Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/08/28
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]<< I am a psychiatrist and work with a number of women who have cut themselves. Photographing a young woman cutting herself is tacitly condoning what she is doing. The photographer is using her for his purposes, including his voyeurism and sadism. Is there a message to her that he cares more for his photography than for her? I would not know what went on in her mind, but do understand that standing by and watching, even more profiting from it, is a very destructive thing to have done. >> I didn't notice anyone cutting herself in any of these photographs. All these photographs look like they were taken after the fact. << Can anyone imagine Kyle standing by and photographing her hanging herself, after having photographed her putting up the rope? >> Not the same thing. << The reason she seems so blank is that she is so unable to feel, and is not relating to the photographer. The women who have done this often told me later that they were trying to feel something, that they felt so blank. There is a difference between being in a public situation, as a documentary photographer, where others are acting to help, using your skill to record the events, and that of trying to profit from an intimate situation such as this. It is very difficult to photograph the emotions which a woman such as this feels. The camera does not record inner feelings, only outward manifestations. Since the person does not show her emotions, but acts them out via the cutting, indirect means must be used to try to convey what she feels. I have rarely seen photos that succeeded. The intense emotions felt by some schizophrenics have been more successfully recorded. >> I'm sure that you know the exact reason why she has a blank expression. << Kyle's photographs are not even good, in any event. I hope that this is because, in spite of his effort to be unencumbered by ethics, he was made sick by what he was doing. >> Not good to you, but maybe to someone else. Let's see some of your work. Did you feel the same about Bruce Davidson's pictures in East 100 Street in the late 60's? Maybe Kyle shouldn't have put the URL in this forum for his own protection, as he hinted. Sam Kennard - never will be PC.