Re: [Leica] Black paint classic and James Nachtwey

[Jesse Hellman <hellman@home.com>]

Imagine a war and no one came to photograph! While it is true that
events can occur for the media, without the media it is infinitely
worse. The genius of Ghandi was to realize that the press would bring
the news of the passive resisters being beaten to the genteel tables of
London, and that the English would not be able to stand it when they
were confronted with the fact that the aggression was theirs and
unprovoked. If only Hitler had allowed a free press into Auschwitz - but
then, with a free press there could not have been an Auschwitz. The
first thing a dictator does is control the news. It was the photographs
of the napalmed child and that of the South Vietnamese general coolly
shooting a captured Vietnamese in the head that helped make that war
unconscionable to many Americans.

There is a strong parallel between Ghandi's method and the press, and
the technique of psychoanalysis and the observing ego. Essentially, the
analyst remains neutral and does not respond to the patient in an
aggressive and confrontational way. The patient comes to see that it is
his own aggression, etc. that he has projected onto the analyst, much as
the British saw that it was their aggression, not the Indians'.

Hope you don't mind this. And now back to Leicas...

Jesse