"A photograph should be more interesting than the subject and transcend its obviousness."
Jeffrey Ladd
Most pictures don’t matter. Most aren’t taken with much thought for the morrow, let alone the next hundred years. There are happy accidents of course, and pictures may take on new meaning
as people and places come and go from our lives, but it can’t be denied that most pictures don’t matter. That’s not because they were taken with some instamatic or an iPhone, the vast majority of studio pictures don’t matter either, the vast majority of 8 x 10 5 x 7 don’t matter.
Unless you happen to stumble in to the studio of a Richard Avedon, most studio portraits don’t matter to anybody but the client or the maker. It’s always been that way; Photography is a very democratic medium, and when it comes to viewing pictures, most people vote with there feet pretty quickly.
Even our own pictures become too familiar to us, that is until some change in our lives occurs or there’s a fresh pair of eyes to share our history with, or when we need a reminder that the thing's we have invested our lives in are worth while, and not without meaning.
But most pictures do not transcend their obviousness.
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| Diane at KFC |
Some Do
So we have a picture of Diane taken around Christmas time in KFC with my iPhone. It's a pretty good snap. Does everything it needs to do, everything is right there in the picture. That's not an accident, I've been using a 35mm lens for years, and just happens to be what an iPhone uses so I know how to compose a picture with an iPhone. It's a fun well taken snap of Diane, I need not say any more about it then that (but I might another day)
On to Ken's picture
I've said before that I'm one of Seven. I may or may not have mentioned that six of us were ran over by motor vehicles when we were children. You don't need to have been knocked down to think of that cub as a stand in for a child. I'm hardly a naturalist, but how can you not think of mans never ending encroachment on nature (which came first suburbia or the fox?).
The fox looks looks like it's just found the last piece of grass in world, and sprawled out on it.
No fox's were killed in the making of Diane's hat
Sean
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| Dead Fox Cub. Ken Smith |
On to Ken's picture
I've said before that I'm one of Seven. I may or may not have mentioned that six of us were ran over by motor vehicles when we were children. You don't need to have been knocked down to think of that cub as a stand in for a child. I'm hardly a naturalist, but how can you not think of mans never ending encroachment on nature (which came first suburbia or the fox?).
The fox looks looks like it's just found the last piece of grass in world, and sprawled out on it.
No fox's were killed in the making of Diane's hat
Sean
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