Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/11/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]It's so easy to chase one's tail about these semantics. I don't know what Lange meant by that phrase. Her own work is engaged - that is, she often interacted with the people she depicted. She was engaged in the sense that her work was informed by a social philosophy, a progressivism that she hoped photography could promote. She was an informed observer. (From what I know of her - haven't yet delved deeply into her career.) Her style was up close and personal in a way that Evans, for one, was not. (Yet not pat and didactic, like Bourke-White could be.) Very different styles, personalities and artistic concepts. They were both engaged and observant, both cared about what and who they were depicting. Both craftsmen, both artists. The photographer can come from all points on the engagement/observational stylistic spectrum and still do effective work, whether effectiveness is measured by touching an audience's sensibilities, influencing political decisions and/or creating enigmatic artistic statements. We can see an engaged sensibility from the observer standing back with a telephoto. We can see meaningless sensationalism from the guy with a 21mm in the middle of the fray. It's the intelligence and intention behind the camera that makes the difference, not the mode of working. Maybe call it editorial judgement, during or after the fact. I bet Ms. Lange was being purposely vague, and like someone suggested, kindly toward an unformed talent, like a Zen master offering a thought provoking phrase that would challenge the novice to find a personal meaning that would inform his work. Gibson found a meaning. Maybe he is saying that what he chooses to photograph determines how he depicts that subject, that the how has become reactive with no preconception. "While I never know (w)that the picture is going to be before I start, I do know where to look," and exactly what happens just happens. And we see that alchemy beneath the surface and our imaginations depart from that point? Or, by being so engaged, the subject is a point from which Gibson's eye departs? That could as easily argue for the engagement theory, though not in the sense of the photographer's intervention. I guess I come down on the side of observation as paramount. It's the subject that engages the photographer's prepared sensitivity. A fine sense of graphic design or situational intuition or empathy for the subject - none of it happens without thought, reflection, observation. However engaged a style you wish to have, if it doesn't come from some sort of informed sensibility or intention, conscious in the moment or not, Gibson not withstanding, it can't achieve artistic truth (integrity). And that's the only truth photography can muster. Being windy again, Carl At 08:55 PM 11/13/2002 -0500, DFangon@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 11/12/02 6:35:39 PM Pacific Standard Time, >nasmformyzombie@mindspring.com writes: > ><< At last a cogent and penetrating comment on this subject! I was beinnning > to wonder about some of the long winded nonesense going around the list > trying to "explain" Lange's comment. By George, I think you've got it: > "engage" rather than "observe" is as to the point as the point of departure > gets---or needs to be. > > Gary >> > >I beg to disagree. In that Gibson interview, Gibson was specific how he >interpreted Lange's advise (which according to him he figured out years >later). Gibson's own words, "It was several years later when I realized what >a 'point of departure' really meant. While I never know that the picture is >going to be before I start, I do know where to look. It's not how (italics) >you photograph, it's really what (italics) you photograph." > >This would suggest to me the opposite - "Observe" rather than "engage." >This makes more sense to me, as a documenter, you observe and record rather >than engage and intervene. Jim was right, what you record (meaning the >photograph itself) should have a "point of departure" to have meaning. > >Dante - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html