Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/05/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 10:48 PM 5/5/99 -0400, you wrote: >Well, in your other posting you state that photojournalism is photography's >highest standard (my wording Well, that would be your wording. I didn't say that. What I said was that photojournalism's goal, to show what's in front of the camera (and hoping all along that the camera is pointed to significant moments in life) that it utilizes the strength of photography, as opposed to other styles of photography, which are equally valid. But, for example, the work of Duane Michals doesn't use the representational strengths of photography, but departs from it. Perfectly valid. I like his work a lot. But he has a lot more in common with abstract painting than photojournalism does. Many of us use the phrase "Show truth with a camera." That's a strength of photography that painting and music and poetry has. At least, when the truth is what a scene looks like. Deeper truths might well be communicated by poetry. But poetry doesn't have the laser-like ability to show every detail of a given situation that photography does. I'm not saying photojournalism is better. But that advertising photographers, artists, Joel Peter Witkin, etc., have different agendas that don't share the affinity for the lens's strength of showing minute detail. Eric Welch St. Joseph, MO http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch Some people say that I'm superficial, but that's just on the surface.