Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/02/12

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Salgado to speak in Seattle Feb 16
From: Andrew Schroter <schroter@optonline.net>
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 07:24:27 -0800
References: <B88DFABA.D5A7%dstella1@ameritech.net>

Re rip-offs, Sh*t, Shakespeare ripped off his predecessors, nothing new
here!  We all stand on the shoulders of our predecessors.
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Dante Stella" <dstella1@ameritech.net>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 7:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Salgado to speak in Seattle Feb 16


> Well, since it's beat-up-on-Allan-Wafkowski-nite, I won't.  I don't want
to
> be crotchety at my young age, but...
>
> I don't care about Salgado's politics.  He shoots editorial pictures for
> Rolling Stone for goodness sake.  And NG.  The first one's viewpoint is
> fairly clear.  If the second one has a viewpoint, no one has read the
> articles to find out what it is.
>
> As a preliminary issue, I find it hilarious that people went nuts about
Leni
> Reifenshtal because her message was inseparable from her photography, but
> when there is some question about what Salgado is encoding in his
pictures,
> his work is politically neutral and completely meritorious.  People
> complained that Leni ripped off other photographers.  Ok.  Well, so did
> Salgado.  Either it is with both Salgado and her, or with neither.  But
> people have built up to the same kind of idolatry for Salgado that makes
> them worship 50 year old cameras.  But wait -- Leica uses his work to sell
> 50-year old cameras.  That ties it all together.  I really don't care for
> Leni or Sebastiao.
>
> But that's neither here nor there.  The reason why I don't care for
Salgado
> is his recent work, especially as I saw it in Madrid.
>
> First, the compositional element of Exodus suggested the point of view of
a
> video camera and not a person.  None of the direct contact or human
interest
> of Gene Smith, rather a Zaccheus-from-the-tree viewpoint.  There were a
> couple of strong pictures: a window light portrait in Bosnia, some men
> pulling a boat in Vietnam (or was it the Philippines), but even those did
> not engage the subject.  But in the majority, there are no events - it
seems
> that every shot is a frame from a movie.  That does not convey the human
> condition, except that a line of humans are as ants on a hill or part of a
> landscape.  In fact, I thought that for  this reason, a fair number of the
> shots were de-humanizing.
>
> Second, not everyone likes TMZ shot at f/1.0.  It is hard on the eyes, the
> tonality is lacking (well, you get at least 6 shades of gray) and when
> exhibited on a grand scale, it looks like a dot-matrix printer did it.
>
> Finally, Children of the Exodus was very contrived.  Child after child in
> front of the same background, same dodge-by-fist printing technique.  What
> is this, the Olan Mills of West Africa?
>
> This last one is probably his lab assistant's fault, but he certainly had
> something to say about it:
>
> The use of huge exhibition prints underwhelms me.  In the Circle of Fine
> Arts you could not back up enough to view one of the prints without
tripping
> over someone or hitting the other wall.  Perhaps worse, the use of large
and
> overwhelming prints reminds me of something I heard when I was eight: any
> picture looks good blown up, but very few look good on a contact sheet.
>
> I don't have a problem with giving Salgado his due as a great journalist
> photographer, but I do not think he is on a par with Smith, DDD,
> Cartier-Bresson and on.
>
> Dante
>
>
>
> > Please, let's not get into speculation about Salgado's politics based on
our
> > interpretations of the contents of his images. I really don't think
that's the
> > point
> > at all.
> >
> > For me, he's simply one of the great documentary photographers, and I
find it
> > exciting to be alive at the same time that he's still working.
> >
> > Emanuel Lowi
> > Montreal
> > --
> > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html
>
> ------------
> Dante Stella
> http://www.dantestella.com
>
> --
> To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html

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In reply to: Message from Dante Stella <dstella1@ameritech.net> (Re: [Leica] Re: Salgado to speak in Seattle Feb 16)