Re: [Leica] RE: Eric's site & the LUG Gestapo

[Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>]

If photography is to be called art, it too must comply with the rules. Art
is in the eye of the beholder. What is art to one person, is junk to
another. That's why artists make a lot of money selling but-ugly sculptures
to city councils all over the US. And they then plant them out front where
no one can avoid looking at them. I've been to plenty of photography
exhibits where the photographs weren't suitable for lining bird cages. But
hey... it's in the eye of the beholder and the beholder has the right
(perhaps the obligation) to voice his/her opinion. Any time you criticize
something, you will get flack. Automatically. So why is it that if you heap
praises on something that is so bad, it has zero merit, no one will take
you to task? Perhaps people believe only goodness and if they don't agree
with it, they think something is wrong with them, not the expounder.

So practice your freedom of speech. If you don't use it, you will loose it!

Jim


At 05:29 PM 4/8/98 -0400, you wrote:
>I personally find it very amusing  that so many people are upset about
>someone's  honest appraisal of Eric pics.   So what if Becker doesn't
>like the images ?   Becker is still  entitled to have that opinion and
>to be able to post that view without being lambasted for it.
>
>ANYONE has the right to an opinion on photographs, and has the right to
>express that opinion on the net, or on the LUG.  The notion that one
>person's opinion on a photograph is someone better than someone else's
>is bullshit as far as I am concerned.  Either you like it or you don't,
>that's all there is to it.   Other factors like experience, awards, LUG
>contributions,  how well someone is liked, what your mother said,  or
>how it will be received by the defenders of Eric,  are all irrelevant
>when it comes down to "Do you like the picture or not?"
>
>That the LUG Police want to verbally abuse and flame  anyone for posting
>a negative appraisal of  Eric's pics shows far more about the  Gestapo
>than it does about Eric's pics or someone who isn't particularly
>impressed by them.
>
>What about the freedom of speech and the discussion of ideas?
>
>To avoid similar  problems in the future,   please post guidelines of
>what LUG members may or may not write or think.
>
>Stephen Gandy
>