Shel Belinkoff wrote: > If one were to look at all the photos I've posted here you'd > see a broad range of subjects, many light hearted and perhaps > funny (to me, anyway). > The homeless photos are decidedly in a minority. What is > interesting, however, is that so many remember only the > photos of the disenfranchised, see me mostly as a > photographer of poverty . I suppose that means the few > photos I've posted on those subjects have had an impact, have > been strong images, or bad enough images, that they are remembered.
Considering we are bombarded every day by images from television, computer screens, papers and magazines and advertising hoardings, it's amazing we have the capacity to be stopped in our tracks from time to time by a particular image. Most of the people I chat to about photography, expect it to be about the capture of happy family events or something pretty. So do people not want a reflection of reality, should we not record war images, poverty or other things that remind us of a part of the real world? Photographs can make you happy, persuade you to buy things, promote a way of life or an image, but the flip side shows us all that is bad equally well. Do we ignore this genre and bin the negatives and delete the digital images? Or do we live with the images as a reminder of the past and present and hope they make a contribution to changing the future? There is no intended political commentary here, just a recognition of the power of photography and a genuine wonder of how images made in 2004, will be looked upon by folk in 2104. Malcolm
