Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/05

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Subject: RE: [Leica] re: The Decisive Moment is gone
From: Daniel Ridings <daniel.ridings@muspro.uio.no>
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 10:13:00 +0100 (MET)
References: <MNELJONCHOKNFLMBFJCCMENKCGAA.kitmc@acmefoto.com>

> To argue that a documentary photographer is completely "objective"--and I
> use that word in quotes for a reason--and that the presence of the person
> has no effect on the situation being captured would be more than
> disingenuous. This is not what Tina is saying, I know. The presence of an
> observer is always going to have some influence on the situation, but a
> really good documentarian will be able to reduce the impact of her/his
> presence as much as possible. The other extreme is the photographer who
> "poses" or arranges the subjects, or intrudes upon the subject/persons/etc.

In general, many historians would prefer the family snapshot or vacation
shot as an objective reporting of a scene or landscape than the skilled
talents of a professional photographer. This issue has cropped up
recently here at my work place (Unit for Digital Documentation).

Daniel
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In reply to: Message from "Kit McChesney | acmefoto" <kitmc@acmefoto.com> (RE: [Leica] re: The Decisive Moment is gone)