Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/03

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Subject: RE: [Leica] re: The Decisive Moment is gone
From: Tim Atherton <tim@KairosPhoto.com>
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 10:20:16 -0700

> reality and the representation, or imitation, of reality.  It matters
> whether a picture is the real thing, or not.
>

No - all photographs are, ultimately, fictions.

Does it matter that Kertesz directed some of his pictures? The photograph of
two lovers kissing on a park bench is iconic - on postcards everywhere. Does
it matter that they were his friends, who were in love, who he asked to sit
on the bench and embrace. Or that Gary Winogrand - regarded by most to be
the "the" maestro of street photography - would "insert" his children in a
scene ("Go on in
> there and do something interesting.") as the picture needed just that one
additional thing for it to work.

Not in the least they are still as real - and as fictitious - as if they had
come across them by happenstance.

> It is the difference between
> reality and the representation, or imitation, of reality

it is surely a mistake to identify the thing photographed with the
photograph itself. They are two very different things. "A photograph is not
what was photographed, it's something else".

tim

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