Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/04/02
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At 03:23 PM 4/2/99 +0200, you wrote:
> Charbonnier, Doisneau, Bill Brandt, a lot
>of guys who did big photo essays for the picture magazines set up their
>shots. The real question is *how* the shot is set up. Does it convey the
>situation honestly and revealingly, and appealingly?
It is not acceptable. Period. If a picture looks like it's not "posed" then
it darn well better not be. That's the way photojournalism works now, and
documentary photographers should do the same. It's not enough to pretend
it's honest. Either it is, or isn't. That hasn't been the way it's always
been. But that's the way it needs to be now, if there is to be any
credibility in documentary and photojournalistic work. It's way too easy to
manipulate photos nowadays and have it so seamless that you can't tell it's
manipulated. It used to be hard to do.
And the Minimata picture you talk about, of the bath, was shot in a room
with one window, and it was a mother bathing her daughter Tomoko. (Just to
be picky).
Eric Welch
St. Joseph, MO
http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch
The strength and power of despotism
consists wholly in the fear of resistance.
-- Thomas Paine