One of my FAVOURITE Photos ...
"Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper"
by Charles C. Ebbets, click here ...
I have a huge preference for street photography mostly in the documentary tradition ... and if one gives a cursory look at this blog about the photographers I've tried to learn about, most of them are of the mold of street and documentary photography!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Steve McCurry
"Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape that you could call the human condition.” ... [~ Steve McCurry]
Steve McCurry [born 1950] ... One of the world's finest image maker in the documentary tradition ...
One of his most famous images is of "The Afghan Girl" shot in 1988 ... and again in 2002, Sharbat Gula ... it is said to be the most recognized photograph in the history of National Geographic magazine ... click here ...
Steve McCurry has covered many international conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq war, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, and of course Afghanistan. His work has been featured world-wide in magazines and he is a frequent contributor to National Geographic. He has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1986.
Read more about him and check out his work ...
# Steve McCurry, photo gallery, click here ...
# Steve McCurry, Magnum Photos, click here ...
Personal Note: his images of India are brilliant... For me that's of special interest ...
Even after visiting India almost 75 times, i still have only scratched the surface ... " [~ Steve McCurry, Rajasthan, 1983] ...
Some names gets associated with some places ...
Phil Borges - Tibet
Edward Curtis - Native Americans
Steve McCurry - Afghanistan
Steve McCurry [born 1950] ... One of the world's finest image maker in the documentary tradition ...
One of his most famous images is of "The Afghan Girl" shot in 1988 ... and again in 2002, Sharbat Gula ... it is said to be the most recognized photograph in the history of National Geographic magazine ... click here ...
Steve McCurry has covered many international conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq war, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, and of course Afghanistan. His work has been featured world-wide in magazines and he is a frequent contributor to National Geographic. He has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1986.
Read more about him and check out his work ...
# Steve McCurry, photo gallery, click here ...
# Steve McCurry, Magnum Photos, click here ...
Personal Note: his images of India are brilliant... For me that's of special interest ...
Even after visiting India almost 75 times, i still have only scratched the surface ... " [~ Steve McCurry, Rajasthan, 1983] ...
Some names gets associated with some places ...
Phil Borges - Tibet
Edward Curtis - Native Americans
Steve McCurry - Afghanistan
Phil Borges
Phil Borges [born 1942] ... has been a humanitarian photographer since the 1970s with his notable works being photographs of Tibetans who fled to Nepal, including the Dalai Lama.
"We are living in an era of unprecedented cultural extinction. Indigenous and tribal cultures that have survived for hundreds—sometimes thousands –of years may soon be gone. A recent study made by the linguist Ken Hale of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates that 3,000 of the 6,000 languages that exist in the world today are fated to die because they are no longer spoken by the children. The implications of this fact are startling. In one generation our cultural diversity will be halved. This diversity of knowledge, imagination, and belief that has helped to provide the creativity, resiliency and strength of our species is being dismantled. The fragile oral traditions that have held an encyclopedic body of knowledge about the natural world are being lost". ... [~ Phil Borges]
Reference Phil Borges, click here ...
Check out his work ...
Phil Borges, click here ...
Phil Borges, photo gallery, click here ...
"We are living in an era of unprecedented cultural extinction. Indigenous and tribal cultures that have survived for hundreds—sometimes thousands –of years may soon be gone. A recent study made by the linguist Ken Hale of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates that 3,000 of the 6,000 languages that exist in the world today are fated to die because they are no longer spoken by the children. The implications of this fact are startling. In one generation our cultural diversity will be halved. This diversity of knowledge, imagination, and belief that has helped to provide the creativity, resiliency and strength of our species is being dismantled. The fragile oral traditions that have held an encyclopedic body of knowledge about the natural world are being lost". ... [~ Phil Borges]
Reference Phil Borges, click here ...
Check out his work ...
Phil Borges, click here ...
Phil Borges, photo gallery, click here ...
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Photographic Truths: "gray areas".
As straightforward as the term truth sounds ... it's a very murky term ... There's a lot of weight in the phrase, "There's two side to every story" ... so which version is true??? Thats the gray area ...
