Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/08/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Perhaps what the reader of the book or the viewer in the gallery see is what the world looks like from the point of view of the photographer and how the world reacts to the photographer. Avedon, in his introduction to "In the American West", writes "There are times when I speak and times when I do not, times when I react too strongly and destroy the tension that is the photograph." This is an example of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle at work. (See http://www.honors.unr.edu/~fenimore/wt202/close/#principle) if you don't get my drift. Photographers, the closer they come to their subjects, the more the subject is affected. - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harold Gess" <Harold.Gess@btinternet.com> To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 2:59 PM Subject: [Leica] The Americans, Avedon, etc > I have been following the thread on photographers and the truth or otherwise > of what they show. > > I think that we must remember that each of us carries with us our own > experience, vision, ideology, and set of interests or agenda with us. > > Some of us might go to a country and photograph it from one point of view, > others from another. We each see what we want to see. That does not make our > images illegitimate or a lie. It does not make them a balanced view either. > > I might go out and photograph Paris and seek out the lovers, the artists, > the coffee shops, the romance of paris, people enjoying the spring and call > my book "Parisians". Somebody else might go out and photograph the drug > scene, the poverty which exists in some areas, the night workers, the > prostitutes, etc and call their book "Parisians". A third photographer might > take the same title and photograph office workers, religious figures, > politicians and shopkeepers. > > None of the three books is an accurate view of Paris. Does it matter? Each > is an experience, a vision of Paris. Each is legitimate but none is a > complete view. Nobody will ever produce a complete and balanced view. > > I think it is much more important to view what is being said and to accept > that that is how someone saw, or chose to see, the situation or place, > rather than to try and quantify whether it is an accurate portrayal of our > own experience of the same place. > > Harold > > >