Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/08/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]"B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net> writes: > Actually, Dave, I did give you the shortened version of what I told him. > While I did, indeed, tell him that if he wanted to help change the world he > should get that MIT MA, I did tell him to keep shooting, to document the > people and projects he's involved in, and to ultimately figure out what he > wanted to do with his life. Which may be to do documentary photography, > rather than change the world. I figured it might have been an edited version but thought it should be mentioned. > And I agree with your take on change and impact - I was, as usual, painting > my picture with a broad brush. Of course every project can teach someone > about something. That is one thing that I notice some people having a hard time coming to grips with in regard to documentary photography - or just documentary work in general. There are some who ask the question "what am I supposed to do with these photos of (insert hard life situation here), if they want to change the world they tell me how I can help." Whereas others are saying that the fact that you saw the pictures and interpreted the situation as so horrible (in relation to the way you live) has some sort of impact on you. How you interpret that, and what you choose to do about your interpretation is a personal matter. At this point we get into the various camps of Criticism (I capitalize the word to emphasize the rather academic meaning of the word) which we probably don't want to do on this list :) Cheers, Dave - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html