Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/06

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Re: Rob &BD
From: "Phong" <phong@doan-ltd.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:36:40 -0500

Very, very well said, B.D.   It really is about
being "fair and balanced" to me, not about
avoiding image manipulation, which issue is more
between the photographer and the editor.

- - Phong


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of B. D. Colen
> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 11:03 AM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: RE: [Leica] Re: Rob &BD
>
>
> What you lay out here sounds pretty standard, in terms of a tweak here
> and tweak there in order to be able to get the shot; nothing that alters
> the 'reality' of the situation.
>
> I would also not suggest that your not wanting to 'pander' to western
> preconceptions makes the work propaganda - hopefully it makes it
> balanced. As long as the work includes the poverty, etc., that IS part
> of the scene - and it certainly does - then it seems to me is that you
> are documenting the reality of these people's lives, rather than
> capturing nothing but the poverty and filth - which would be its own
> form of propaganda.
>
> Once again, I would simply say that our obligation as
> journalists/documentarians, IF that is how we see ourselves, is to be
> honest in our reporting, to be what Fox is not - 'fair and balanced,'
> balanced in the sense of showing all aspects of the situation - which in
> the case of City of Crows means showing the 'positive' along with the
> negative that's always shown.
>
> Many years ago I wrote a lengthy feature about a couple of racist nuts
> who were home schooling their kids in Prince George's County, MD,
> outside D.C. This was in the days shortly after forced integration of
> the schools through busing, and these delightful ladies were teaching
> their kids - using McGufee's Readers - in one of their basements to
> avoid having their kids in the integrated schools.
>
> There is NO question that I thought these women were nuts, and evil nuts
> at that. And I spent the day with them well aware of my feelings. I
> wrote a long, colorful piece,which was almost entirely direct quotes,
> along with some physical description and scene setting.
>
> When the piece ran the next day, most of my friends in the newsroom
> thought I had really 'done a number' on my subjects - made them look
> like the racist knownothings they were. But my subjects LOVED the piece.
> They literally said it was the the only fair piece they had ever read in
> the Post, a paper they basically saw as taking its editorial direction
> from the Kremlin.;-)
>
> Why did they love the piece? They loved it because I quoted them
> accurately, and in context, and let them, in effect, tell their own
> story. Why did my friends think I'd done a number on my subject? They
> thought that because I quoted them accurately, and in context, and let
> them tell their own story.:-)
>
> I would suggest that doing photo reporting involves making the same
> kinds of moves - accurately recording what you see, making sure that you
> have the images necessary to tell the whole story you see before you. If
> you do that, you are being fair and honest - whatever your intent in
> telling the story. Because you are letting the story tell itself.
>
> Does that make sense?
>
> B. D.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Rob
> Appleby
> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 1:59 AM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Rob &BD
>
>
> > I think the current discussion is great. OK: Rob how much did you
> > maneuver stuff? Still love it, just want to know.
>
> The most I would do would be to ask people to move a bit for light, move
> out of the way, extend an activity they are already doing if I didn't
> get it and thought it was valuable, or maybe ask them to reschedule an
> activity if it wasn't a problem for them, they were going to do it
> anyway, and I wouldn't be able to photograph it if they didn't.
>
> For example, there is a picture - I don't know if it is online - in City
> of Crows of a woman cooking while two children watch TV. The situation
> here was that the room was crowded with furniture, and more and more
> children kept coming into the room in order to be in the shot. So I
> moved a couple of stools out of the way so as to get as far back for the
> 24 as possible and stopped more kids coming in and giggling and pointing
> at me.
>
> Another example is the picture of the beauty parlour. I was sent there
> by a contact, but it was closed that day. I was talking to the girl who
> runs it and she said that her sister had to go to a party that evening
> and if I wanted she could pluck her eyebrows in the beauty parlour
> instead of at home, or I could come the next day. I couldn't make it for
> the next day, so she very kindly helped me out in this way. I thought it
> was important to show a beauty parlour in the slum, and the activity was
> going to take place anyway.
>
> Finally, to address the situation that upset Tina: if a couple is
> playing with their baby and they're doing it in the darkest corner of
> the room so that I'm stuck at a 1/2 a second exposure, I might ask them
> if they could just move over to the doorstep into the light. The other
> alternative would be to use flash. Actually this has never happened, but
> using flash in such a situation would ruin the ambience much more than
> asking them to move if they don't mind doing so.
>
> I contend that this is the sort of thing photographers do all the time,
> even though they may not even be aware of doing it as a form of
> manipulation of the situation as John Collier pointed out. I certainly
> don't see how it turns documentary into propaganda, and it certainly has
> no effect on the emotional or aesthetic content of the picture - or on
> its "truth".
>
> As another example, is using flash less "true" than making do with dodgy
> light? After all, most people don't have flashguns going off in their
> rooms all the time. In City of Crows there are maybe three or four
> pictures shot with flash - are those therefore propagandistic?
>
> Sure, I did City of Crows with certain ideas in mind, about the
> misrepresentation of lower class Indian urban life in the media and the
> emerging middle class reality of the slums, and I consciously avoided
> emphasising aspects which would pander to western preconceptions about
> poverty and disease as the normal condition of such places, although
> some pictures do show drug addicts, ragpickers, and quite poor people. I
> had an agenda, partly to correct or give an alternative view of this
> "reality". I had in mind, for instance, Salgado's clichéd shots of the
> same place, and Hernando de Soto's critique of the black economy. So to
> that extent this is a form of propaganda. But I would suggest that
> Tina's pictures are equally propagandistic in the sense that they
> reflect her view of the situation she is photographing.
>
> -- Rob
>
> http://www.robertappleby.com
> Mobile: (+39) 348 336 7990
> Home: (+39) 0536 63001
>
> All outgoing email scanned by
> Norton AntiVirus (TM) 2003 Professional Edition.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Roy Feldman" <royfphoto@aol.com>
> To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 10:24 PM
> Subject: [Leica] Re: Rob &BD
>
>
> > After all the junk that is talked about here, Rob and BD are having
> > private conversations about photography ethics? We get Tilly hats and
> > you two are actually talking about things that matter? I can't believe
>
> > that two of the greatest minds in photography today (well perhaps a
> > bit of a stretch) don't include us on that stuff and save us from the
> > 'If I put a leica lens on a canon digital am I still in the club?"
> > stuff. I think the current discussion is great. OK: Rob how much did
> > you maneuver stuff? Still love it, just want to know.
> > Roy Feldman
> >
> > --
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> >
>
>
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