Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/12/05

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: "....jumping over a puddle"?
From: Guy Bennett <guybnt@idt.net>
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 09:22:18 -0800

>> I think that a "man jumping over a puddle" is just that. A man jumping over
>> a puddle. You could take a photograph of a man picking his nose on the
>> subway, And that is all it would be. Or a bend in the road just outside
>> Cleveland is just a bend in the road outside Cleveland. Hopefully on the
>> way out of Cleveland.  ;)
>> Jim
>
>Taking that comment into consideration, I have to ask, what's the whole
>point of taking pictures. A picture of 'El Capitan' is just a big rock, an
>Eagle in flight is just a bird, The Hindenberg on fire is just one picture
>of thousands of fires everyday, etc, etc.
>
>Steve


and by extension, the mona lisa is just a woman sitting in front of a
window, the nightwatch, just a group of soldiers making the rounds, van
gogh's room, just a room...

the fact that we consider these "masterpieces" demonstrates that there's
more at work in a work of art than the subject matter. it's hard to believe
the issue would even come up for discussion, so obvious does it appear.

to bring the discussion back to photography, if all the image was about was
the explicit subject matter, then the 11 year old kid's snapshot of "el
capitan" would be of the same value as aa's, and i'm sure that most of us
would disagree with that (except kyle, maybe).

guy