Re: [Leica] Squares and sabotage

[Eric Welch <ewelch@neteze.com>]

At 01:53 AM 11/23/1999 -0500, you wrote:
>I take offense because what you are stating about environmental portraiture
>  ("Much more important and impressive work than portraiture") is so
>patently false and biased.

Did I say everyone has to agree with me? So many people on this list just 
seem to sit around waiting to take offense so they can jump on someone.

You don't understand the context of what Bob McKeowen and I were talking 
about when we say environmental portraiture. For us as journalists, it's an 
escape, an easy way out of doing our jobs the right way because our 
employers don't want to hire enough people to do journalistic photography 
the right way. To us, it's a cop-out.

Environmental portraiture in the sense of Arnold Newman is a whole 
different ball game, and I neglected to point that out. Sorry.

I was thinking that journalism plays a more important role in our society 
than art does. It is a check on the power of government, it makes people 
aware of the tragedies, and the triumphs, of fellow citizens of earth. It 
informs on a much more fundamental way than art does. In that sense, from 
my perspective, journalism is more important to the survival of society 
than art. But on the other hand, life without art is pretty darn 
meaningless as well. They are different aspects of one society. Neither 
would exist nearly as well without the other. So I was wrong, in that sense.

>specialized requirements.  A wedding photographer requires social skills
>that the vast majority of photographers don't possess.  Does that mean that

And I would argue that this is a baseless, biased, claim. Documentary 
photographers have to be at least as skilled in this area, because they are 
not being paid by the subject to be there, and have to insert themselves 
into that person's life in a way that has the least impact possible. On the 
other hand, wedding photography calls for a very patient, caring, 
willing-to-take abuse type of photographer. But the photography's the 
easiest part.

>Environmental portraits are obviously extremely difficult to do.  Look at
>how the environmental portraits of someone of the stature of HCB were so
>thoroughly trashed on the LUG just a month or two ago.  If he can't get it
>right, what hope is there for the rest of us?

I would say this might be an indication of a lack of sophistication on the 
LUG's part. I'm not claiming that, just bringing up the possibility. Though 
to say they deserved to be trashed is obviously in error. Not that YOU said 
that. It took me a long time to appreciate Robert Frank's, and 
Cartier-Bresson's, work, whereas some other photographers, like Ansel Adams 
and Andre Kertesz and Sebastiao Salgado were love at first sight.

>Everyone on the LUG knows you are a "real documentary photojournalist".
>You obviously love your work.  It doesn't mean that other branches of
>photography are inferior to your chosen field, yet this is exactly what you
>want us to believe.

Some are, some aren't. That's the politically incorrect facts. 
Photography's importance isn't something we can vote on. And no one can 
claim an objective list in order of importance the various types of 
photography. It's a reality that none of us can argue for, but for 
different people, it's going to be a different angle of view. Hmmm...kind 
of like photography.

For me, and I know a lot of real photographers, I know how difficult 
documentary photojournalism is, I know how difficult the other kinds are. 
I've done a lot of them myself. In fact, newspaper photojournalism covers 
almost every single aspect of the different genres of photography. 
Documentary, sports, portraiture, natural history, fashion, food, 
still-life...you name it, we've done it. That's the most difficult type of 
photography to do well. All of it in one job.

Most of us don't do weddings, that's too hard. ;-)

>At a local film school, it seems that everyone wants to be "street
>photographers", taking "real documentary photographs".   Man oh man, if the
>homeless people in my home town got a buck for every "real documentary
>photograph" taken of them, they wouldn't be homeless.

Yeah, well they're not real documentary photographers, yet. Once they work 
through the homeless story, and the life of the stripper story, and the 
other cliches that come to mind in a early-forming mind of the 
documentarian, they settle down and do more important work. Portrait 
photographers don't start by jerking a cigar out of the mouth of a head of 
state either.

Eric Welch
Carlsbad, CA

http://www.neteze.com/ewelch

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