Let me suggest the following, possibly false, dichotomy. There are makers (in the sense of, for example, still lifes) and there are takers (in the sense of, say, documentary photography-you take what life gives you). Which are you, what do you tend to, how are the strengths of Leica appropriate to this? I don't actually think this is a Leica question but it's the opinion of you Leica users that I'm interested in. I understand that there are any number of quibbles one may have with such a dichotomy.

-- Jim Shields (jim.shields@tasis.ch), July 03, 2001

Answers

If you're asking about the distinction between a.) overtly manipulating your subject, and b.) avoiding manipulating your subject, my answer is that I do both. Leica Ms are particularly useful for b.) because they are relatively unobtrusive.

I don't buy into the dichotomy you've described because even in documentary photography, I'm "making" the photo by manipulating the perspective, DOF, shutter speed, film choice, etc. to produce a photo that looks the way I want it to.

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), July 03, 2001.

This is something upon which I never dwell; it makes no difference to my photography what I call it. However, to talk about "making" a photo sounds rather twee, if not a little pretentious, so I always use "taking".

Regards,

-- Ray Moth (ray_moth@yahoo.com), July 03, 2001.

I feel there is a real difference between setting things up in a studio to achieve an effect that you have visualised; or going out into the world and discovering what you can find. Many of our famous "photographers" are really art directors, Avedon and Leibowitz come to mind. When I'm using my Leica, sometimes I'm slinking around in the HCB, Frank, Winograd tradition of street phtotography, but I'm never in a studio with the camera on a tripod and an assistant holding a reflector. Heck, the flash sync is only 1/50! Those Rolling Stone covers are shot with Mamiyas or Hassleblads. I think it's a real dichotomy. Posed, lit, made up or discovered and framed.

-- Phil Stiles (Stiles@s-way.com), July 03, 2001.

If you carry each approach to its final extreme, making would involve constructing or creating every aspect of the subject. This implies having complete control. Nothing pre-existing could be in the photo, since the photographer, not having created that aspect of the picture, would not have had control over that element. He would have had to accept that aspect as-is; in other words, "take" it.

Now, if you carry "taking" to its extreme, the photographer would have no control at all over anything. She would have to accept anything and everything about the subject matter, timing, focus, and exposure. One might try to achieve this purest form of "taking" by setting the camera up on a tripod, attaching a long cable release, and releasing the shutter remotely from a sufficient distance as to have no idea what is going on in front of the camera. This would still fall short of a pure "take" because there would still be some intention exercised in where the camera set up: on the street, at the beach, the opera, etc.

Almost every picture has to be "made" to the extent that the photographer had to exercise some discretion in selecting the subject. And it also has to be "taken" to the extent that some aspect of the shot was beyond the photographer's control. If I want to photograph the Wainright building, I have selected the subject. I can also select the time of day, the season, etc. I can determine the film and whether it's to be a B&W or color shot. I get to decide whether to create rhythm by including a line of windows, vs. a detail shot of one window. But I didn't design the window or choose the building material. Louis Sullivan did that.

We could say that I MADE a choice of what to TAKE.

So my conclusion is that making and taking are both pure forms which exist at opposite ends of a continuum, with neither end being often reached in practice. Most shots merely tend toward one or the other end of the continuum.

My 2 cents . . .

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), July 04, 2001.

A long time ago, when I was learning English, I was taught that you cannot "make" a picture, that you must not use that verb, that it's always "to take a picture". In other words, the dichotomy Jim has pointed us to doesn't exist for non-artists. BTW it's a choice that doesn't exist in a number of languages (semantically, of course).

I remember a friend who pointed out some time ago that he could by no means understand how photography could be art; you only shoot, after all, what's already there... I explained that the choice of point of view/perspective, time (lighting!), etc., did make a difference, not to mention studio shots; he grudgingly conceded some people might understand it, but the reasoning for calling photography an art would continue to escape him. At least where I currently live (Germany), you still find many people who would never call photography a Kunst for precisely that reason; yes, well, perhaps, under certain circumstances, maybe, it's part of the more künstlerische Areas of popular culture, but still definitely not worth scholarly attention, so it cannot be art. So much for the reputation of photography in the land of Leica, Rollei, and Schneider.

-- Oliver Schrinner (piraya@hispavista.com), July 04, 2001.

An interesting question, and one that essentially stopped my photography dead in its tracks 20 years ago. Now that I've been back for about a year, I have a completely different attitude about how I TAKE :-) pictures, and some of my favorite stuff from the past looks incredibly fakey to me now. There's no proper answer to the question, I think, but I try to stay as far away as I can now from doing anything which would be construed as "making" a photo. It's just an issue of personal preference, probably. I don't enjoy reading fiction, either.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), July 04, 2001.

I definitely make pictures. As has been said earlier, even in my documentary work I choose the film, exposure, composition, etc. The thing is I really don't see the dichotomy of this - even a painter or sculpter is usually working with a model, or a landscape, using something he didn't create (that would be god is you so believe) to base his work on. It's just a matter of the tools one is using. I know a number of 'fine artists' as my wife works in an art gallery, and very few of them work from memory, which is about the only time the dichotomy issue would be relevant. This is of course only personal opinion. Though food for though for all those on the forum who despise digital (myself somewhat included). It's only a tool.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), July 04, 2001.

As I was looking at Ralph Gibson's work recently (as we all have I suppose)two things occurred to me. He seems to have such a strong, how can I say it, such a strong magnetic north in his work that, as he says, he takes the same pictures wherever he goes. He "makes" his pictures, in a sense. On the other hand, how can one explain or make a picture like the one with the white stick running parallel to the white line in the street. You don't,over coffee, come up with an idea like that, unless someone is walking by with that stick. The inspiration I receive from his work is in the realization that one, with the right skill, vision or whatever, can find sources for the art all around.

-- Jim Shields (jim.shields@tasis.ch), July 04, 2001.

When I use an SLR, I tend to MAKE pictures. I spend more time tweaking everything, using filters to modify the light, and really work the framing more precisely.

With my Leica M, I tend to walk up to the correct spot raise my camera (or not) and TAKE the shot. It might sound goofy, but I can really see in my mind where those frame lines will lay, and more often than not, my distance is correct before I even check the finder. It helps to live with only a couple (or less) of lens options.

The trick for me is knowing when to approach the subject with the correct philosophical slant. While I have boxes of deliberate portraits of my girlfriend, the only one that I ever felt worthy of a frame is a "Grab" shot with a 35mm Summicron shot at f/2.0 in a crowded train station. It was definitely TAKEN, not made, and it works better than all of my formal attempts. Those others are not bad, but there is an immediacy to the grab shot... not thinking, just seeing, that really works. Damn, now I'm starting to over think this.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), July 04, 2001.

The appeal to me of photography as a completely uncreative person is that the camera takes the picture, I don't have to make anything. And that's also why I do as little of anything else possible afterwards. My eyes just glazed over and I can't see to type...

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), July 05, 2001.

under my supervise my leica TAKES my pictures, by framing I MAKE them, then my frezzer helps me to keep then develop them when possible, and time for sure will TAKE them away.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), July 05, 2001.

People makes pictures

Photoradar camera takes picture of license plates.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), July 07, 2001.