Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/05/04

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Subject: [Leica] "the beautiful faces of dementia"
From: steve.barbour at gmail.com (Steve Barbour)
Date: Tue, 4 May 2010 14:06:52 -0700
References: <49710077-F087-4244-A8DD-ACF93A239482@gmail.com> <A630934E-8084-496B-B9C5-F5A7EEB0013A@mac.com>

On May 4, 2010, at 1:29 PM, George Lottermoser wrote:

> While reading some from <http://www.johnrosenthal.com/photog.htm>
> this seemed particularly relevant to this photograph
> as well as most of your work Steve:
> 
> Photographs console us in the face of death and oblivion - it's their 
> fundamental gift; they testify to what has been and what will be no more, 
> and this testimony matters. It matters because oblivion is actually more 
> than we can handle; because we get old and lose faith in the quick and 
> competent gods of our childhood; because, unless we deny what our eyes see 
> or turn ourselves into machinery, the future of everything is full of loss 
> and disappearing; because we not only forget but we're also forgotten. Of 
> course photographs matter. They remind us of that important time before 
> the future fell upon us like a roof - when we were still handsome and 
> lively, when our parents loved each other, and said so, and our best 
> friend, wearing a foolish red bandanna, hadn't died. Nor is there anything 
> false or hollow about this testimony or the melancholy it evokes, because 
> all of it - within the great paradoxical realm of the photograph - happens 
> to be true. To be human is to remember. That's why people standing on the 
> lawn of their burning homes - their children safe from harm - cry for 
> their lost photographs.


thank you so much George, I found this little excerpt shattering, powerful 
and moving, and even basically true. 

It reminds me of comments made to me, by parents of children (no longer 
alive) whose photographs are in my book, I Never Wanted To Be Famous...

stating that the print I gave to them, is their most precious possession....

utterly shattering in its simplicity.


Steve





> "Mulberry Street: The Story of a Photograph," Five Points
> 
> 
> Regards,
> George Lottermoser
> george at imagist.com
> http://www.imagist.com
> http://www.imagist.com/blog
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist
> 
> On May 2, 2010, at 12:09 PM, Steve Barbour wrote:
> 
>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/barbour/dementia/fusakokim.jpg.html
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> M9   Noctilux  50mm  f 1.0
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> thanks,
>> 
>> 
>> Steve
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information



In reply to: Message from steve.barbour at gmail.com (Steve Barbour) ([Leica] "the beautiful faces of dementia")
Message from imagist3 at mac.com (George Lottermoser) ([Leica] "the beautiful faces of dementia")