Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/05/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]This really is a bit of an odd discussion. On the one hand, ALL photography, by revealing a bit of the photographer, is "political". On the other, there are Thucydideans in our midst -- myself among them! -- who see the job of photography as a Joe Friday "just the facts, ma'am" art form. You pays your money and you takes your choice. I was rather taken by the number of LUG'ers (NOT "Lugers" -- those are German firearms!) who rushed off to view some revolting protesters a couple of weeks back, while my spin on this was that this was a most magnificent weekend to AVOID such doings. Again, you pays your money. Yes, let us discuss the social effects of photography -- but, understand, that those with a leftist agenda will reveal themselves in short order. Photography is not automatically conservative, liberal, or statist -- but a discussion of the quality and content of pictures does not, automatically, mean that those discussing it are endorsing the political agenda of the photographer. Our work speaks for itself, within the confines of the picture. It may also reveal that the photographer had a certain social or political belief, but the discussion must, in the end, be centered on the picture and not on the political agenda of the clicker. Oddmund is most welcome here, by my lights; he and I share a lot of fundamental values and even some life experiences -- such as military service -- though he advocates a political course which I suspect I don't share. But, his photography is his inspiration, and it is grand to have him here to stir us to thought. The great evil of the American middle-class in the 1950's was a refusal to discuss "religion or politics". Hence, when their kids wandered off to college, they were fair game for the statist professors they encountered, and had no tools to deal with the rather soft and ill-defined arguments presented them. The 'campus revolution' of the '60's resulted. (My own parents discussed politics and religion constantly, so I had an evolved dialectic of my own by the time I was in tenth grade -- if there was a single skill I picked up at the dinner table, it was political discourse! Hence, I was immune to the lure of that 'gospel of greed', the 'lure of the Left'.) My point in this is that it should be proper to discuss the political implications of photography and to do so broadly -- else, we risk becoming molluscs, content behind our shells, but incapable of real growth. But, as Brian has ruled, no name-calling! Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!