Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/11/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Yes and no. As someone Doing Documentary Work - and I would heartily recommend Robert Coles' book of the same title - you may be bringing your artistic vision, if you will, to the photographic images you create, but hopefully you are remaining disengaged in the sense that you are an observer, a fly on the wall, rather than a participant. You may, for instance, set out to document a people or a situation because you hope that doing so will help those people, or change that situation, but ideally your documentary work should be limited to photographically capturing what you see before you, not altering situations in order to be able to record what you want to see before you. B. D. - -----Original Message----- From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of George Lottermoser Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2002 12:55 PM To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Lenswork Magazine DFangon@aol.comDFangon@aol.com11/13/028:55 PM >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. We can get all caught up in semantics, however, I believe that the activity of an artist, photographer, writer, vidiographer, et al, would demand a rather "engaged" form of "observation". And I think that my original statement still works with your point, "This would suggest "engagement and action in the world" in contrast to "passivity"." - -- 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