Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/02/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 08:25 PM 2/5/2006, you wrote: >What, is there less light today than when Smith did Minamata (don't start up >on that one please)? "Jim Huges, another Smith biographer, writes of the photograph in his essay ?Tomoko Uemura, R.I.P?: ?This was no grab shot, no stolen moment. The image was planned and set up right down to the use of supplemental flash. Like any good environmental "portrait," this potent picture was an effective collaboration, a visual dialogue [ ] between subject and photographer.? (Huges). This composition of the subjects was carefully arranged, the chiaroscuro effect planned and counted on. What would this photograph have conveyed if the camera allowed the viewer to see shabby, poverty filled background? One of the things that a background would do is to take away from the mystical power of the photograph in this form. By isolating the subject from a heavily specific environment, Smith achieves an effect that cloaks it in a universal appeal." ;-) Tina