Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/04/02
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Here's a person who anticipated the effect of Leica's just as they were
taking off back in the late 20s and early 30s.
Walter Benjamin, writing in a 1931 essay entitled "A Short History of
Photography" has a prescient view of the emergence of smaller cameras
that are able to capture more "fleeting, secret images". He goes on to
say, "At this point captions must begin to function, captions which
understand the photography which turns all the relations of life into
literature, and without which all photographic construction must remain
bound in coincidences."
When we make pictures, if we remember this, then it might be helpful to
write down what our pictures are about. That way, they can have more value
in the future, when we forget the exact circumstances they were taken under.
Eric Welch
St. Joseph, MO
http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch
Bumper Sticker: "Horn doesn't work; Watch for finger"