Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/09/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 09:17 AM 9/24/97 +0800, you wrote: >How does one portray or show strength in a photograph ?? some people I have >asked suggested I take a shot of a person doing dumbells or barbells, with >the body sweating out, some suggested I take a picture of two people There are about six billion ways to do it. The barbell shot is literalistic and cliche. Avoid cliches like the plague! :-) When I think of photos of strength, I think of the mother bathing her daughter in Gene Smith's Minimata essay. Or of Neil Leifer's picture of Ali standing over his opponent yelling "I am the greatest" or whatever he was yelling. Or maybe the FSA photo of the Migrant Mother by Dorthea Lang. Or most of the pictures from Sebastiao Salgado's "Workers" book. Especially the ship breakers. Strength has many meanings, and you have to get to what type of strength you want. Then find someone who exemplifies it, and photograph them being strong. Photography is wonderful in the flexibility we have in picking subjects from real life. Those kinds of pictures are usually much stronger, pun intended, than the fake set-up type shots that are easy to get by playing off a cliche or literalistic idea. ============= Eric Welch St. Joseph, MO 98% of all statistics are useless.