Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/06

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Subject: Re: [Leica] OT: "Directed Photography" (ie. phoney journalism) article URL
From: "Slobodan Dimitrov" <s.dimitrov@charter.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 11:11:15 -0800

On the one hand, the integrity of the photographer can be seen as an 
externally induced behavior in order to keep the product from being
corrupted or pilferage. The external forces being the patron's needs.
And on another hand, history is a controlled substance, with a final
arbitrator deciding the presentation and manner of its consumption. Which
means that in spite of our higher ideals, in the end we'll have very little,
if any say so, regarding how the work will used or interpreted.
Slobodan Dimitrov


- ----------
>From: Peter Klein <pklein@2alpha.net>
>To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>Subject: RE: [Leica] OT: "Directed Photography" (ie. phoney journalism) article
URL
>Date: Wed, Nov 5, 2003, 9:31 PM
>

> II can't swallow the postmodernist conceit that just because there is
> always a point of view, anything goes, because we're all whores
> anyway.  Even if we're whores some of the time, that shouldn't stop us from
> trying to be virtuous (read fair) as much as we can.  :-)
>
> Accuracy is not always the same thing as truth.  We can take an accurate
> photo of a few milliseconds' slice of reality that shows our subjects
> acting very differently than they usually do.  We can show a construction
> worker sleeping and make him look like a lazy goldbricker, when in reality
> he just worked ten hours of overtime to stay on schedule and is taking a
> break before working several more.  Accurate, but false.
>
> --Peter
>
> At 05:40 PM 11/5/03 -0800, Tim Atherton wrote:
>> > overview nevertheless.  On "part 4" there are also background details
>> > on Ruth Orkin's faked (or should I say "hoax") "An American Girl in
>> > Italy 1950".
>>
>>Interesting choice of words? Faked? Hoax? Why. Did those men not behave like
>>that towards the woman coming past them? Certainly they did - it's there
>>recorded on film.
>>
>>Was this "hard" journalism? Documentary? No. Does the picture represent one
>>reality of a young american woman travelling in Europe in the 1950? Yes.
>>
>>So why hoax? Why Fake? - apart, perhaps, for an undying belief in the
>>statement "the camera never lies" when in fact it has done so almost since
>>the day the first images were fixed.
>
>
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