Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/09/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Sep 22, 2006, at 12:11 PM, B.D. wrote: > I'd go so far as to suggest that the work for > corporations and social service clients - as glorious and Emmy > worthy as I'm > sure it is - is PR work, not true documentary work, in that it is > work for > hire produced to tell a story that a client wants told to promote > the agenda > of that client. So is that any different than work to support the agenda of an individual photographer? Or do you define documentary work as only done pro bono with no expectation of personal reimbursement. Is a documentary of the tribulations in Darfur more photographically praiseworthy than the trials of Wall Street brokers trying to make an honest buck by hucking Enron stock? Do you really believe that only projects that support your personal political and social views deserve to be called documentary (implying no bias) and that everything else is PR? Don't be taken in by the absurdist politically correct Harvard environment. Every picture is made to support the agenda of someone, the photographer or the buyer or the contest juror. Otherwise one might as well point the camera randomly and click the shutter. Several of the prizewinning films made by my daughter deal with chronic childhood disease. They were sponsored by public service agencies with no axe to grind other than that the disease be cured. Her peers deemed them praiseworthy. Remember every image documents something. Larry Z