Response to Regard for Photographic History

in response to mike dixon: my primary complaint with jeff's approach to photography as art, represented specifically by this posting, is that it is so easy to do, and so lacking in impact. you get a pinhole camera, or any other camera, and you position a human being in front of some appropriately dire background, and direct him to move at the time of exposure. and by this image i am to be moved, or challenged, or inspired, or angered? obviously it doesn't work for me. on the other hand, observe the work of kertez, or cartier- bresson, or many others of similar style: the work is striking in its beauty, and obviously a matter of selecting the precise moment in time that forms speak to us in a musical vision, a unique moment, unstaged, devoid of artsy fartsy pretense. we see the truth about our own experiences in these images. blurred, canted, and mundane images without content or contrast are not the kind of photographs that i find possessed of value. in other words, give me one walker evans and you can have all the winogrands ever printed. as always, i trust that all participants recognize the fact that i have a great deal of respect for some of jeff's work, and mean no personal enmity. it's just that his style presents a marvelous point from which to enter a discussion of the nature of my understanding of what is art and what is not, photographically. s

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