Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 02:12 PM 11/22/99 -0800, Bill Larsen wrote: >. I perceived that a >lot of what Ted Grant did in _This is Our Work_ is environmental portraits >linked together with a theme. A lot of the recently maligned >Cartier-Bresson's work was environmental portraiture. No! Please, don't insult Ted's work!!! :-) Ted's work in his "This Is Our Work" is documentary photojournalism. Environmental portraiture is where someone sits staring at the camera, or dramatically off into the distance, and sits there while the photographer takes their picture, even directing them where to look, where to sit, and with no movement at all, most of the time. The word portrait implies the opposite of candid. Real documentary photojournalism is unposed slices of life. And that kind of work is much more difficult to do honestly and well. That's exactly what Ted did. Much more important and impressive work than portraiture. Don't get me wrong, great portraiture, al la Arnold Newman, etc., is difficult to do well too. And very important to the history of the medium. That's the best of the tradition. But it's the opposite of documentary work. Eric Welch Carlsbad, CA http://www.neteze.com/ewelch The gene pool could use a little chlorine.