Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/10/30

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Subject: Re: [Leica] The Decisive Moment is gone
From: "Slobodan Dimitrov" <s.dimitrov@charter.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 18:40:44 -0800

True enough! Also, don't forget the great divide between the artist and the
photographers. Some of the best work, that we now identify as documentary,
was commissioned to illustrate a point of view. The role of the 'point of
view' is in itself  compellingly interesting. I always wondered on how much
the early photographers were creatures of the modern theme, unbeknownst even
to themselves in many cases.
 Slobodan Dimitrov

- ----------
>From: Tim Atherton <tim@KairosPhoto.com>
>To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>Subject: RE: [Leica] The Decisive Moment is gone
>Date: Thu, Oct 30, 2003, 5:36 PM
>

>> >> I suppose that when documentary photography was melded into
>> the fine art
>> >> school of thought, such an excretion from a staff keyboard ponder like
>> >> Gopnik isn't too surprising.
>> >
>> > Been a long time coming - didn't that happen around the 1930's?
>> (or was it
>> > earlier?)
>
>
>> I think that at one time it was considered advocacy photography, which has
>> once again come back full circle to that definition. Recently,
>> publications
>> like Doubletake and Aperture have added a sort of formalism to
>> the approach.
>> The demands of a new photographic consumer, the investor, pushed for new
>> definitions of the work on hand. Definitions that I think would
>> often be at
>> odds with past usages that the photographer's used themselves.
>> Slobodan Dimitrov
>
> But people like Evans didn't consider themselves to be documentary
> photographers, rather photographers (artists?) who used a certain "style" to
> make their point, express their vision, tell what it was they wanted to
> tell.
>
> The same could to some extent be said of Atget (although much more of an
> enigma).
>
> tim
>
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