Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/09/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> From: "Patrick G. Sobalvarro" <pgs@sobalvarro.org> > > Why do you think, each and every > >year Yosemite Park, the Pyramids, the "Wall" etc. has been and is > >photographed by millions of persons, although you can buy better postcards > >every 10 meters ? > > Personally I avoid such shots, but I understand why people take them. > Postcard photographs are of a piece with the saturation of photographic > images around us, but photographs we take are expressions of our > experience. snip Doesn't make much sense to me to go to the Pyramids and refuse photographing them since generations of others have done it already. To me these "singular" objects are challenges - can I shoot it in a faithful way? To get rid of the cliches and all the vivid as well as stale images that I've seen of them. In a way that represents my emotional state when I was there. It is then as unique as anything ever will be for me. We somehow take things definite that aren't. Some people view Elliot Porter's work on Egypt as definite. After my third visit I was quite convinced that it wasn't - indeed it looked quite cliche and stale to me. These days I'm absolutely convinced of that. It is wonderful to see an old theme in a novel way. Struck me again yesterday very clearly. Read through the latest issue of National Geographic. Skillful work and some pretty tedious, too. And then there was the Hasselblad add. Ever since Sieglitz & O'Keefe people have taken close ups of hands. Hands with grooves, cut fingers, crossed fingers, testimony of life. How much more can one do? Look at that photo by Corbijn in the add. For me it salvaged spending the half an hour with the magazine and will probably be all that was permanently imprinted in me. Kari Eloranta