Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/08/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 06:07 PM 08/08/97 +0300, you wrote: >> >> From: Oddmund Garvik <garvik@serveur.interliger.fr> >snip >> >> I know only some of the photojournalistic work of Alex Webb, which I find >> quite interesting. David C. Turnley once mentioned something about "true >> moments". He was chasing those moments when nothing happened, "instants non >> decisifs". These moments put together intelligently may represent a >> complete reportage. Humans and situations are even more "true", or more >> human, if you want. > >I think that one has to cover these moments to capture the whole. >But our times are driven towards this CNN-mentality: if there aren't >guns going off live and dead bodies fallen down the place isn't really >existing. > >The intensity of light and colors in the south makes me wonder if color >is the only way to capture the moods. Certainly it can be done in a very >interesting way like in Webb's work. > The compositional framing is also something which characterizes his work, particularly with a horizontally-framed image split right in the middle with a vertical post of some sort. This goes against all of the rules of "proper" photo composition. Try it sometime ... and see if you can pull it off. What he seems to be able to do with these split frames, is create dramatic tension in the image by placement of two seemingly dissimilar things in each half of the frame, resulting in a visual irony of juxtaposition. There is also the framing of foreground and background objects within his pictures. With most of them, you can tell that they were taken with a rangefinder camera. You just know it. The subjects are so unaware of the photographer's presence. He can be working in a crowded market and be virtually ignored ... this simply would not happen if the camera had the characteristic pentaprism-shape above the lens. - -GH