How is a photograph different from film when capturing a moment?

They have both been credited for capturing some of the most

extraordinary moments in are history, for other generations to view.

But the main question that I want answered is ?Of the to separate

kinds of arts, which has the greater at revealing the moment in time

it has captured and why? Photography or Motion picture?

I beleive that motion pictures capture more emotional impact because it's closer to reality for us.

Still images have the qadvantage of holding more detail for further observation and are more easily acessible to a larger audience, but given both options I feel that motion captures more impact.

First example: The execution of a Vietcong suspect by General Loan during the Tet

offensive in 1968 was photographed by an NBC film and by an AP photographer named

Eddie Adams. Which version d oyou remember?

 

Second example: The murder of Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of a Dallas County jail

likewise was photographed by a both motion picture and a still photographer. Which

version do you remember?

 

Third example; the attacks on the World trade Center on September 11 2001 was recorded

by countless film, video and still cameras. which versions do you remember?

Stills. no doubt. I think the reason being have to do with how our

brain captures and memorizes in bits and association as

oppose to storing in a tempory fashion. Right brain left brain

also differs abit. Some are better with the big picture while

others are better at details.

Trite answer, maybe, but:

 

The photograph is more abstract than the film, because the time context is missing. The viewer is thus required to reconstruct time dimension from the clues. This may or may not result in greater impact depending on the effort the viewer chooses to invest. That choice depends on many variables in the viewer, but one of those variables is previous involvement with the issue/subject at hand. With previous interest, the viewer is more likely to invest.

The photograph, being static, gives an additional degree of abstraction. Black-and-white photograhy is to colour what poetry is to prose, less literal but capable of a greater truth.

 

I think this question is best answered by the events of Sept. 11th, 2001. I have seen that footage of the 'plane crashing into the tower a hundred times, but for me the still frame of the aircraft with its reflection in the glass of the tower, just an instant before the impact, is infinitely more eloquent.

I like that poetry analogy.

 

The key difference between the media is of course that a still is an instant in time. It separates the viewer from the events preceding or following the instant, and allows the instant to be studied at great length. The mind can extrapolate forwards and backwards to construct its own interpretation of the sequence of events.

 

The original question is about documentary footage. It may be interesting to consider non-documentary footage as well.

RE: still frame of the aircraft with its reflection in the glass of the tower

 

Chris, can there be a link to this picture? I've never seen it. As a matter of fact, I saw very little of Sept. 11 photographs, so if there is a large resourse, I'd be thankful for the link.

The easiest thing to overlook is that motion pictures are simply a series of still images giving the illusion of motion. Good cinematographers and videographers know this and bear the burden of finding 24-30 "keepers" per second.

 

Most of the extraordinary moments in history are horrific events we are glad we only see in pictures. For that reason, I think we choose to remember still images, rather than force ourselves to relive the moving images that reflect the awful realities more closely. The abstraction of the still image, as Wayne observed, allows each viewer the choice of how much he or she will invest emotionally into the reality of the event.

 

Abstraction also lends itself well to symbolism. Eddie Adams's "Saigon Execution" has become a symbol of war and violence. If Mr. Adams had a 16mm Bolex, it would have remained a document of an execution.

A photograph captures THE key moment in time, and therefore has a greater emotional impact. I think it is also important that a photograph is much more readily available, and is something you can hold in your hand and study. Books are readily available with some of the greatest journalism pictures of all time, but where can you find similar offerings of the greatest journalistic motion pictures?

How about he mushroom cloud advert on TV when LBJ ran for president? How about more doctors recomending Camels versus other cigarettes in advertising?<BR><BR>How about when they didnt show Elvis the Pelvis below his beltline on TV?<BR><BR>How about when my neighbor in Detroit shot the "drive the chrylser from Chicago to Detroit with no battery advert; for alternators; a new thing in high end cars!"<BR><BR>How about the Super shell with platromate sp? adverts on TV; with the cars going thru the paper wall finish lines.<BR><BR>How about the atomic blast effects 16mm films; the radiation after effects films; the Radiac Nuclear Yield calculator; and dose; warhead time of entry; observed cloud width; flash-to-bang time; distance to ground zero instructional 16mm films. <BR><BR>How about those Bettie Page photos we had long ago; hidden from the witchhunt crowd.<BR><BR>How about when Norma Jean sang to the President?<BR><BR>How about the lakehurst sp? hydrogen accident?

Doggone insolent Aussies !

 

I find the still photos powerful because they leave me alone for a moment with my thoughts about the event.

 

In the case Pete notes above, the filmmakers plainly realized it was not safe to leave Pete alone with his thoughts.

Just like the other poster above, I can advise you to watch the movie Five Obstructions (Lars von Trier), at least its first chapter. They play with the idea of using only 12-frame scenes remaking an older short movie. The result gets very close to still photography (or,better said, still photography slideshow).

 

Kelly, i don't understand (the relevance of) your Howabout's, above...

I mean the other poster in the thread above this one:)

While I normally favor still photography over motion pictures for "capturing a moment", I do think that time-lapse motion picture photography has an aesthetic/emotional impact that would be lacking in still images of the same event. In particular, I am thinking of time-lapse motion picture studies of a flower blooming or of a thunderstorm forming, climaxing, and then dissipating.

Example Four: The headshot taken on Kennedy, followed immediately by Mrs.

Kennedy trying to put his brains back in before giving up and crawling over the back

of the limo.

 

Back, and to the LEFT!

 

I don't know what you were trying to assert, but I'd have to argue that it's a question

of saturation that makes us remember things, not just impact alone.

 

We know Kennedy because we've seen it thousands of times...we've seen the stills

from the film, well... not so much.

 

At the same time, we probably know Adams' execution shot better because it does

not summarily depict the guy falling to the ground with a fountain of blood gushing

from his head to the pulse of his still beating heart, as the newsreel does. News

outlets want to inform, not disgust, their markets. That and the Pulitzer Adams got

for the still, etc. etc.

 

Jon, if you want to find the answer to this, you'll only end up with more question...but

what interesting questions they are...

 

I'd suggest you start by looking at those photos of your late grandparents which you

have posted on your site. They mean absolutely nothing to me. I'd even go as far as

to say that a film of the same events would mean just as much. BUT to YOU, they are

probably of great importance. They bring back memories of the circumstances

surrounding their creation...a narrative that is only availiable to those who were there,

and who lived to captured moment.

 

Now, compare them to old newsreels of the Hindenburg crashing, or the Berlin wall

falling and see which you understand more. and why?