# Sun rises in east and sets in west - Universal Truth.
# But issues like acceptance of gays in mainstream culture or racial discrimination in contemporary society ... are extremely contentious issues and the truth are very subjective in nature ... For every person who claims not that he/she doesnt feel discriminated there will be another one to claim just the opposite. So whats the "truth" in these cases??? ... It differes from person to person. So the very notion that there's just one truth, does not always hold ... sometimes there are GRAY AREAS ... Sometimes there are two sides of a story ... and both are true ...
# When the truth itself is murky, how far is the notion of photographic truths valid???
# It is generally accepted that journalist / documentary photographs should not be "digitally manipulated" ... Now if we compare with WRITING with PHOTOGRAPHS ... we see that in newspaper reports the texts are EDITED... spelling and grammatical errors are corrected [with softwares like wordprocessor]... These spelling and grammatical errors are analogous to technical errors in photography, like overexposure/underexposure ... so why is photographic manipulation not accepted????
I guess the issue is of "public trust" ... the moment an image is subjected to corrections, how much has been altered becomes a question mark. The ease with which an image can be altered, in some way explains the mistrust. I guess people hold photographic images in higher standard compared to written words ... "A photo speaks a thousand words", is very accepted notion when it comes to news items ... So I guess, that's the reason why such high ethical guidelines are applied for journalistic photographs ... So it's better to leave an image with technical flaws than to lose public trust and confidence.
# But a more important issue [than editiing] is the issue of "editorializing" ... Now this is a GRAY area ...
- A news reporter can use emotionally charged language to create a subjcetive bias ..
- The positing of newsitem on a paper ... front page or innerpages is another way to bring out the importance or lack of it ...
Similarly a photographer can choose to frame his photos in a way to highlight or downplay a particular instance ... A crowd at a public meeting can be shown with a lot of crowd and lot of empty space ... there are many many such instances, where personal bias can ne added to photographs ...
So if a person is looking for absolute photographic truths, it maybe questionable at times ... But it has more to do with the nature of the word "truth" itself ... sometimes truth is subjective [like racial discrimination] ... Sometimes truth has more than one dimensions [there are many stories of police heroism as well as police brutality] ... and the whole truth emcompasses all these various dimensions ... so one image may be representative of one version of the story ... but not the whole truth ...
And if we are looking for news reports, the means at our disposal are text, painting or photographs ... and here, photographs definitely emerge as a clear winner. So despite its limitations that photographic images have; it is still the best means we have, to convey news and preserve whats happening today for the posterity ...
A very good writeup on this issue is here ... "Digital Manipulation: Responsibilities of Photojournalism", click here ...
* As simple as this write-up may seem, i found it a complex issue to handle ... I was thinking about writing on this since Monday and only by Thursday I was able to organize some thoughts on my mind ... I think this topic would continue, as I am incredibly fascinated by jounalists and the professional dilemmas that they face ...
# Sun rises in east and sets in west - Universal Truth.
# But issues like acceptance of gays in mainstream culture or racial discrimination in contemporary society ... are extremely contentious issues and the truth are very subjective in nature ... For every person who claims not that he/she doesnt feel discriminated there will be another one to claim just the opposite. So whats the "truth" in these cases??? ... It differes from person to person. So the very notion that there's just one truth, does not always hold ... sometimes there are GRAY AREAS ... Sometimes there are two sides of a story ... and both are true ...
# When the truth itself is murky, how far is the notion of photographic truths valid???
# It is generally accepted that journalist / documentary photographs should not be "digitally manipulated" ... Now if we compare with WRITING with PHOTOGRAPHS ... we see that in newspaper reports the texts are EDITED... spelling and grammatical errors are corrected [with softwares like wordprocessor]... These spelling and grammatical errors are analogous to technical errors in photography, like overexposure/underexposure ... so why is photographic manipulation not accepted????
I guess the issue is of "public trust" ... the moment an image is subjected to corrections, how much has been altered becomes a question mark. The ease with which an image can be altered, in some way explains the mistrust. I guess people hold photographic images in higher standard compared to written words ... "A photo speaks a thousand words", is very accepted notion when it comes to news items ... So I guess, that's the reason why such high ethical guidelines are applied for journalistic photographs ... So it's better to leave an image with technical flaws than to lose public trust and confidence.
# But a more important issue [than editiing] is the issue of "editorializing" ... Now this is a GRAY area ...
- A news reporter can use emotionally charged language to create a subjcetive bias ..
