[Leica] Ice Cream Shop

[Mike Johnston <michaeljohnston@ameritech.net>]

Jim B.: >>>Unlike many, I'm not afraid to voice my opinion!<<<


Well, neither is John Rocker.

I'm mystified that anybody could "hate" Eggleston, as most of his work
is beautiful, sentimental, elegiac, honest, and perfectly
straightforward. He's hardly a challenging artist. If you're so
unafraid, please post us the URL of a photograph that meets all of your
personal criteria for excellence, Jim. If you feel such animus for the
"Tennessee Highway" picture, I for one would be curious as to what you
find unambiguously admirable.

On the Leica-Users Members Photos page there's a category called "M
Stuff" by
someone named "Bryant" (who I don't know and can't recall seeing on the
LUG).
Check out his photo called "Ice Cream Shop" at this URL:

http://beta.content.communities.msn.com/isapi/fetch.dll?action=show_photo&ID_Community=Leicausers&ID_Topic=27&ID_Message=204

Granted, the subject matter borders on being sentimental, and/or
trivial. But only
borders. I think the picture rises above that. Let me describe a few of
the ways I
look at it--not that I would normally articulate this stuff; I'm just
trying to make it
plain in words why I think it's a great shot.

First of all, it's casual and offhand. This is a quality I almost demand
in
photographs if they're to deserve my attention. I dislike
over-controlled, tight-ass,
rigid photographs. I like things that look relaxed to me, like they're
the record of a
glimpse--something that has a connection to what it's like to look
around at the
world, not something that looks like it's the result of an effort to
control things
and enforce an order on things that doesn't really exist. But I digress.

I get a sense that it's a real place, not a generic place. Another
standard litmus test
that I automatically apply when I approach pictures.

And another: it's not a "type" of shot. That is, I don't get the feeling
I've seen it
umpteen times before.

It looks real, not fake or forced. I sometimes call this "authenticity,"
although
that's just a tag.

So there's this small dog. Look how well its smallness--and, perhaps,
the
vulnerability attendant on smallness in that situation--is set off. It's
virtually
surrounded by human presence, inside and outside: what looks like a very

out-of-focus top of a head in the lower right; the wheel of a passing
car (and we
know what cars have the potential to do to little dogs); the leg of a
pedestrian
striding past; the bicycle entering or leaving the frame. In every case,
the human
presence is both emphatic, enigmatic, and slightly ominous--or at least
it must
seem so to a creature as small as the dog--and also completely
anonymous, which
enhances this feel. We don't see anybody--not in the car, not on the
bike, not the
pedestrians or the person inside.

And it's all at least a little threatening, all that anonymous traffic.
The somewhat
darkish tonal palette (at least it is on my browser) reinforces that
too. And the
leash, of course, meaning the dog can't get away even if it might want
to.

Then look at the dog--isn't that a great dog? It looks like it was drawn
by a kid
with a crayon. A few feathery lines and dark blobs!

You can tell by its stance how alive it is. It's as expressive as
calligraphy. An odd
thing about photography--if you tried to draw that dog that way, it
would be
difficult to invest it with the sense that it is animated. I can't see
the dog's face at
all, but, remarkably, I get a sense of what its expression is!

I digress again.

Now look at the picture formally. Despite its highly offhand, grabshot
quality--lookit, <*click*>--it's actually very sophisticated in the way
it's
organized. Those strong verticals compartmentalizing the space (even
echoed in
the tiles to the right!), the layers from front to back (if it were
"pan-sharp," or
sharp from front to back, this layered sense--and the picture--would
have been
ruined). And all those wonderful half-circles impinging from the
edges--the
top-of-the-head (if that's what it is), the chair back, the bicycle tire
with the
half-round reflection of the crouching person superimposed over it, the
car
tires--all these circles looping in from the edges, echoing each other.

Finally, the gesture of the feeding hand--this little, trapped dog,
isolated
amidst these rushing, anonymous strangers, those crowding circles, in
the midst
of those layers--and a hand--its owner's identity still anonymous,
hidden from our
view at least--reaching out with an offer of solace, a bit of food. A
connection being made. Someone who's stopped rushing for a moment to
notice.

And of course a photographer noticing, too.

Articulating all this probably sounds a bit forced, because of course
analysis IS
artificial--it's not done that way. You look, you see, you recognize,
you respond;
naturally the photographer didn't have time to puzzle all this out
before taking the
shot.  But that doesn't mean he didn't "mean" it, either. He recognized
it. --When
he took the shot, and again afterwards, editing.

It's obviously not significant subject matter. But a good photographer
might find
good photographs anywhere.

There are other photographs by other photographers on the Leica-Users
page I'd like to comment about, but later. Suffice to say that this is
one photograph, at least, that offers me some of what I look for in
photographs. Naturally I don't have to analyze it to enjoy it. I find it
a pleasing, thoughtful, unpretentious, meaningful photograph.

- --Mike