Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/11/20

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Subject: Re: Why do we have cameras?
From: "Jeff Segawa" <segawa@netone.com>
Date: 20 Nov 96 21:40:04 -0600

>I am walking in the streets now, trying to
>record other miseries, these quagmires in which mankind is falling,
>these harbingers of ultimate chaos. It is even our duty to record them,
>at least in the annals of History where these images will tell how our
>century ended.

Have we really fallen from any heights, or is it just that our expectations
were unrealistically high, and that reality was found wanting? If you are
documenting a representative slice of 20th century life, I think it's
important to capture some of the good as well as the bad: Laughter can be
heard in poor countries as well as wealthy ones.

"I have abandonned my aesthetic preoccupations in order to reach a state
of unsophistication. I think this gives the subject all its strength,
and hopefully at the same time bring some light to contemporaries on
tragedies taking place at their very doorsteps."

Nevertheless, you make certain decisions regarding exposure and composition
every time you capture an image. The documentary camera is never, strictly
speaking, objective, and so, consciously or otherwise, the photographer
will tend to emphasize that which he or she feels is important.

Just another opinion.
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