Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/12/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]B.D. OK. Now I see where you're going. Photographs are, or can be, ambiguous, even if the objects in them aren't. I agree. The NY-er article was about ambiguous objects, though, and I think that's a bit different, at least to this literal-minded engineer, though I can see how you might argue differently to make a point about photographic ambiguity, if you consider the entire photo as the object. I found Bill Clough's PAW at http://www.leica-gallery.net/wccjr/folder-3723.html but I can't tell which one is "Madison" though I think there are a couple in there that might qualify. I looked at the '02 pictures, too. Thanks for bringing this up. Apart from the interesting idea, it pushed me to find the link. There are a lot of great pictures there. I'll have to come back to this later - I'm off to a meeting. >Richard Taylor observed that the Gladwell New Yorker article >whileinteresting, >had nothing to tell us about "Leica photography" because, after all, unless >a >photo is an abstract, we can look at it and instantly know what it's about >and >what's going on...Which leads me to observe.... >------- > > >Ah, but let's here it for the literal minded! >Richard, surely you aren't suggesting that photographs of people and >situations >- 1/2 to 1/8000th of a second slices of reality - can't be interpreted many >different ways by many different observers? We all bring to our observation >of >every photograph our entire life experience - and all our life experiences >are >different. A group of us can look at the same photo and come up with either >slightly, or widely varying interpretations of the scene before us. >Last spring >at the end of each week's class I'd show my students a photograph and ask >they >to write the first 250 words of a short story based on what they saw - the >variation in what they came up with was astounding. Granted, they were >reaching, but go to Bill Clough's PAW - I believe for '03, but it >might be '02, >to see Madison. > >The bottom line for me is that without ambivalence, it's the incredibly rare >street photo or public scene - non-news photo - that's worth the time it >takes >to even look at it. > >B. D. > > >_______________________________________________ >Leica Users Group. >See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information -- Regards, Dick Boston MA