Dec 20, 2011

Smile For the Camera!

Tess's Magpie prompt this week is a photograph by Lee Friedlander which seems to break some of the conventional rules . . .




Somebody needs Cartier-Bresson
to give him a snap-shooting lesson.
Her face is obscure -
and that shadow! For sure,
adds up to cheesy expression.

.

 . . but then, as Marshall McLuhan sagely remarked, "Art is anything you can get away with."

Many worthier Magpies can be read HERE.
or read about the French photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson.


15 comments:

  1. Very neatindeed! But are you sure it's a woman? There's something very ...maculine? ...about it. Creepy.

    Oh, and happy Christmas!

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  2. I do identify with a complaint about the off-set-snapshot ! But then height does have something to do with it-the photographer was a bit shortsighted -?!

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  3. I had to laugh at your Mag ... my mother was NOTORIOUS for snapping photos ~ missing the upper portions of our heads! She definitely needed those lessons!

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  4. off with their heads? great- hilarious and twisted but then.....I wouldn't expect less!
    Merry Christmas!

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  5. Yes it was a pretty dodgy image... Good one! Merry Christmas to you and yours!

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  6. Yes, art can be just an excuse for anything.
    Keep the madness going in 2012!

    Jamie

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  7. I really enjoyed reading about Henri Cartier-Bresson. His mantra "the decisive moment" is interesting to ponder and a bit scary... makes you look back for such moments in one's own life.

    This photo is ugly, yet intriguing. Friedlander's breaking the rules of photography was apparently part of his success in his early career, but wore thin eventually(per Wikipedia). How ironic, when so many these days believe they will achieve success and fame in just that way.

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  8. Thanks Ann. Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment" pictures are not so easy to get these days when taking a photograph in the street/shopping mall/public park is considered to be a form of terrorism - or child molestation if there happen to be any wee-ones around.

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  9. Indeed, art is anything you .can get away with - the Turner Prize, for example - not all bad, but some execrable

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  10. If beauty can be said to be in the eye of the beholder, why not art? Guess I don't see eye to eye with Friedlander! *smiles* Your advice to him is sound, if a trifle tardy...

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  11. Well put.

    I am still contemplating the shadow!

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  12. I knew you'd give me the 'biggest smile, Maggie style.....!X

    ps.....in case I'm not around, I'll wish you and your family a very MERRY CHRISTMAS now....xxx

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