Re: [Leica] Ice Cream Shop

["Mike Durling" <durling@widomaker.com>]

Interesting analyses Mike.  The first analysis sounds like vintage
Szarkowski; the second a formalist description; the third, is psychoanalysis
the right word?  You lead us through the various ways of looking at a
picture.  NIce shot by the way.

Mike Durling
KD4KWB
http://www.widomaker.com/~durling/

Mike Johnson wrote in part:
. . .
> 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
>
>