PAUL STENQUIST wrote: (mainly in response to annsan)
>
> Aside from my sloppy comparative use of the absolute "perfect." (it
> _was_early in the morning :-), I meant exactly what I said. And it is
> certainly not sad, at least not to me.
Will you substitute, perhaps, "unfortunate" for sad? We are
going to get
into a whole art imitating life or life imitating art thing
here, I can see.
quoting Paul's original statement:
> > > I enjoy using technical tools to make a more perfect version of those
> > > things I see.
Initially this struck me as rather arrogant and therefore,
to me, "sad". Taking it purely as an intellectual statement,
not knowing anything about you, Paul, it
pissed me off enough to dash off that line. But my reaction
was to that simple
line in a vacuum - between technical tools and more perfect
vision sounded a
bit "Brave New World" to me.
Paul wrote to me:
> If your reality is always
> beautiful, always worth preserving exactly as it is, then you are a very
> fortunate woman. My reality has not always been so nice. I've
> experienced a lot of ugly things and have had to dig my way out of some
> pretty deep holes.
and I reply:
OF course my reality is far from that. Though I'll confess
to more often than not looking at half full glasses, I
assure you I've had many half empty or totally empty
ones. I think this is pretty much beside the point. But
I'm not doing photography
to "preserve" anything "exactly" as it is, good or bad. What
I'm saying is that
it ain't possible.
Paul :
Along the way I've found that imagination can save
> the soul.
Ann:
No argument there -
Paul:
Painting a new and prettier world can heal a lot of
wounds...
Ann:
My phrase would be finding the beauty in the world. A friend
of mine
once wrote a poem called "Beauty Lurks" - and then there is
the line from
THE RED SHOES (a film I have only seen about 30 times) The
Diagahlevian
impresario of the company points out that "even the best
magician in the
world cannot pull a rabbit out of a hat unless there is
already a rabbit
IN the hat."
Paul
> ... But we all do that to some extent. Even Shel's pictures of street
> people don't fully capture the stench of reality (although that may be
> his objective).
Right - that is exactly _my_ point. The photograph is never
going to replace
the reality - is never going to surpass it in beauty or in
ugliness or pain.
In terms of wonderful photos of beautiful things, the photo
has done its
job for me if it has made me feel as if I were in the place
in the photo,
in an elemental travel- log kind of way. But no painting or
photograph or essay
can even come close to reproducing the magnificence of
Denali at midnight
in June or the feeling I get standing at the base of
Delicate Arch. Nor can the FSA photos adequately express
the poverty and suffering of the Dust Bowl, for just one
example.
>snip a bit<
Paul continues:
> Photography can
> and does present an improved version of reality. And that's a good thing.
> Paul Stenquist
>
ann says:
I wish I agreed with that - you put it very eloquently.
I guess I'll have to work on my one sentence. I'm usually
much more prone
to comedy than something this intense. How about top 10
favorite photos
5 color 5 black and white for a thread sometime?
annsan
> Ann Sanfedele wrote:
> >
> > PAUL STENQUIST wrote:
> > >
> > > I enjoy using technical tools to make a more perfect version of those
> > > things I see.
> > >
> >
> > I hope you don't realy mean quite that - very sad, if so.
> >
> > annsan
> > -
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