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With the passage of time, these images have indeed become a valuable social document. However, I personally find them too haphazard, particularly in terms of composition, to look at them for pleasure. Above all, I get no sense of the photographer's point of view.
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I find the composition perfect. Nothing is left to chance anywhere within the frame.
The genius of this photograph is that the decisive moment was seized in such a way as to place everything in perfect balance irrespective of subject matter.
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 Originally Posted by c6h6o3
I find the composition perfect. Nothing is left to chance anywhere within the frame.
The genius of this photograph is that the decisive moment was seized in such a way as to place everything in perfect balance irrespective of subject matter.
Agreed!
The photographer's point of view, I think, is careful observation. They are full of life. This one in particular, is humorous and frightening all at once. I find this aggressive play between the girls a little disturbing. And the boy peeking...well, more of a gander really, is what makes this so decisive, and striking without banging you over the head with a brick like so many HCB photographs. I find it a masterpiece.
Boy, she really has a pair of eyes for the subtle and not so subtle ways children and people move and play on the street.!
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Originally Posted by Jim Chinn
With the right subject matter and the "decisive moment", all the technical aspects simply become secondary to the image.
Isn't that so VERY true! But on the other had, her composition is brilliant in this photograph. Was it luck? Skill? A mixture of both?
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Originally Posted by Digidurst
Isn't that so VERY true! But on the other had, her composition is brilliant in this photograph. Was it luck? Skill? A mixture of both?
Luck to have stumbled onto the scene, but skill to coherently capture the scene. By this time in her career, she probably had internalized aspects of composition to the point of being second nature.
Regardless if one thinks this shot is somewhat haphazard, look at some of her other work at the link Suzanne provides. ther are some really masterfull shots where quick eye and thoughtful compositon are more obvious.
"Fundamentally I think we need to rediscover a non-ironic world"
Robert Adams
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Jim,
That may be true, but the image could very possibly have been cropped (after it was taken) for printing for some improvement.
Rich
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I don't think that a millimeter could have been cropped without decreasing the impact of the image. In fact, all the images from the link are composed perfectly. (Try it yourself -- copy them into Photoshop and try masking/cropping any).
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Um, cropping an image that's ALREADY cropped doesn't prove anything?
Levitt was (is?) the largely unsung master of the side-mirror style initially made well-known by Strand, iirc. Gave her time to compose. Fraenkel recently published a book of her color photos -- I find them distractingly flickr-like, though I haven't quite figured out why just yet.
(Note that this photo -- in fact all photos by well-known shooters -- can't help but lead to broader feeelings about the full body of published work. Why is this okay for Levitt & not Shore? Beats me)
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Originally Posted by bjorke
Um, cropping an image that's ALREADY cropped doesn't prove anything?
Levitt was (is?) the largely unsung master of the side-mirror style initially made well-known by Strand, iirc. Gave her time to compose. Fraenkel recently published a book of her color photos -- I find them distractingly flickr-like, though I haven't quite figured out why just yet.
(Note that this photo -- in fact all photos by well-known shooters -- can't help but lead to broader feeelings about the full body of published work. Why is this okay for Levitt & not Shore? Beats me)
If by side mirror you mean a right angle lens, she probably got the idea from Walker Evans who she worked for as an assistant in the early and mid 30s.
"Fundamentally I think we need to rediscover a non-ironic world"
Robert Adams
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So good because it's so natural. Just what kids do. This kind of picture involving the innocence of kids and their amusing behaviour was in every kind of "HowTo" photography book just a few years ago.
How have we allowed ourselves to sleep walk into an irrational culture of fear, wholely disproportional to the situation, where anyone taking street photography is in danger and anyone whose shots involve kids in any context is in serious physical danger and assumed guilty by the authorities until proved innocent?
If only we could galvanise Joe Public to react the same way when there was even a hint of a mugging and where the fear is often wholely rational then we'd all be a lot safer.
Soon all such prints will be last century, if they aren't already.
Sad
pentaxuser
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