lmnop

<p>The photos where you get in close and can really see their faces are the one's that I like the best. If you're a fan, I imagine these are the shots you'd like to see the most.</p>

I think some time last year you posted some photos of veterans, I still remember some of them. I searched under the name of your project and was please to see some very powerful and gorgeous portraits on your lightstalker site. Excellent, excellent work.

Barry--I looked at an older set of yours from Lark-- I see some of the same faces; a record of this place and the people who come to it is a worthy project for sure. The music lives only so long as people play it, teach it and come to care about it, just like any language. I just spoke with a fiddler about Lark, she said that it was a WPA project and that there are only two in the US--the other being Camp David. Photographing the playing is hard, I'm getting lots of movement blur, but like my music, I'm thinking I'll improve.

Barry--re-reading your last post you asked a few questions that I didn't answer. I'm a beginner with the cello, not your typical instrument for the kind of music at Lark, but when I do contra dance I've found the cello isn't a bad addition to the band.

Barry-- no I wasn't there, but perhaps next year--if I practice in the meanwhile. At a neighbor's party this summer a few people who had just returned from Lark told me to think about going next year. There are several videos of Lark on Youtube, found them after I took a look at your photos. It looks like a beautiful area, good musical practice, good people, lots of photogenic moments.

Someone returning from Lark said I might like it, so thanks for the photos, a nice way to check it out.

Elmo,

 

I really enjoyed your soundslide documentary. It brought back many memories of meeting people in your field. Take care, I remember hearing about lots of injuries!

Congratulations, I always enjoy seeing your photographs.

Gorgeous photo, beautiful children.

I was at the store looking at the sony alpha 350--looks like it might be good for doing street photography. . .am I wrong about that?

Forgot to mention, #2& #9 in the tail gating series are the one's I feel are not as strong as the others.

Took a quick look through all of your sets. At the moment I feel like the tail gating one is the strongest, on the whole. Each of the sets have incredibly interesting shots where the lighting, the emotions you capture and many other things are working together so beautifully. Nice work, hope we get to see more of it.

Nothing came out wrong, not the words or the pictures. Thanks Leslie and Sevtap for posting them.

Probably best to know what the photos are for-- are the photos to accompany an article in a journal, for undergraduates, graduate students? The team may have a good sense of what sort of images they're after, try and get as many details as you can ahead of time. Just my preference but sometimes the inclusion of another object such as a ruler can give students a sense for the scale--when size matters. Good luck!

Thanks for posting this. He had an amazing career, I had never seen the Ozwald family pictures, or the one of Nixon watering his roof.

I saw that your photo had been chosen last night-- it's a special pleasure to see a photo that I know get well deserved recognition. Congratulations!

Robert, how 'bout this one:

 

"I had just discovered the Leica. It became the extension of my eye, and I have never been separated from it since I found it. I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung-up and ready to pounce, determined to "trap" life--to preserve life in the act of living. Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph. . . "--Bresson

Sorry about that, looks this is what Scott found too.

After a few seconds of poking around I found the forward to the book.

 

http://www.e-photobooks.com/cartier-bresson/decisive-moment.html

I like these photos a lot! These are my favorites: Top hat meets leather pants; Long coats and hats; Next Stop Prison, and Post No Bills.

Street and documentary? Interesting but I think it belongs in another forum.

"as photographers we only frame a small piece of a large scene"

 

The human visual system only frames a small piece of a large scene too. There is always some framing and editing going on, ours is usually out of our awareness because it just happens, as we open our eyes to see. For our visual system, moving things, red things and faces have a lot of pull. When we walk down the street, chances are, there are lots of things like snails that we have not seen because our system edited them out. However, the chances of noticing a ring of the same size as the snail are likely higher. While you are examining what might be a lost ring, the larger world momentarily recedes to allow you this focused attention--allows you to actually see it. There is no crime in this biologically driven framing and editing, we depend upon it. Driving a car requires tons of editing--we see different things when we're the passenger. You notice selective seeing with a camera, but its ability to tell a story at all depends upon our selective seeing and using a device of selective seeing. Having no selective process means we wouldn't be able to tell story, either with words or pictures.

 

The placement of our eyes and the type of biology that facilitates "seeing" determines what we as people see when we open our eyes. Our "real world" is different, and colored very differently, than the "real world" of let say, a bee.

 

Mark--thanks for the compliment!

"I have chosen to explore the controversy that lies with faked documentary images."

 

"After looking very deeply into the subject it has led me to believe whether or not documentary photography really exists"

 

I can't respond to the controversy around faked documentary images because it's akin to having a "controversy" around cheating--there is no controversy. If you state that you've staged a photograph, that's a different matter, but those photographs aren't purporting to be documentary. As for the Capa photograph, I think you've already gotten a strong and cogent reply to that.

 

To respond to the other issue, whether documentary photography really exists--just because something is a partial representation, as you have discovered, doesn't necessitate or really allow one to call into question whether it exists. Just like a portrait taken of me represents me to a certain degree, to the degree that it doesn't capture the "whole me" or the "real me" doesn't allow me to begin questioning whether portraiture in fact might not exist. On top of that, me and everyone else is always changing--the me of this morning is different from the me of this evening--I've learned a few things in the interim and on a cellular level I'm different too. We use representations that are inextricable from our subjectivity:pictures, spoken language, gestures, etc. to convey truths about ourselves and the world, and simultaneously we and the world are changing--as we do the conveying. Best of luck on your thesis.

The pictures are amazing. Thank you for those seven grueling days.

I took a look at the blog itself just now. Against the black background the images stand out much more. Good luck with it. Emily