Ian & others,
The term "mere mortal" is referring to those who are unfortunately born
with less talent for seeing the imaginative than the great photographers
of our time. On more than one occasion, I have shot alongside a very
imaginative and gifted media photographer covering anything from events
to publicity shots. His shots are inspirational and mine just look like
snapshots. Hell, I was right there less than 3 feet from him same event
same people. I doubt it was the equipment or the film. So I accept the
fact that I may never be a great news or events photographer (maybe
that's why I hide in the studio?). Thus I am a mere mortal when it comes
to this. I know one wedding photographer who captures a wedding
different from any other photographer. His candids are priceless
(however he seems to be satisfied with very high fees). Do people just
do things for him because of his personality and easy going style? Thus
they just drop their guard down while he's around them shooting. I
think I have a very confident easy going style with professional models
and thus I sometimes get better stuff than those photographers who are
not as comfortable when shooting in a studio. As photographers covering
events or shooting posed models in the studio, the photographers
presence will affect the outcome. Many people just like to ham it up for
the camera ... is that posing?
On a more journalistic note. Take a look at George Stevens' (deceased
famous movie director) kodakchromes (16mm movie footage) shot during
World War II in Europe. Compare them to the reels shot by trained
signal corps photographers. They are just drastically different.
However same war. Different realities thru different eyes and brains.
Does a great movie director manipulate his footage to show what he wants
his audience to see? As photographers we don't re-create reality and we
would be fools to think we could. We capture images as we see them and
save them as 2 dimensional representations of what we imagined in our
brain. (And that's on a good day).
As far as ethics goes .... unless a person attempts to manipulate an
image for any thing such as phony claims as to distort the obvious truth
for gain ... I don't think ethics should even be discussed here. Nor is
it ethical for a photographer to hit someone over the head with his
Nikon F3 (a lethal weapon) for getting in the way of his paparazzi shot.
I hope I have not offended the crime scene and insurance photographers
on this list.
Phillip Franklin
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