Re: [Leica] Re: Salgado Revisted

[John Collier <jbcollier@powersurfr.com>]

Thanks Allan,

That is much better. I do not have your dislike of radicals but I share your
distrust of their all too often simplistic/formulaic solutions.
Unfortunately I find the other philosophical persuasions also tend to have
solutions, though different, with the same problems. Any reductionist (sp?)
scientific view of the world always leaves out too much. The world is more
diverse, chaotic and complex that we can comprehend. While I can accept the
world as it is, I have not quite got to the stage where I can also revel in
it.

Our intellectual abilities are too limited to devise a single right way and
people and situations are too complex to fit into any way we have come up
with yet. I have come to feel that together we can act in balance. The
radical and reactionary working against each other, dare I say together,
find solutions that would be impossible for either to find alone. Naturally
there are many situations where it has not worked out particularly well by
any stretch of the imagination.

Bang goes my simplistic viewpoint :-)

All of the above is to say that I can find interest in almost any political
view as I feel that it mirrors some part of me. Admittedly a very small part
at times.

Good photography is very difficult. It is not easy to make the ridiculous
reasonable nor find dignity and strength in the weak and frail. Leni has
been mentioned in the course of this thread and she is a good example. She
made powerful and grand photographs of people we now find small and mean.
She makes us realise how reasonable fascism can seem at times. To illustrate
the difficulty of this one need only think of Mussolini. All his photos,
except the very last one, show a vain pompous man, a cloak of ridicule
seemed to forever be on his shoulders regardless of who was photographing
him.

So to sum it all up, I too do not necessarily agree with Salgado's
philosophical view but I am still rendered speechless by much of his
photography

I do owe you an apology for my mock ingenious reply. I was at a tough spot
in the restoration of a Moulton series one bicycle and you were the victim
of my pent up frustrations.

John Collier

> From: Allan Wafkowski <allan@sohogurus.net>
> 
> Let me try again:
> 
> He composes well, and he prints well (if he does his own printing). His
> subject matter borders on the maudlin. If you have seen 10 of his
> bloated bellies, you have seen the range of his work. His philosophy is
> foolish, and when he uses his camera for propaganda it reflects the
> foolishness of this philosophy. He's the champion of parlor radicals
> because they too are foolish. Foolish in this case means making note of
> social ills and offering even greater ills as solutions. If Salgado had
> not joined his photography closely with his social thought, I would not
> have. He did, I must too, to properly evaluate his work. How you are
> able to evaluate the two separately is beyond me.
>

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