Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> This is one reason it is so hard to edit your own film. When one has gone > to great lengths to make a particular photo, then you think it is a great > shot, when the better one is actually the one where you simply stood > there and made the photo with little relative effort. > Harrison - I know. I think this question of photographer intent v. what the photo really conveys is one of the great generally undiscussed topics in photo journalism/documentary/ street photography. You may or may not remember some discussion on the list a while back about an on-line photo Zine that some kids had started which included their coverage of the Million Man March....I made the observation that I felt the photos were very mundane, and that they didn't in any way match their captions. I said I thought this was an MTV generation problem, a failure to understand that a still photo is a static image that stands entirely on its own - the photographer may have "Seen," experienced, heard, smelled, what ever, what he photographed, but all that ends up in the final print is what the light passing through the lens placed on the film. I remember, a zillion years ago as a kid in high school, taking school newspaper and yearbook photos of hockey games and wishing there was some way my photos could convey the sound of the music on the PA system at the rink, the sounds of the skates on the ice, the Whappp! of the player's hitting the boards. Well, they couldn't. Film can. Video can. Still photos can't. Still photos can have unparalleled emotional and visual impact - far greater than that of film because they are in front of us longer and can be observed and contemplated longer. But they remain still. And photographers have to remember that.