Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/03/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]on 3/23/01 6:03 PM, henry at henry@henryambrose.com wrote: > Johnny Deadman wrote an eloquent post conluding with: >> So in photography. The 'apparent' snapshot convinces us of something, a fact >> or an emotional truth, precisely because it *looks* like a snapshot. [SNIP] > This carries beyond the snapshot ethic into what any photograph might be. > Any photograph (constructed or found) might convince us of a fact or > emotional truth. They can be slices of time, quotes from life - bearing > weight and depth. The successful ones do this well. Even the snapshots. sure, but the 'snapshot' has a load of tags of supposed authenticity... apparently casual composition, grain perhaps, some blur... these are the things that are supposed to make us turn our rhetoric-radar off. That's why there's such a hoo-hah when allegations like those about Doisneau's kiss surface. There's nothing in the picture that says 'this is unposed' except the nature of the picture itself. (Macluhan not a dead dog!). We are upset (well, some of us are) when we learn it's a posed pic because we assumed it wasn't. No-one told us it wasn't. It just 'looks' unposed. I think it would be interesting to investigate how far its possible to switch this around ie create a picture which appears to be a formal, set up shot from the nature of the image, and yet is actually a snap. This is kind of what I'm hoping to do by shooting street stuff with 4x5, produce a technically astounding picture which nevertheless is a real street snap. Don't ask me why! - -- John Brownlow http://www.pinkheadedbug.com