Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/10/26

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Eddie Adams Photo/ Jim Nachtwey in Israel
From: "Dave Fisher" <tekapo@golden.net>
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 14:55:47 -0400
References: <200010260536.WAA17503@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>

> From: "Alan Hull" <hull@telia.com>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Eddie Adams Photo/ Jim Nachtwey in Israel

> To paraphrase Landor.  A still photograph of a single moment in time is
> like a single note in music that means nothing without the notes that
> come before and the notes that come after.
>
> A movie sequence can be compared to a symphany.  A still photograph to
> a toot on a car horn.

Good grief Alan, what a dreadful metaphor! And one I totally disagree with.
Certainly motion pictures have a *different* effect on me than do still
photographs, but neither medium is exclusively *better* than the other, it
all depends on the quality of the footage at our disposal. Famous images
like Eisenstadt's V-Day shot, the Buddhist monk on fire, the Iwo Jima
flag-raising, the napalmed little girl, and the aforementioned Vietnamese
street execution are all IMHO more powerful as still images than motion
pictures (and unless I'm mistaken I seem to recall that in each of these
instances there is motion picture footage to compare against). Obviously
motion pictures can provide more information than still images -- when I
want to see last night's game-winning touchdown, admittedly I prefer motion
pictures to still photos. But I don't have to rewind still images. Great
photographs possess incredible power, we can linger upon them for hours if
we want and they become archetypal images that burn into our brains and stay
there the rest of our lives.

Cheers, Dave
- ------------------------------------------------------
http://home.golden.net/~tekapo