- The positing of newsitem on a paper ... front page or innerpages is another way to bring out the importance or lack of it ...
Similarly a photographer can choose to frame his photos in a way to highlight or downplay a particular instance ... A crowd at a public meeting can be shown with a lot of crowd and lot of empty space ... there are many many such instances, where personal bias can ne added to photographs ...
So if a person is looking for absolute photographic truths, it maybe questionable at times ... But it has more to do with the nature of the word "truth" itself ... sometimes truth is subjective [like racial discrimination] ... Sometimes truth has more than one dimensions [there are many stories of police heroism as well as police brutality] ... and the whole truth emcompasses all these various dimensions ... so one image may be representative of one version of the story ... but not the whole truth ...
And if we are looking for news reports, the means at our disposal are text, painting or photographs ... and here, photographs definitely emerge as a clear winner. So despite its limitations that photographic images have; it is still the best means we have, to convey news and preserve whats happening today for the posterity ...
A very good writeup on this issue is here ... "Digital Manipulation: Responsibilities of Photojournalism", click here ...
* As simple as this write-up may seem, i found it a complex issue to handle ... I was thinking about writing on this since Monday and only by Thursday I was able to organize some thoughts on my mind ... I think this topic would continue, as I am incredibly fascinated by jounalists and the professional dilemmas that they face ...
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
The Decisive Moment
I was reading a write up on Documentary Photography by John Marz ... and read a few paragraphs on Henry Cartier Bresson [HCB], that really struck a cord with me ... HCB is by far my favourite photographer ... Not only do I love his images, but also admire his ideas on photography and his most unassuming nature. Anyways ... I found a few paragraphs very very interesing ... So here's an excerpt from an article by John Marz ... "What's Documentary about photography", click here ...
EXCERPT ...
Henri Cartier-Bresson is the photojournalist who most readily embodies the classical approach. He concisely defined his pivotal concept of “the decisive moment”
“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression” [Cartier-Bresson 1999].
The “decisive moment” is essentially a metaphor for hunting, the search for that confluence of content and form that the photographer must discover and be able to catch in an instant ...
“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. I craved to seize, in the confines of one single photograph, the whole essence of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.”
Cartier-Bresson has been explicitly critical of directed photography:
“The fabricated photograph, or set-up, does not interest me…. There are those who make photographs that have been composed beforehand, and there are those who discover the image and capture it” . [Cartier-Bresson 1991].
Insisting that he “takes” rather than “makes” photographs, his very unobtrusiveness enables him to sneak up upon “Things-As-They-Are,” and capture the reality that he believes is far richer than imagination.
Cartier-Bresson’s respect for and interest in capturing the irreducible variations produced in the real world reflect the influence that Surrealism had over him. In speaking of Surrealism, this photojournalist is careful to insist that he was attracted to its ideas, above all ... “the role of spontaneous expression, of intuition, and especially the attitude of revolt,” ... and he distances himself from its esthetics [Cartier-Bresson 1992].
However, despite Cartier-Bresson’s rejection of Surrealist photography, his own strategy is in fact quite in keeping with the importance of the “found object” in Dada and Surrealism, for example, the urinal that Marcel Duchamp entered in a 1917 exhibit under the title of Fountain. A slice of ordinary life is picked almost at random, and acquires a new meaning by its recontextualization through the strategy of dépaysement, a well-known tactic of Surrealists that means literally to be taken out of one’s native land; hence the ordinary, torn out of a familiar context and placed in a foreign situation, which enables it to be seen in a new way.
The surreality of Cartier-Bresson’s photography is unrelated to the carefully orchestrated imagery; instead, it is expressed in the capacity to uncover facets of everyday being that go unnoticed until the photographer reveals them through a process of intuition, and a mechanical reproduction akin to automatic writing. Hunting in the street for juxtapositions whose ironic contrasts would surprise people and make them see the world with new eyes, Cartier-Bresson carried forward the Surrealist project by linking it to the photojournalist ideal of the press photographer as a predatory animal lying in wait with a small 35mm camera to capture its prey: the real/surreal, the ordinary/fantastic surprises offered by world in its infinite variety.
