RE: [Leica] art, manual focus & other misunderstanding

[Alan Ball <AlanBall@csi.com>]

Dan,

Sure wish I would be capable of coming out one day with one picture that 
could convey a tenth of the feelings, atmosphere, sentiments and sense of 
time and place that ooze out of Doisneau's work. BTW, the majority of his 
images are NOT 'staged' in the way it has been insinuated by someone here: 
very few of them have used models, most portray the people of Paris and its 
suburbs in the richest possible way. He has been defined by some critics as 
the most illustruous representative of photographic humanism in France.

It is crazy, pretentious and ridiculous to deny the great  artistic 
dimension of his work. It is just as ridiculous to refuse to recognise the 
testimonial value of his images.

I do not give a damn if some pictures are staged or not, as long as the 
staged ones are not used by newspapers as factual reports about a news 
event.

Anyway, and this is not related to the concept of 'art', from my personal 
point of view, 99 pct of 'photojournalism' pictures already carry a degree 
of 'staging' from the very moment a photographer appears on the scene of 
any event. The presence of the photographer, even if noticed only by a few 
persons, changes behaviours and attitudes. The subjectivity of the choices 
of angle of view, point of view, cropping, exposure settings and even film, 
add many other levels of 'manipulation' that contribute in 'staging' the 
representation of an event. Asking a person to repeat a gesture or to place 
himself/herself in a certain way for composition sake is yet another level 
of staging, that I consider perfectly acceptable. The only levels of 
'staging' that I find not acceptable in photojournalism are the ones 
deliberately organising an event, in the full sense of the word, that would 
not have happened without the photographer or that would have been 
substantially different without the photographer , and then selling the 
pictures as objective testimonials with untrue explanatory captions. But 
even in this scenario, there are plenty of nuances.... There is no such 
thing as 100pct 'pure' photojournalism, except in the idealistic theories 
of a few ayatollahs.

Alan

On jeudi 6 mai 1999 4:49, Dan Cardish [SMTP:dcardish@microtec.net] wrote:
> Well, in your other posting you state that photojournalism is 
photography's
> highest standard (my wording, but I'm going from memory and I think I am
> getting your intent).  I guess we just have differing opinions.  I don't
> consider the photographs of Doisneau to be photojournalism, but that
> doesn't bother me in the slightest (I also don't place photojournalism
> above other photographic styles).  I think Doisneau's prints are worthy 
of
> much more than prints for teensager's walls.  I think they are worthy of
> prints for the Louvre's  (sp?) walls.  But, to each his own.
>
> Dan C.
>
> At 10:09 PM 05-05-99 -0500, you wrote:
> >At 12:13 PM 5/5/99 -0400, you wrote:
> >>At best,
> >>the efforts would be shot down with a, "Here's another Doisneau copy  
cat.
> >>Can't he do anything original?".
> >
> >You have a very good point there. And yes, I think his pictures are very 
> >attractive. They make great posters for teenagers' walls. I think that 
that
> >kind of photography is fine, for those who like it. I find it not true 
to
> >the real essence of the nature of photography. Capturing life as the 
camera
> >sees it. Not as someone constructs "idealistic" images. But that's just 
me.
> >
> >Eric Welch
> >St. Joseph, MO
> >http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch
> >
> >Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
> >
> >