Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/09/16

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Re:Untitled Magazine #7
From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 13:29:18 -0400

> Photo essayists attempt to depict a sense of being there.
> While some of the images were ineffective, most were good.
> I certainly got a feeling of observing the event, as stilted as the
> point of view evidently was.
>
> also:
> While one comment Colen made was; "Most of the photos are meaningless
> without their captions, which is to say they are meaningless as
> photos.",
>
> A photo is worth a thousand words-  isn't that the saying??

...Not necessarily, Paul, and it is sad you had to personalize this
exchange... "it is probably accurate to surmise anything would be lost on
> the writer."..
Good pictures are indeed often worth a thousand words are more, mediocre
pictures may say little beyond the fact that the photographer was present at
something, taking photos of something.

I can't help wondering what event you got a sense of being at from observing
the photos taken in New York. Was it a street fair? A political rally? A
religious gathering? A Civil Rights rally? A Black Power event?
And, if as one of the captions suggests, "the :real gang was the gang in
blue" - and news reports, news photos, and video reportage, certainly
suggest that that was the case - where is a single photo that shows us that?
It's simply not there.

Sorry, Paul, but this Emperor's clothes are made out of Saran Wrap.