Re: [Leica] So many issues, so little time

["Rob Appleby" <rob@robertappleby.com>]

The presentation of difference is also, as Barthes points out, a strategy
for reinforcing the reassuring (and history-denying) message that deep down,
we are all the same. Life and NG were biggest around the time of the Family
of Man show, or at least shared its basic ethos. I wonder whether the more
modern view that in fact, maybe we aren't all the same, that human nature is
predicated on history rather than on an underlying unifying familydom, for
want of a better word, may have contributed to some extent to the decline of
the medium, by making its basic message seem untenable, or worst of all,
unfashionable? How can we all be a big family when we spend so much of our
energy enslaving and killing each other, when that is the bedrock of our
societies?

I doubt very much that the family of man show would have the same effect now
as it did originally. It would seem overstated, naive, foolish. Although the
denial of history has become an integral part of the current dominating
ideology, we seem to have accepted that "human nature" is a chimera at best,
and cheap rhetoric (ulteriorly motivated) at worst.

Hic!

R.



- ----- Original Message -----
From: "John Bohner" <johnbohner@earthlink.net>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 6:26 PM
Subject: [Leica] So many issues, so little time


> Many on the list are professional photographers and many others such as
> myself are not.  I came across this editorial on photojournalism and
> thought it might be of interest to those on the list.  It will be old news
> for you pros but perhaps enlightening for the rest of us.  I particularly
> liked the line.."The harsh truth is that photojournalism is no longer a
> popular medium. The end product is often too unsettling for magazines
> geared more to entertaining than informing."  This touched a nerve. I
> remembered photo-j from my childhood reading of Nat Geo. or Life. It was,
I
> assumed  -guys with cameras going some place weird or dangerous to bring
me
> images of a reality different than my own.  Nieve? of course. But the
> willingness to accept the idea that some people live differently than us,
> seems to be falling to political correctness or perhaps emotional fatigue
> and that may be hurting photojournalism.  In either case I offer Peter
> Howe's work for your review.
>
> http://www.cjr.org/year/02/4/howe.asp
>
> John Bohner
>
>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html
>


- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html