Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/04/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Mark Rabiner wrote: > > > Carl on your shot of the guy and gal smootching on the sidewalk: > weren't you a little worried that the guy could turn around and punch > your lights out? > Or had you precleared your grabbing of that private moment? > A great shot, but a shot many would'nt have the guts to get as the > demeener of either of them could be a wildcard. > Mark Rabiner Mark, The moment was too pure for me to pre-clear the making of the photo. When I saw them initially they were lip locked and I just reacted by bringing the camera up and making a photo. It was soft-focused and had a touch of camera shake. I made a second exposure, the one on my webpage, and by then my steadiness had returned and I took the extra moment to focus. This is probably the better photo because they had separated to about the same distance as Ricky and Lucy on the billboard in the background. It never occurred to me to interrupt them and ask. That would have meant being an active participant in their act instead of an observer, albeit one with a camera. It seems to me the whole essence of street photography, at least à la the Cartier-Bresson tradition, is to document the human condition, a moment of truth, or beauty without intruding. I think of Robert Doisneau's photo of "The Kiss" done in Paris which was supposed to look spontaneous but was actually, as I now understand it, a posed shot with models and I would never want my work to have that stigma. Unless, of course, it was for a commercial assignment and it was understood that that was its underlying reason. - -- Carl Socolow http://members.tripod.com/SocPhoto/