Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/07/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]The lack of discrimination in style seems to characterise Leica at present; some of the stuff that appears in Leica World or LFI is equally lacking in originality, if not worse. Peter Dzwig Matthew Powell wrote: > On Jul 14, 2004, at 11:03 AM, Slobodan Dimitrov wrote: > >> http://www.leica-camera.com/kultur/events/wettbewerbe/obp/index_e.html >> >> I kept mulling of what it reminded me of, when it dawned on me where I've >> seen the like of it before. In this case, more like where I've heard it >> before, as the term bubble gum popped into my brain. >> I guess that this is their way of going after the youth market, by >> selecting >> what is essentially 70's retro imagery. In other words bubble gum >> photography. >> S. Dimitrov > > > I can't see enough from the images on their website to comment on the > actual photos. It's only a little bit better than looking at a contact > sheet. Very disappointing of Leica (Hasselblad has the same problem with > their galleries, from what I remember). > > The mention of trends and 'classical photography' reminds me of a John > Szarkowski interview in the spring Modern Painters - > > NK - Do you think photographs always become more interesting with time? > > JS - Most become more interesting with time. Naive photographers always > become more interesting with time. By naive I mean photographs that were > not made with high artistic ambition. On the other hand, if you take the > photographs that Stieglitz exhibited at the Albright Gallery in Buffalo > in 1910, those pictures have become much less interesting - and they > weren't very interesting to begin with because all they had was artistic > ambition. Whereas naive photographers almost always have something of > the world in them. Misdirected artistic ambition can turn into an effort > to squeeze the world out so that there is nothing left but aesthetics, > because then everybody can plainly see that it is art. It has to be art, > because there's nothing else there. Even good, serious photographers > like me can find themselves doing photographs that can be about very > little but the highly attenuated, photographic or artistic problem - and > then it doesn't have much to do with the world any more. > > (typos surely mine) > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >