Have a look at
this. Believe me I’ve got nothing against Cathal McNaughton's work, but I was reminded of this particular picture and the problem I have with it (read the final sentence of the accompanying caption) during Wednesday’s tutorial when we were told of Cartier-Bresson’s penchant for sniffing out a location and waiting for the moment to happen (I was mildly horrified). For me this is as contrived as setting pictures up to make them look natural. I’ve never done this when I’ve been out and about in the streets because somehow it feels like a completely wrong way of working. Something false. Something not in the spirit of street photography. However, when I get the time (and the weather) over the next few weeks I’m going to give it a try.
Last night I went to the Synagogue in Volos at the invitation of the local Jewish community to
attend a small service (with my camera) to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz as mentioned below. When I got there the lights were on but the gates were all locked. There was a doorbell and I didn’t press it. A wonderful moment of crisis. At least I know I’ll never be paparazzi. The accompanying picture was taken by accident on the way home.
attend a small service (with my camera) to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz as mentioned below. When I got there the lights were on but the gates were all locked. There was a doorbell and I didn’t press it. A wonderful moment of crisis. At least I know I’ll never be paparazzi. The accompanying picture was taken by accident on the way home.
5 comments:
I can understand your ambivalence about the photo you linked to. At times I also wait for things in an image to line up better. I do not purposely stage an image. Would the lingering doubt about his image still remain, let's say, if he showed up at the exact millisecond that the people walked past the puddle, no ripples disturbed the reflection and the sun shone on the tower? It is still a completely natural event - whether he waits one day, one year or one millisecond before he snaps the shutter. I'm sure you also shoot certain things waiting for certain light. Or shot a scene with a special lense, from a certain angle and at a certain shutter speed. I think by your definition, then every photo we take is a 'staged' and unnatural event. It is of course something that is always debated. What part, if any, of the photos we take are real and fact. Our image frame is only so big (that means we crop something out), our shutter speed determines only a moment in time never really is a moment in time (but several moments in time) and our presence as photographers also influences the scene no matter how hard we try to be a "fly on the wall", because even the fly alters the moment.
Do you know the French film maker and anthropologist Jean Rouch? He was quite an interesting man. Up until he came along it was generally agreed that when you point a camera at somebody they begin to act unnaturally. He completely disagreed and argued that people acted as they really are in front of a camera. Quite a radical idea, and an extremely interesting one. I think maybe I find the idea of standing around waiting for the right shot for an hour strange because that's an hour when you could be taking much more interesting shots. Whatever, this is precisely why I'm doing this course.
hey sco, interesting discussion here...i'd agree with dean and then recall the metaphor paul used: finding a backdrop a stage, then waiting for the actors to populate it. while i don't really practice this way anymore, i recall not really having the patience to do that...i think that really takes patience. but it would make for a good assignment. find a great back drop and give it a go...maybe i will. ciao!
What was it Shakespeare said about a stage?
:)
A bit late to the party... I think there's room for both. I always find that when I stop in a place I end up seeing so many more things happening than when I am passing through. The only time I would feel anything contrived about an image I took during one of those moments would have been if it was a humorous shot, or a visual pun. That would feel cheap, for me those need to be genuine one off coincidences.
p.s
weren't you just a tiny bit curious to push the doorbell?
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