loyalty into question.