Makers or Takers?

Let me suggest the following, possibly false, dichotomy. There are makers (in the sense of, for example, still lifes) and there are takers (in the sense of, say, documentary photography-you take what life gives you). Which are you, what do you tend to, how are the strengths of Leica appropriate to this? I don't actually think this is a Leica question but it's the opinion of you Leica users that I'm interested in. I understand that there are any number of quibbles one may have with such a dichotomy.

If you're asking about the distinction between a.) overtly

manipulating your subject, and b.) avoiding manipulating your

subject, my answer is that I do both. Leica Ms are particularly

useful for b.) because they are relatively unobtrusive.

 

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I don't buy into the dichotomy you've described because even in

documentary photography, I'm "making" the photo by manipulating the

perspective, DOF, shutter speed, film choice, etc. to produce a photo

that looks the way I want it to.

This is something upon which I never dwell; it makes no difference to

my photography what I call it. However, to talk about "making" a

photo sounds rather twee, if not a little pretentious, so I always

use "taking".

 

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Regards,

I feel there is a real difference between setting things up in a

studio to achieve an effect that you have visualised; or going out

into the world and discovering what you can find. Many of our

famous "photographers" are really art directors, Avedon and Leibowitz

come to mind. When I'm using my Leica, sometimes I'm slinking around

in the HCB, Frank, Winograd tradition of street phtotography, but I'm

never in a studio with the camera on a tripod and an assistant

holding a reflector. Heck, the flash sync is only 1/50! Those Rolling

Stone covers are shot with Mamiyas or Hassleblads. I think it's a

real dichotomy. Posed, lit, made up or discovered and framed.

If you carry each approach to its final extreme, making would involve

constructing or creating every aspect of the subject. This implies

having complete control. Nothing pre-existing could be in the photo,

since the photographer, not having created that aspect of the

picture, would not have had control over that element. He would have

had to accept that aspect as-is; in other words, "take" it.

 

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Now, if you carry "taking" to its extreme, the photographer would

have no control at all over anything. She would have to accept

anything and everything about the subject matter, timing, focus, and

exposure. One might try to achieve this purest form of "taking" by

setting the camera up on a tripod, attaching a long cable release,

and releasing the shutter remotely from a sufficient distance as to

have no idea what is going on in front of the camera. This would

still fall short of a pure "take" because there would still be some

intention exercised in where the camera set up: on the street, at the

beach, the opera, etc.

 

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Almost every picture has to be "made" to the extent that the

photographer had to exercise some discretion in selecting the

subject. And it also has to be "taken" to the extent that some

aspect of the shot was beyond the photographer's control. If I want

to photograph the Wainright building, I have selected the subject. I

can also select the time of day, the season, etc. I can determine

the film and whether it's to be a B&W or color shot. I get to decide

whether to create rhythm by including a line of windows, vs. a detail

shot of one window. But I didn't design the window or choose the

building material. Louis Sullivan did that.

 

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We could say that I MADE a choice of what to TAKE.

 

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So my conclusion is that making and taking are both pure forms which

exist at opposite ends of a continuum, with neither end being often

reached in practice. Most shots merely tend toward one or the other

end of the continuum.

 

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My 2 cents . . .

A long time ago, when I was learning English, I was taught that you

cannot "make" a picture, that you must not use that verb, that it's

always "to take a picture". In other words, the dichotomy Jim has

pointed us to doesn't exist for non-artists. BTW it's a choice that

doesn't exist in a number of languages (semantically, of

course).</p>I remember a friend who pointed out some time ago that he

could by no means understand how photography could be art; you only

shoot, after all, what's already there... I explained that the choice

of point of view/perspective, time (lighting!), etc., did make a

difference, not to mention studio shots; he grudgingly conceded some

people might understand it, but the reasoning for calling photography

an art would continue to escape him. At least where I currently live

(Germany), you still find many people who would never call

photography a <i>Kunst</i> for precisely that reason; yes, well,

perhaps, under certain circumstances, maybe, it's part of the more

<i>künstlerische</i> Areas of popular culture, but still definitely

not worth scholarly attention, so it cannot be art. So much for the

reputation of photography in the land of Leica, Rollei, and Schneider.

An interesting question, and one that essentially stopped my

photography dead in its tracks 20 years ago. Now that I've been back

for about a year, I have a completely different attitude about how I

TAKE :-) pictures, and some of my favorite stuff from the past looks

incredibly fakey to me now. There's no proper answer to the question,

I think, but I try to stay as far away as I can now from doing

anything which would be construed as "making" a photo. It's just an

issue of personal preference, probably. I don't enjoy reading

fiction, either.

I definitely make pictures. As has been said earlier, even in my

documentary work I choose the film, exposure, composition, etc.

The thing is I really don't see the dichotomy of this - even a

painter or sculpter is usually working with a model, or a

landscape, using something he didn't create (that would be god

is you so believe) to base his work on. It's just a matter of the

tools one is using. I know a number of 'fine artists' as my wife

works in an art gallery, and very few of them work from memory,

which is about the only time the dichotomy issue would be

relevant. This is of course only personal opinion. Though food

for though for all those on the forum who despise digital (myself

somewhat included). It's only a tool.

As I was looking at Ralph Gibson's work recently (as we all have I

suppose)two things occurred to me. He seems to have such a strong,

how can I say it, such a strong magnetic north in his work that, as

he says, he takes the same pictures wherever he goes. He "makes" his

pictures, in a sense. On the other hand, how can one explain or make

a picture like the one with the white stick running parallel to the

white line in the street. You don't,over coffee, come up with an

idea like that, unless someone is walking by with that stick. The

inspiration I receive from his work is in the realization that one,

with the right skill, vision or whatever, can find sources for the

art all around.

When I use an SLR, I tend to MAKE pictures. I spend more time

tweaking everything, using filters to modify the light, and really

work the framing more precisely.

 

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With my Leica M, I tend to walk up to the correct spot raise my

camera (or not) and TAKE the shot. It might sound goofy, but I can

really see in my mind where those frame lines will lay, and more

often than not, my distance is correct before I even check the

finder. It helps to live with only a couple (or less) of lens

options.

 

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The trick for me is knowing when to approach the subject with the

correct philosophical slant. While I have boxes of deliberate

portraits of my girlfriend, the only one that I ever felt worthy of a

frame is a "Grab" shot with a 35mm Summicron shot at f/2.0 in a

crowded train station. It was definitely TAKEN, not made, and it

works better than all of my formal attempts. Those others are not

bad, but there is an immediacy to the grab shot... not thinking, just

seeing, that really works. Damn, now I'm starting to over think this.

The appeal to me of photography as a completely uncreative person is

that the camera takes the picture, I don't have to make anything. And

that's also why I do as little of anything else possible afterwards.

My eyes just glazed over and I can't see to type...

under my supervise my leica TAKES my pictures, by framing I MAKE

them, then my frezzer helps me to keep then develop them when

possible, and time for sure will TAKE them away.

People makes pictures

<p> Photoradar camera takes picture of license plates.