Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/26

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Suzy Q, again
From: Peterson Arthur G NSSC <PetersonAG@NAVSEA.NAVY.MIL>
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 16:52:36 -0400

B. D. Colon wrote about the Sontag quote, "There is an aggression implicit
in every use of the Camera:"

		Okay, there's a bit of hyperbole...Certainly you're not
being aggressive when you photograph your child's birthday party....But what
are PJs in a pack, if not aggressive? And about that photographing of the
child's birthday party, of Christmas morning, etc. etc....How much of it
becomes aggressive - Stand over there! Smile! Stop fidgeting?  Certainly
this observation is at least worth considering.

I think worth considering too is the "aggression implicit" in the
photographer's determination (perhaps unintended) of what something is, or
what it means, by the picture he takes.  For example, I can remember in the
1960s some widely published photos of President Johnson that made him appear
to be something of a buffoon---which anyone who today listens to the tapes
of his telephone calls in the White House immediately realizes he certainly
was not.

B. D. also wrote that Sontag "makes some brilliant observations that she
probably wouldn't have made were she a photographer"---to which I would only
add that it's not necessarily disadvantageous to observe and comment as an
outsider.

:-)

Art Peterson