Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/11/16

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Leica war photos
From: bdcolen at earthlink.net (B. D. Colen)
Date: Tue Nov 16 07:59:41 2004

You are absolutely correct about the overall quality of the war
photography that this war has produced. Although - I wonder if our
reaction does have something to do with the images being in color,
rather than in black and white.

There have been some very strong images, but they have been very few and
far between. Of course if we were to go back and look at the bulk of the
images from Vietnam from about 1961 to 1975, I doubt you'd be much more
impressed than you are by the bulk of the coverage from this war.

The reality is that most photojournalism - like most journalism, medical
practice, engineering, fiction writing, cooking, etc. etc. etc. - is
mediocre at best. Average is average. The reason we remember Capa, Larry
Burrows, Henri Huet, David Douglas Duncan, is because their war
photography was so clearly better than most. ;-)

B. D.

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Summicron1@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 10:47 AM
To: lug@leica-users.org
Subject: [Leica] Re: Leica war photos


it's an ok picture, nothing major -- i think it says something about how
poor 
the war coverage has been that this picture is getting such a rush -- 
photographers need to get out more with the troops. The Washington Post
yesterday   
had story and photos by one of its shooters who spent time with a patrol
in 
combat and they are vastly better than this but, for some reason, the
major media 
seem to prefer shots of generals standing in front of podiums. 

Couldn't have anything to do with fear that showing real combat will
turn 
support for the war, of course, so there must be some other reason.
Maybe I'm 
just a bad judge of news value and shots of generals in front of podiums
are 
really what matter.

go figure

c trentelman
In a message dated 11/16/04 6:38:56 AM, lug-request@leica-users.org
writes:


> 
> 
> For those of us too young to live through WWII, Korean War, or even 
> the Vietnam War, what do y''all think of this photo?
> 
> http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/11/15/marine.photo.ap/index.html
> 
> 

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Replies: Reply from tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant) ([Leica] Re: Leica war photos)
In reply to: Message from Summicron1 at aol.com (Summicron1@aol.com) ([Leica] Re: Leica war photos)