PERSONAL NOTE:
# I just loved the metaphor here ... of comparing the idea of "decisive moment" with that of hunting, being on a prowl, to pounce and trap life, to preserve life in the act-of-living.
# The concept of representative photo where "one single photograph, the whole essence of some situation"... [Something I should strive to achieve]
# Another line that hit me was ... "slice of ordinary life is picked almost at random, and acquires a new meaning by its recontextualization through the strategy of dépaysement" ...
Well I had to look up for the word ... "dépaysement" ... It means to "decountrify oneself" ... is defined as the experience of re-seeing. "One leaves one's own culture to face something unfamiliar, and upon returning home it has become strange -and can be seen with fresh eyes" ... [Something I've come across in surrealist paintings ... AND also ... a concept I am very familiar with]
I loved both the ideas [1] The decisive moment [hunting, being on prowl, to trap life] .... and ... [2]encapsulating events in a single representative image ... and [3] Re-seeing with fresh eyes ...
EXCERPT ...
Henri Cartier-Bresson is the photojournalist who most readily embodies the classical approach. He concisely defined his pivotal concept of “the decisive moment”
“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression” [Cartier-Bresson 1999].
The “decisive moment” is essentially a metaphor for hunting, the search for that confluence of content and form that the photographer must discover and be able to catch in an instant ...
“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. I craved to seize, in the confines of one single photograph, the whole essence of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.”
Cartier-Bresson has been explicitly critical of directed photography:
“The fabricated photograph, or set-up, does not interest me…. There are those who make photographs that have been composed beforehand, and there are those who discover the image and capture it” . [Cartier-Bresson 1991].
Insisting that he “takes” rather than “makes” photographs, his very unobtrusiveness enables him to sneak up upon “Things-As-They-Are,” and capture the reality that he believes is far richer than imagination.
Cartier-Bresson’s respect for and interest in capturing the irreducible variations produced in the real world reflect the influence that Surrealism had over him. In speaking of Surrealism, this photojournalist is careful to insist that he was attracted to its ideas, above all ... “the role of spontaneous expression, of intuition, and especially the attitude of revolt,” ... and he distances himself from its esthetics [Cartier-Bresson 1992].
However, despite Cartier-Bresson’s rejection of Surrealist photography, his own strategy is in fact quite in keeping with the importance of the “found object” in Dada and Surrealism, for example, the urinal that Marcel Duchamp entered in a 1917 exhibit under the title of Fountain. A slice of ordinary life is picked almost at random, and acquires a new meaning by its recontextualization through the strategy of dépaysement, a well-known tactic of Surrealists that means literally to be taken out of one’s native land; hence the ordinary, torn out of a familiar context and placed in a foreign situation, which enables it to be seen in a new way.
The surreality of Cartier-Bresson’s photography is unrelated to the carefully orchestrated imagery; instead, it is expressed in the capacity to uncover facets of everyday being that go unnoticed until the photographer reveals them through a process of intuition, and a mechanical reproduction akin to automatic writing. Hunting in the street for juxtapositions whose ironic contrasts would surprise people and make them see the world with new eyes, Cartier-Bresson carried forward the Surrealist project by linking it to the photojournalist ideal of the press photographer as a predatory animal lying in wait with a small 35mm camera to capture its prey: the real/surreal, the ordinary/fantastic surprises offered by world in its infinite variety.
PERSONAL NOTE:
# I just loved the metaphor here ... of comparing the idea of "decisive moment" with that of hunting, being on a prowl, to pounce and trap life, to preserve life in the act-of-living.
# The concept of representative photo where "one single photograph, the whole essence of some situation"... [Something I should strive to achieve]
# Another line that hit me was ... "slice of ordinary life is picked almost at random, and acquires a new meaning by its recontextualization through the strategy of dépaysement" ...
Well I had to look up for the word ... "dépaysement" ... It means to "decountrify oneself" ... is defined as the experience of re-seeing. "One leaves one's own culture to face something unfamiliar, and upon returning home it has become strange -and can be seen with fresh eyes" ... [Something I've come across in surrealist paintings ... AND also ... a concept I am very familiar with]
I loved both the ideas [1] The decisive moment [hunting, being on prowl, to trap life] .... and ... [2]encapsulating events in a single representative image ... and [3] Re-seeing with fresh eyes ...
