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Response to Just Another Street Shot

from Todd Frederick (fredrick@hotcity.com)
Ok...a "meaningful photograph." I think most of us want to take meaningful photographs. I do!

A while back you were very critical of Phil Borges' formalistic style, and were very critical of his images, techniques, and motives. However, I'm guessing that he is also trying to take meaningful photographs, just as we are. So what makes your photograph of the young girl on the street more meaningful than Borges' photographs of native peoples?

Now then, I really can't get involved in the image of the street girl you posted...I guess it's not meaningful...to me. However, it seems to be meaningful to others, and I'm sure it is to you. How is your image of the girl on the street a meaningful photograph to you? Can you tell me?

Therefore, I guess if this photograph is meaningful to you but not to me, and my photograph (such as "digital photographer" below) is meaningful to me but not to you, and if Phil Borges' photographs are meaningful to him but not to someone else, then ALL photographs are meaningful to some people but not to others, and ALL photographs are not meaningful to some people but are meaningful to others...so then, the quality of meaningfulness is totally relative: simply a matter of personal opinion and/or artistic taste, devoid of any specific criteria of what "meaningfulness" means in an absolute sense. Is that correct?

If that is correct, then no one can ever be criticial of anyone elses' photographs since they must have meaning to someone, even if only to the photographer him/herself.

If I were to take a disposable camera and sit on a street bench and snap away for ten minutes, I could set up a display of photographs or post them here that are "meaningful" to me...simply because I say they are. But, my audience may say that these photographs are not meaningful to them, and they would be perfectly correct in that critique.

therefore, what constitutes a "meaningful photograph?" (and it's not simply because it "pictures life," in my opinion).

I am really trying to understand this but I guess I just don't get it.

How is your photograph of the young girl on the street a meaningful photograph to you and how could I make it a meaningful photograph to me? Tell me more.

(posted 8619 days ago)

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