Reading "The Photograph"; curious about the photographer Lee Friedlander. Like the aspect of not having a focal point (as in Albuquerque) but I wonder what a camera club judge would think about that....if I entered such a photo it would probably get marked down!
Great reading about the impact of photographers already known and respected: Ansel Adams and Georges Brassai; and also finding out about new ones to research: Friedlander and Kertesz. Very interesting chapters on Documentary Photography and The Photograph as Fine Art. Not too interested in body parts, but have had an idea to take a series of photos of eyes (i.e. cropped portraits), as bizarrely people are recognisable by their eyes, even if the rest is excluded. Some disturbing images in the final chapter on curiosities of children in torturous situations; one hopes that these children are now adult and healthy. Peter Marlow's image of the refugees in Zambia: again an image without a focal point but incredibly successful. The fact that the image has no boundaries conveys a sense of infinate suffering. Equally disturbing, but nonetheless essential, is the landsape by Meiselas; that could have been such a beautiful scene but yet is clearly the opposite.
The lessons from this text are that successful images contain a paradox of some sort; that it's perfectly acceptable to break the traditional rules of photography provided it's done well with some meaning; and that photographs do not need to be beautiful; photographers have a duty to inform about and to capture life as it is.
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