[Leica] Are we Anal or what? "The Puddle Jumper" / Re: How about this one?

[manolito at videotron.ca (EPL)]

Robert Meier wrote:
> 
> I see a profound difference between the photographer who watches and 
> observes
> life and takes pictures of the world around him as it unfolds, and the
> photographer who directs people and events, turning them into models who 
> are
> following his script.   The results might look superficially the same, but
> they aren't the same.  The artificial creation might sometimes be superior 
> in
> many ways -- lighting, design, composition, gesture and expression -- and 
> at
> other times it might not come up to the level of the genuinely captured
> moment.   But it is not the same and is not, in my opinion, to be judged by
> the same criteria.

Well, that eliminates our admiration for many of the great photos in
National Geographic magazine, for example. Many many are "orchestrated" to
some degree (the word "staged" is to be avoided), despite the appearances of
spontaneity.

And I'm thinking too of lots of press-type photography of famous people or
major events where the particpants (from athletes to the Dalai Lama) are
media-savvy performers. Nature or nurture?

We all have a few of those single-shot success story images from when our
instincts and our reflexes and the Gods conspired in our favour. But in my
opinion, those are exceptions and not the bread-and-butter of photography
and need not be mythologized as such either.

Emanuel