Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]B. D. Colon wrote about the Sontag quote, "There is an aggression implicit in every use of the Camera:" Okay, there's a bit of hyperbole...Certainly you're not being aggressive when you photograph your child's birthday party....But what are PJs in a pack, if not aggressive? And about that photographing of the child's birthday party, of Christmas morning, etc. etc....How much of it becomes aggressive - Stand over there! Smile! Stop fidgeting? Certainly this observation is at least worth considering. I think worth considering too is the "aggression implicit" in the photographer's determination (perhaps unintended) of what something is, or what it means, by the picture he takes. For example, I can remember in the 1960s some widely published photos of President Johnson that made him appear to be something of a buffoon---which anyone who today listens to the tapes of his telephone calls in the White House immediately realizes he certainly was not. B. D. also wrote that Sontag "makes some brilliant observations that she probably wouldn't have made were she a photographer"---to which I would only add that it's not necessarily disadvantageous to observe and comment as an outsider. :-) Art Peterson