[Leica] Mary Ellen Mark On Vimeo for Leica

[Jayanand Govindaraj]

Bob,
I meant it very generally. Of course there are photographs that can be
universally enjoyed, but they are rare, and form a miniscule proportion of
a photographers work. As far as capturing the viewers imagination is
concerned, if I see nothing (like the rather ordinary photographs of the
gang girl when stripped of context), I will walk on and not bother.

A similar case can be made for Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother, to just
give another example - in the vast majority of the developing world, it
would depict a lady from the middle class, and they would wonder what the
fuss was all about. A lot of these "iconic" photographs are so only because
of cultural context. Strip them of that emotional connect and they are
rather ordinary. Very, very few are universal.

Let me give you another personal example. If it had not been drummed into
our head since we were born that Mona Lisa was the ultimate work of art,
how many would give it another look? Especially since Veronese's
magnificent The Wedding at Cana is exhibited opposite it! :-)

Cheers
Jayanand

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 7:49 PM, Robert Baron <robertbaron1 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> An interesting point of view, Jayanand, and to be honest not one I had
> really considered before you raised it.  Maybe that is because her
> photographs ring true to me as depictions of the culture I am part of, but
> I'll need to think about that some more.
>
> Even the photographs she made of cultures I am not familiar with have the
> ring of truth to them, in my opinion, and I now think about the war zone
> photographs of shooters like James Nachtwey and wonder if they need
> captions and if not why not?  Would you think Salgado's famous photographs
> of the gold mine or of the train station need text?  An argument can be
> made that some things should allow for use of the viewer's imagination - or
> sense of investigation if the viewer wants to learn more about the subject.
>
> Educators trying to teach students (or trial lawyers like me trying to
> teach a jury) will say you should not spoon feed every bit of information
> to the audience but leave some for the audience to figure out; it is better
> learned and retained that way.  Should that maxim also apply to
> documentary/documenting photography?
>
> Again: you raise an interesting point and I'm going to think about it.
>
> Regards,
>
> --Bob
>
>
>
> ===On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 10:41 PM, Jayanand Govindaraj <
> jayanand at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
> > Bob,
> > Interesting. TFS.
> >
> > What struck me is that most of the pictures have no emotional impact for
> > me, like the girls in the gang on the street, without her narration, as I
> > am not steeped in the nitty gritties of US culture. Goes against what
> Kyle
> > says that one of her tenets was, about not having a caption. I think that
> > is valid when you have a mono cultural, homogenous viewership for your
> > work, but once you have a cross cultural audience, a little explanation,
> > like a caption, is invaluable to create the emotional impact! Of course,
> > this observation is for the sort of photographs that she took, and
> > obviously would apply to a much lesser extent for nature/wildlife and
> that
> > sort of thing, but even there, giving the frame "a local habitation and a
> > name" does help in pulling the viewer emotionally into the frame.
> >
> > My two bits!
> >
> > Cheers
> > Jayanand
> >
> > On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 6:29 AM, Robert Baron <robertbaron1 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > https://vimeo.com/80793010
> > >
> > > View full screen.  It is worth seeing and listening to I think, not so
> > much
> > > because of Leica but because of Mary Ellen Mark.
> > >
> > > --Bob
> > >
> >
>
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