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Photography from FSA
The photographs of the Farm Security Administration (FSA)- Office of War Information [OWI], are among the most famous documentary photographs ever produced ... These are transferred to the Library of Congress in 1944, form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1943.
It was created by a group of U.S. government photographers, and the images show Americans in every part of the nation. This U.S. government photography project was headed by Roy E. Stryker, formerly an economics instructor at Columbia University. It engaged such photographers as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks, John Vachon, and Carl Mydans.
The project initially documented the Resettlement Administration's cash loans to individual farmers, and the agency's construction of planned suburban communities. The second stage focused on the lives of sharecroppers in the South and of migratory agricultural workers in the midwestern and western states. As the scope of the project expanded, the photographers turned to recording rural and urban conditions throughout the United States and mobilization efforts for World War II.
The core of the collection consists of about 164,000 black-and-white photographs. This release provides access to over 160,000 of these images; future additions will expand the black-and-white offering. The FSA-OWI [Office of War Information] photographers also produced about 1600 color photographs during the latter days of the project.
Reference: FSA - OWI, prints and photographs division, click here ...
It was created by a group of U.S. government photographers, and the images show Americans in every part of the nation. This U.S. government photography project was headed by Roy E. Stryker, formerly an economics instructor at Columbia University. It engaged such photographers as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Marion Post Wolcott, Gordon Parks, John Vachon, and Carl Mydans.
The project initially documented the Resettlement Administration's cash loans to individual farmers, and the agency's construction of planned suburban communities. The second stage focused on the lives of sharecroppers in the South and of migratory agricultural workers in the midwestern and western states. As the scope of the project expanded, the photographers turned to recording rural and urban conditions throughout the United States and mobilization efforts for World War II.
The core of the collection consists of about 164,000 black-and-white photographs. This release provides access to over 160,000 of these images; future additions will expand the black-and-white offering. The FSA-OWI [Office of War Information] photographers also produced about 1600 color photographs during the latter days of the project.
Reference: FSA - OWI, prints and photographs division, click here ...
Street Photography, Documentary Photography and Photojournalism ...
Street Photography, Documentary Photography and Photojournalism ... These three terms often go together, but there are subtle differences ... which I think is difficult to explain or pinpoint ... but I guess is understood by most photographers ... The difference lies in the intent or objective of photographs ...
Street Photography is photography at public places ... and usually have people and is mostly candid ... capturing "slice of life" is the most used phrase with street photography ...
Documentary Photography is defined in almost the same manner [as street photography] ... It is an objective, and usually candid photography of a particular subjectmatter and most often includes pictures of people. However the attempt is to understand a particular subject matter so it's not as random as street photography.
Photojournalism ... is to tell news through images. The photos have meaning in the context of events ... and is usually combined with other news element to give the context of the imagery ...
Photojournalism works within the same ethical approaches to objectivity that are applied by other journalists ... In American they are guided by NAAP [National Press photographers Association] ... in Britain by the BPPA [British Press Photographers Association] ... Different countries have their own ethical guidelines ...
Though photography became popular in the 1840-50's; photojournalism evolved only in the 1880's ...
# Printing presses could only publish from engravings until the 1880s. Early news photographs required that photos be re-interpreted by an engraver before they could be published.
# On March 4, 1880, The Daily Graphic [New York] published the first halftone [rather than engraved] reproduction of a news photograph ...
# However the "golden age" of photojournalism is the period 1930s–1950s, when some magazines built their huge readerships and reputations largely on their use of photography ... This period photographers such as Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White and W. Eugene Smith became well-known names.
Here's a read on Documentary Photography and Photojournalism ...
"Documentary Practice: Stephen Ferry - Rich Potosí", click here ...
An excerpt:
" So what then are the marks that define work as documentary? Perhaps fundamentally it involves thinking in terms of a project rather than in terms of simply photographing a situation. Then it means a commitment to that project in terms of time; where a photojournalist may jet in to a situation, take his pictures and be on the plane out in a matter or hours or a few days, the documentary approach may take weeks or months or years and often involve repeated visits. There is possibly a difference in the direction and approach; the photojournalist works to meet an editor's demands or because they believe the work will sell while the documentary photographer works because he or she considers the project important. Obviously no project can work without some source of finance, but for the documentary photographer this is enabling rather than determining the work. Finally there is perhaps a seriousness of purpose; photojournalism is often about trivia and celebrity froth whereas documentary tends to be more analytic and about more important matters. "
Street Photography is photography at public places ... and usually have people and is mostly candid ... capturing "slice of life" is the most used phrase with street photography ...
