Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Blog Entries #3 and #4

The quote by Duane Michaels seems to be accurate to me. Photographers search for the "right" moment or "right" scene to capture. Most pictures are well-thought out and planned. Even people who are not professional, not adjusting shutter speed or light, are still perfectly framing or posing for a picture. These things mean that photographs create images of an idealized world, not the one that actually exists. The world in the photograph is not the same world we live in, it is a much better looking one.

I am more of a writer than a photographer, so I have every instinct to disagree with this statement. I prefer my stories to be completely words, most of the time. I suppose though, there are times when photographic images are necessary. For example, I went to New Orleans to help with hurricane clean-up and I found myself frustrated when trying to explain the absolute devastation to people. The photos I took helped to explain better than I could have every described. The photos helped because no one who had every seen the type of thing I was describing would have ever been able to imagine what I was describing. Those times, when people cannot imagine what I am describing with words, is when photographs are better than words.

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