Re: [Leica] Squares and sabotage

["Bill Larsen" <ohlen@lightspeed.net>]

Eric Welch writes:




|No! Please, don't insult Ted's work!!! :-)


Well, slap me silly.  I did not mean to insult Ted's work.

|Ted's work in his "This Is Our Work" is documentary photojournalism.
|Environmental portraiture is where someone sits staring at the camera, or
|dramatically off into the distance, and sits there while the photographer
|takes their picture, even directing them where to look, where to sit, and
|with no movement at all, most of the time.


If you look at Ansel Adam's "Family at Melones, 1953", you will find a family
portrait that appears to be composed.  However, to me, it certainly captures a
slice of life in a dynamic fashion.  I keep waiting for someone to bring a
pitcher of lemonade into the scene.  I don't know who the folks in the picture
are, but I know something about who they are and the way that they live (of
course I really don't).

|The word portrait implies the opposite of candid. Real documentary
|photojournalism is unposed slices of life. And that kind of work is much
|more difficult to do honestly and well. That's exactly what Ted did. Much
|more important and impressive work than portraiture.


The word portrait does not imply the opposite of candid.  (As a matter of fact
there is a term used called candid portraiture and I don't see the term as a
contradiction).  The word portrait implies capturing something of the essence
of a person on film.  It doesn't matter if the portrait is carefully and
meticulously composed or a "candid" shot of a moment.

|Don't get me wrong, great portraiture, al la Arnold Newman, etc., is
|difficult to do well too. And very important to the history of the medium.
|That's the best of the tradition. But it's the opposite of documentary work.


Then how would you catagorize the work of Dorothea Lange?  Her work is
composed.  But I have always thought of her as being one of the founding
mothers of documentary photography.  (Ooops, I don't think she ever used 35mm
or Leicas so I shouldn't bring her name up).

I think you need to think a little bit about what a portrait is.  Perhaps you
have picked up too many shiboleths at Missouri.

Regards, Bill the misclassifier of photographic styles