RE: [Leica] Re: Lenswork Magazine

[Dan C <leicaman@sympatico.ca>]

But if you set out to document the lives of failing farmers, aren't you
already loading the dice?   You're not going to illustrate your essay with
photos of wealthy farmers, you're going to search out those poor farmers to
photograph.  A print journalist doing a story on homeless people will not
spend much time on Rodeo Drive.  But why not?   Because he/she has already
chosen a certain slant or direction for the story.   If you hired actors to
play the role of a failing farmer as a subject for your photographs, that
would be one thing.  But as long as the failing farmers are out there, and
either I make my own decision to seek them out, or a government beraurocrat
hires me to do the same, I don't really see how the end result is not
Documentary Photography, as long as I do my job properly.  And being a good
photographer, and not just a snap shooter, I'm going to try and get the
best possible photograph, hence my contact sheets may show up all sorts of
lesser stuff (though I have not see Dorothy Lange's contacts; is there an
on-line source?).

dan c.

 At 06:56 PM 09-11-02 -0500, bdcolen wrote:
>No flame throwers; no flames. :-)
>
>The FSA photo projected was created specifically to highlight poverty
>and the plight of the poor in rural areas to build support for New Deal
>legislation and programs. Nothing wrong with that, but it does mean that
>the folks working for the program were, at best, doing PR photography.
>They were sent out to bring back photos making people and places look as
>poor and downtrodden as possible. That doesn't mean that people weren't
>poor and downtrodden, but if you look at some of the examples of Lange's
>out-takes, you can see what she was going for. 
>
>As for Smith...he invented the modern photo essay, he was a creative
>genius whose work I greatly admire - but he set up photos in a way that
>would not be tolerated today by any main stream media outlet.
>
>So we come back to the question of what is or isn't documentary
>photography.....I believe that if one sets out to "document" a
>situation, be it the lives of failing farmers in the dust bowl and
>"okies" on the road, or the daily life of a middle class family, one is
>obligated to "document" - preserve - things as one finds them, and not
>set up photos to tell the story one had in mind.
>
>But again, that doesn't mean the Lange didn't do great work. She did. Do
>great work.
[snip]
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