Documentary Photography is defined in almost the same manner [as street photography] ... It is an objective, and usually candid photography of a particular subjectmatter and most often includes pictures of people. However the attempt is to understand a particular subject matter so it's not as random as street photography.
Photojournalism ... is to tell news through images. The photos have meaning in the context of events ... and is usually combined with other news element to give the context of the imagery ...
Photojournalism works within the same ethical approaches to objectivity that are applied by other journalists ... In American they are guided by NAAP [National Press photographers Association] ... in Britain by the BPPA [British Press Photographers Association] ... Different countries have their own ethical guidelines ...
Though photography became popular in the 1840-50's; photojournalism evolved only in the 1880's ...
# Printing presses could only publish from engravings until the 1880s. Early news photographs required that photos be re-interpreted by an engraver before they could be published.
# On March 4, 1880, The Daily Graphic [New York] published the first halftone [rather than engraved] reproduction of a news photograph ...
# However the "golden age" of photojournalism is the period 1930s–1950s, when some magazines built their huge readerships and reputations largely on their use of photography ... This period photographers such as Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White and W. Eugene Smith became well-known names.
Here's a read on Documentary Photography and Photojournalism ...
"Documentary Practice: Stephen Ferry - Rich Potosí", click here ...
An excerpt:
" So what then are the marks that define work as documentary? Perhaps fundamentally it involves thinking in terms of a project rather than in terms of simply photographing a situation. Then it means a commitment to that project in terms of time; where a photojournalist may jet in to a situation, take his pictures and be on the plane out in a matter or hours or a few days, the documentary approach may take weeks or months or years and often involve repeated visits. There is possibly a difference in the direction and approach; the photojournalist works to meet an editor's demands or because they believe the work will sell while the documentary photographer works because he or she considers the project important. Obviously no project can work without some source of finance, but for the documentary photographer this is enabling rather than determining the work. Finally there is perhaps a seriousness of purpose; photojournalism is often about trivia and celebrity froth whereas documentary tends to be more analytic and about more important matters. "
NPPA : Code of Ethics
NPPA: Code of Ethics ..
NPPA ... is National Press Photographers Association
We believe that pictures, whether used to depict news events as they actually happen, illustrate news that has happened, or to help explain anything of public interest, are indispensable means of keeping people accurately informed, that they help all people, young and old, to better understand any subject in the public domain. NPPA recognizes and acknowledges that photojournalists should at all times maintain the highest standards of ethical conduct in serving the public interest.
More on "NPPA: Code of Ethics", click here ...
NPPA ... is National Press Photographers Association
We believe that pictures, whether used to depict news events as they actually happen, illustrate news that has happened, or to help explain anything of public interest, are indispensable means of keeping people accurately informed, that they help all people, young and old, to better understand any subject in the public domain. NPPA recognizes and acknowledges that photojournalists should at all times maintain the highest standards of ethical conduct in serving the public interest.
More on "NPPA: Code of Ethics", click here ...
Monday, August 6, 2007
Photography - some thoughts
These are some random thoughts ... and ... I've just scribbled them ... No attempt has been made to put them in a sequence ... or even to link one thoughtstream to another ... just jotted them down as as they came to my mind ...
Sometimes I wish there was a portal through which I could peek into some of my favourite photographers mind ... I have been photographying for about two years now and I already feel my observation has improved and I can visualize images from behind the camera lenses, even though I am a most ordinary amateur photographer ... I wonder what images conjured on the minds of the great masters, especially my personal favourites, Henry Cartier Bresson and Robert Frank ... I'm in awe with their images ... Both were street photographers ... I wish I could see how they visualized the streets ...
A different worldview ...
