Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/08/12

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Salgado
From: Henry Ambrose <henryambrose@home.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 16:04:31 -0500

Peter Klein wrote:
>Salgado is a darling of the cult of the Third World, 
>Oppression, and the Downtrodden.  This sometimes blinds viewers to the fact 
>that he often magnifies simple tragic scenes of life into Wagnerian 
>proportions that have nothing to do with the lives of the people he is 
>portraying.  He's got a perfect right to do this, both for artistic 
>reasons, and to evoke well-deserved empathy for his subjects.  But 
>something about it sets off my internal critic that says, "careful, you're 
>being manipulated."

EVERY time you view a picture you are seeing the photographers version of 
reality. Every  time you feel and/or react to a picture you are 
manipulated. 

A photograph that says nothing or is without some real value or comment 
is just more visual clutter, the eye candy we see so much of in popular 
magazines. 

Henry