Allen Herbert

<p>Train spotters, Anoraks come to mind.</p>

<p>Love ins, are nice but boring.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Well, I suppose if you like forums which are all about gear....</p> <p>If you like forums which are about photography....then there are always going to be discussions and challenges of ideas....if gear is your thing best to stick to gear forums.</p> <p> </p>

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<p>Agree with Dan.</p> <p>Methinks, we over think too much. Sometimes it is better just to do.</p>

<p>"to get a better handle on this sometimes maddening, sometimes enlightening endeavor in which we are engaged. That was my intent".</p> <p>Excellent post.</p> <p>Unless we try to understand/discuss.....what will we discover?</p>

<p>Really enjoyed the photos on this post " cut above the average".</p> <p>Thanks Fred to a link to a superb photo.... Really liked the coyote photo; difficult and challenging photos to capture...which have an honesty.</p>

<p>" perhaps every photograph is an abstraction'</p> <p>I think by trying to define photography with a word or words is misleading. Photographs have their own language which speak to us in their own way......</p> <p>Their language is unique to them and has its own mysterious way of communicating on a sublime level.</p>

<p>The real essence of huminity is offering a helping hand to our fellows.</p> <p>Beyond greed, self gratification....behold self.</p> <p>The ultimate drug....the open hand to our brothers/sisters in humanity.</p> <p>To walk with them in our little moment of time.</p> <p> </p>

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<p>"If I'd had the chance to shoot Mother Teresa, I'd be trying to capture her at her work, showing her and the response from someone she was helping"</p> <p>And I would show a photograph of someone digging up a road.</p> <p>Would it show the "essence of them" only that they are digging up the road or caring for someone. Where is the essence of them? The inner soul....the person within.</p> <p>The photograph reveals all...methinks not...a reflection of something. Something.</p> <p> </p>

<p>" The problem with the word "essence" is that it is supposed to be the one thing that best exemplifies the true nature of someone or something"</p> <p>And a photograph can reveal that. Just a single image?</p> <p>Or, an act of imagination?</p>

<p>Let us talk.</p>

<p>"I'm not seeing anything in your post Allen".</p> <p>What are looking to see, David?</p> <p>Perhaps some names, that sort of thing?</p>

<p>This photograph has some documentry evidence "cemetery drive"...words in the photograph which narrows the perception and imagination. However, it is still speculation without a documentry. Imagination.</p><div></div>

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<p>(1) What constitutes a subject's essence?<br /> (2) Is it possible to capture a subject's essence in a photograph?<br /> (3) If so, how? If not, what alternatives exist?</p> <p>Does a Photograph tell a story?</p> <p>　<br /> 1. A photograph does not reveal any essence other than mere shadow of essence..." the characteristic or intrinsic feature of a thing, which determines its identity; fundamental nature". It is a simple image percieved by the imagination and put into the imagination, through lack of data, into a flight of fantasy.<br /> <br /> 2.No, a single, or, multiple image at best is just a perception of the photographer or viewer.</p> <p>　<br /> 3.The alternative is a photograph as a suppliment to a documentary.</p> <p>　<br /> A photograph tells a story but a story about the journey of the imagination other than a factual discourse.</p>

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<p>I cannot help thinking, the honesty of a photograph is lost in the words.</p> <p>The words become the photograph.</p> <p>The masters of words, and gold, sit on the thrones.</p>

<p>Well, a fake photo. Let us talk a thousand words.</p> <p>A fake photo to please.</p> <p>Simple really but let us add a thousand words,</p>

<p>Lost in space.</p> <p>Leica is about quality lenses. The end.</p> <p>The lump of machinery, is a lump of machinery.</p>

<p>Stick your head out of your arse and look at the world.</p> <p>Introspection, the disease of humanity.....go and do something, for someone else.... in this world other than yourself.</p> <p>You will feel some real feelings.</p>

<p>Hope you are not going to hate me because I have given a honest opinion. Others may think it is great a master of taste.</p> <p>But for me.....nightmare stuff. Sorry.</p>