Re: [Leica] ELEKTRONIX

[Guy Bennett <2bennett@wanadoo.fr>]

>Don Dory, then B.D.

>> W E. Smith's Minimata image of the little girl being bathed.  Far more
>> impact to become green than Rachel Carson or the Sierra Club.  Just think,
>> one little picture if publicized could change many people re the impact
>> people have on the environment.
>
>Amazing image. And now at the center of yet another storm of controversy
>as Aileen Smith has given all rights to the image to the child's
>parents, and they in turn have asked that it never again be
>displayed...in any form...


Quite true. Note that it's not included in the W.E. Smith book in Phaidon's
55 series, though it is in the Smith monograph (which must have been
published before the family requested that it no longer be reproduced).
This is another of Smith's highly manipulated images.


>> W.E Smith again with his image of the Haitian insane asylum resident
>> particularly the last one where you could see only the eyes. One image
>> bringing up all the dark feelings inside, telling you where you will end up
>> if you don't resist.
>
>Yes...But....This image raises all the usual questions about Smith and
>his darkroom manipulations. The original image is pretty mundane. This
>one was, in essence, created in the darkroom as he burned and burned and
>burned to eliminate everything but that partial face.....Still a
>powerful, scary image...


This to me is a fascinating question, and I have to say that I side with
Smith, that is, with his idea that what the camera shows is not necessarily
the truth, and that the photographer must intervene to make the statement
he feels is closest to the truth. Smith claimed to know what the truth was
in those situations where he was making pictures, and had absolutely no
qualms about manipulating his prints tremendously to reveal that truth.
Ultimately, he seems to be saying two things: there is no objective truth,
and the artist must be free to reveal what he can about the truth as he
understands it.


>> Ralph Gibson's "The Somnambulist"  Every photographer should read this book.


The original edition can be had used without too much trouble, though it
runs about $120. It can likewise be found in "Deus ex machina," which
presents most of Gibson's work in a whopper of a book (more than 700 pages,
if I recall) but which costs only $29. To my mind, Gibson is a highly
original photographer and, since he works with a Leica, he should be known
by all on this list!


>> Robert Frank "The Americans"  Risking a flaming, it's as if he was
>> possessed, forced to produce some of the best photography of the 50's.
>> Challenging America to rethink itself.  Possibly allowed the Civil Rights
>> movement to proceed by forcing a smug intelligentsia to look at what was
>> really out in America.
>
>Terrific body of work...Don't think however that it had a damn thing to
>do with the civil rights movement... [snip]
>Didn't have a damn thing to do with a Swiss photographer, who may have
>had great impact on the photo and art world, but that's a pretty insular
>world....


This is another interesting question that I was thinking about in relation
to Salgado, namely, his "real world" impact. Do his photos still appear in
magazines (i.e. in mass media publications) as they once did, or are they
now published exclusively in books produced by his own company and
exhibited in museums? If that is the case, it would seem that his influence
would be exercised mostly on the museum going, photo book buying public (in
other words, a relatively small portion of the population), and in that
case, as perhaps with Frank, I don't know, he would seem to be preaching to
the choir.


>> Michael Kenna's Notre Gardens book.  This book has absolutely wonderful
>> images of the gardens surrounding the great French Chateau's.  The
>> perspective that they were taken from both uplifts as spiritual beauty but
>> also instructs as a photographer.


I also like Kenna's "Le Rouge," "Monique's Kindergarten," and "The Elkhorn
Slough and Moss Landing." He has recently published a book of concentration
camp images with Marvalle ("L'Impossible oubli"). It's a strange experience
to see those photos. Aesthetically, they are often stunning, as his work
generally is, but you catch yourself admiring the beauty of pictures of
places that can only inspire horror, and that's a very singular feeling.
(Whichis also a criticism frequently made of Salgado's work, i.e. that he
creates "beautiful" pictures of horrifying events.) You can get a good
overview of Kenna's work in: "Nightwalk," a kind of retrospective of his
night work; and "Michael Kenna: A Twenty Year Retrospective,"
unfortunately, currently out of print.


Guy