It's well known that a camera is a tool to capture what we see ... and it's also quite know [at least to every photographer], that the perspective of the world changes when we look at things from behind the lenses ... What may look dull, trite commonplace ... can be transformed into a piece of art ... A shaft of light, a shadow, a particular postioning of people ... all these fleeting moments are the key to "visual drama" ... and could make people wonder "Why coudnt I see it that way"?!!! ... Photography is about making the ordinary, extraordinary ...
Walking the extra mile, sometimes waiting hours for the right time ...
Although it's nice to make the ordinary, extraordinary ... the joy of exploring something new is always exciting. I have immense respect for people who travel to remote places and wait long hours to get a perfect shot!!! I can imagine the trill when one is successful ...
The beautiful and the bizarre ...
I guess lenses have a love affair with anything beautiful or bizzare ... It maybe said that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder ... and whoever that beholder is and whatever his/her criterion of beauty is ... there will always be an an urge to capture it ... Same goes with anything out-of-the-ordinary ...
It's not the equipment ...
A lot depends on the person behind the lenses ... As Ansel Adams said "The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it." With the most advanced equipments now, people yet fail to capture the images that Ansel Adams managed way back in 1940's.
Your gear does matter ...
While photographic images depend a lot on the person, however a person is handicapped without proper tools ... macro or zoom lenses, tripod all have their importance ...
So the above postulate "It's not the equipment" has to be understood in proper context ... Even the best equipments would fail if the "photographic vision" is missing ... Or if everyone has the same equipment it's the person with the best visual imagination who would come up with the best images ...
Post-processing does the trick ??? ...
Post processing has a very wide and versative application ...
From correcting minor camera imperfections to widescale changes in the images ... and with the application on montages or cloning, creating something that never existed for real ...
I have seen and enjoyed all types of processed images ...
But I have to confess I cringe when I hear that proocessing is the only way to evoke emotions ... I personally think that there's enough drama in the real world ... and It's capturing the reality that stirs me ...
To continue ....
Sometimes I wish there was a portal through which I could peek into some of my favourite photographers mind ... I have been photographying for about two years now and I already feel my observation has improved and I can visualize images from behind the camera lenses, even though I am a most ordinary amateur photographer ... I wonder what images conjured on the minds of the great masters, especially my personal favourites, Henry Cartier Bresson and Robert Frank ... I'm in awe with their images ... Both were street photographers ... I wish I could see how they visualized the streets ...
A different worldview ...
It's well known that a camera is a tool to capture what we see ... and it's also quite know [at least to every photographer], that the perspective of the world changes when we look at things from behind the lenses ... What may look dull, trite commonplace ... can be transformed into a piece of art ... A shaft of light, a shadow, a particular postioning of people ... all these fleeting moments are the key to "visual drama" ... and could make people wonder "Why coudnt I see it that way"?!!! ... Photography is about making the ordinary, extraordinary ...
Walking the extra mile, sometimes waiting hours for the right time ...
Although it's nice to make the ordinary, extraordinary ... the joy of exploring something new is always exciting. I have immense respect for people who travel to remote places and wait long hours to get a perfect shot!!! I can imagine the trill when one is successful ...
The beautiful and the bizarre ...
I guess lenses have a love affair with anything beautiful or bizzare ... It maybe said that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder ... and whoever that beholder is and whatever his/her criterion of beauty is ... there will always be an an urge to capture it ... Same goes with anything out-of-the-ordinary ...
It's not the equipment ...
A lot depends on the person behind the lenses ... As Ansel Adams said "The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it." With the most advanced equipments now, people yet fail to capture the images that Ansel Adams managed way back in 1940's.
Your gear does matter ...
While photographic images depend a lot on the person, however a person is handicapped without proper tools ... macro or zoom lenses, tripod all have their importance ...
So the above postulate "It's not the equipment" has to be understood in proper context ... Even the best equipments would fail if the "photographic vision" is missing ... Or if everyone has the same equipment it's the person with the best visual imagination who would come up with the best images ...
Post-processing does the trick ??? ...
Post processing has a very wide and versative application ...
From correcting minor camera imperfections to widescale changes in the images ... and with the application on montages or cloning, creating something that never existed for real ...
I have seen and enjoyed all types of processed images ...
But I have to confess I cringe when I hear that proocessing is the only way to evoke emotions ... I personally think that there's enough drama in the real world ... and It's capturing the reality that stirs me ...
To continue ....
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