Re: Message VS Medium--It Ain't the Camera

[Kari Eloranta <eloranta@lammio.hut.fi>]

Paul Schliesser <paulsc@eos.net> wrote good stuff concerning the  
education on some photographers, ending with:

>If you are passionate about photography, why wouldn't you want to =
>learn about it, and if you did, how would that be bad? And who is =
>there who would not benefit from knowing more about their chosen =
>field, no matter how good they are?

I don't think photography is essentially different in this respect  
from other arts or even sciences. People who do original work  
whether it is great pieces of art or pathbreaking theories will have  
to be aware where we are now, what has been done, what techniques  
are available and what problems/opportunities have opened in our  
time. But equally important is to keep one's own view of this world  
separate from the external impulses. If that is lost no orginal  
contribution can follow. One just slides into consuming other's  
ideas and perhaps replicating them. I think this is the most  
difficult thing - how to be part of this world, say someting about  
it with photographs or else, but not be overwhelmed by fancy  
concepts or equipment, people with sharp but narrow techniques etc.

Too philosphical for LUGers I suppose but I do think it actually  
has Leica content. I've always believed in kind of Occam's razor in  
photography - have the simplest equipment with which you can take  
the images you want to take. Anything more complex separates you  
from the subject and brings artifical elements between your  
intuition and the world seen by the plain eye.

Reading too many pages of instrucion manuals is just as bad as  
reading too many art books. But without any you are lost.

Call me a minimalist ;-).

Regards,

Kari Eloranta