RE: [Leica] In The Negative - The Guts of a True Photographic Image

["Jonathan Borden" <jborden@mediaone.net>]

Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote:
>
> I guess the work of Man Ray and Uelsman (and others) isn't photography by
> your definition... they're definitely not expressions of reality, they
> are constructed images with a great deal of manipulation.

FWIW:

	Man Ray does push the boundaries of photography and clearly has worked in
'multimedia' as well. Do you mean the "Rayograph", were not these images
created by light, and hence photographs? I did not require that photographs
*not* be constructed images, rather that they be created by the action of
light.

	Photography as an expression of reality does not need contain all of
photography. This school, however, is well known, particularly in the Leica
'school', to keep this on topic. (For example Cartier-Bresson etc. etc. etc.
if this remains unclear).

>
> I don't entirely disagree with you but I don't fully agree with you
> either. Your definition of photography contrains the art and craft of it
> a bit further than I accept.
>
> Godfrey
>

	All definitions have boundaries. Given the rise of multimedia as its own
and true art form, I would categorize Man Ray as a pioneer of multimedia who
happened to use photography as a media. In the same way that the rise of
photography transformed classical schools of art, and perhaps enabled
abstract art by removing the painter's need to depict reality (and history),
multimedia ought allow photography to focus itself as an expression of
reality.

	I realize my views are not shared by everyone, though I do continue to
wonder why extra extra extra saturated color films continue to be introduced
despite the ubiquitous ability to slide a few controls in Photoshop and
achieve at least the same effect.

Jonathan Borden


Jonathan Borden