Comments on: Strife Photography

By: Shelby Lee Adams

Shelby Lee Adams — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:12:37 +0000

Dear Ross,
I stumbled across your site today and decided to comment to hopefully clarify my methodology. I define my work in a lot of ways, now working for 35 years within my Appalachian community. My photos are formally arranged and lighting is added to help define the environment so that I might work with a 4×5 camera. My chosen tool. With this process I am given the benefit of making 4×5 Polaroids within 20 seconds in the field that I can share and review with my subjects. My subjects have input, so I call my work a working collaboration. I am a participant observer. My work is autobiographical, subjective, creative and documentary. I have never defined my work as one thing, others have. Life is very complex. The issues and relationships I’m working with far exceed any documentary films done on my work. I have published three books with my peoples understandings and currently have a 4th project I’m showing around. Working with your subjects you change things, move things, you want very much to please them, I listen to people, something most photographers might not consider. They have and still are told what to do by society, but not by me, we work together. It is an authentic relationship, making real photographs.

By: Business Memes » ART AND REPRESENTATION

Business Memes » ART AND REPRESENTATION — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:38:58 +0000

[...] Here are some more of his photographs from his blog (and one from here): [...]

By: Sociological Images » ART AND REPRESENTATION

Sociological Images » ART AND REPRESENTATION — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 09:06:17 +0000

[...] Here are some more of his photographs from his blog (and one from here): [...]

By: Douglas Dean

Douglas Dean — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:13:00 +0000

Certainly beauty is in the eye of the beholder - no one can argue that. We may not like the taste or aesthetics of a certain beholder, and that will always be the case. For me, If I like to hang a certain
photograph in my home to live with and to continually observe, it would be the Afghan Refugee Girl who tells such an acid story with her eyes - and to have captured that in such a precise moment
of time - unrehearsed - causing some to tear, and provoke me to despise the zenophobic Russian
invasion, then professional jealousy has no place and only mutes the critic.
Douglas Dean

By: ross

ross — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 05:14:21 +0000

It’s all just a series of choices, defining what there is to say and determining the best possible way to say it. Most reasonable photographers or filmmakers make reasonably appropriate choices, but when there is some bizarre denial of the nature of those choices it becomes problematic.

By: Davin

Davin — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 12:41:53 +0000

Well said. It’s a difficult issue and I can’t say that I’ve totally wrapped my head around it. I do know that I have a lot of respect for Meiselas’s work and what she has to say about it. In a tangential way her work is like the vérité work of the Maysles — clear transparent documentary images that retain a high aesthetic impact.