[Leica] Mary Ellen Mark On Vimeo for Leica

[Gerry Walden]

Jayanand

The situation to which i was referring, and the one often quoted, is that of a man obviously in a civil war situation holding a AK47 and firing it through a hole in the wall. Now, is he a terrorist or a freedom fighter? The caption immediately steers the viewers image one way or the other. Thinking of my own work, I am currently involved in a documentary piece about food banks, and have (for example) a volunteer checking the date code on some food. In the general context of the finished set it should be clear what she is doing but out of context as a single image it could, with the aid of a caption, be either ‘volunteer checking date code’ or ‘woman considering a purchase’. Captions can be misleading. It has nothing to do with the laziness of the photographer.

Gerry

Gerry Walden
023 8046 3076

> On 29 May 2015, at 17:42, Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Gerry,
> Doesn't that mean that the photographer was lazy with the wording of his
> caption?
> Cheers
> Jayanand
> 
> 
> On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 8:43 PM, Gerry Walden <gerry.walden at icloud.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> There is also the point that under certain circumstances the use of a
>> caption can influence the viewers interpretation of the image to the
>> detriment of the original intention of the photographer.
>> 
>> Gerry
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>>> On 29 May 2015, at 15:19, 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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> 
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