Re: [Leica] Powerful image

[Paul Chefurka <pchefurk@Newbridge.COM>]

Five Senses Productions wrote:
> 
> So are you implying that a powerful image can only be of a serious,
> dramatic, or emotional life experience?  Does this mean landscapes,
> nudes, or photos of children at play cannot be powerful?

I won't speak for Harrison, but for me to consider a picture "powerful"
it must resonate with some deeper significance.  Documentary photos
of people have the most chance of doing this, as it is insight into
the human condition that I find most resonant.

Pictures of children at play can certainly be powerful.  An example
is HCB's "Seville, 1933".  OK, OK, that's not *just* a picture of
children at play, but it illustrates an essential feature of the
powerful photograph - it must be able to transcend its subject
matter in some sense.

And of course St. Ansel proved that landscapes can be powerful,
although I must admit I still can't say why.  How did his pictures
of Half-Dome and El Capitan transcend the merely spectacular (which
they would have been in a lesser photographer's hands) and become
powerful (which they indisputably are)?

Paul