A provocative read,

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/cularch/xphotoj.html

Regards,

-- Peter Parker (mecharath@yahoo.com), January 26, 2002

Answers

"if you can afford to fly first class,why bother getting a taxi to the airport.Go in a Limo"

They lived in cheap hotels - the small rooms at the top, which were always too hot or too cold. Morath continues: 'We were a bunch of gypsies, street photographers ... We needed very little money and the intellectual excitement was immense.'

The first statement is by Phil Kneen,seems to contradict the second?

-- Craig (craigsmith@hotmail.com), January 26, 2002.

Phil can defend himself, but as I recall he was referring to his decision to buy the best equipment he can afford. I'm sure that also applied to the early photojournalists.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), January 26, 2002.

Marxism had its influence on intelligentia in Europe. For instance Nobel laureate writer George Bernard Shaw read Karl Marx's Capital in the British Museum library; famous painter Picasso joined the communist party in France

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), January 26, 2002.

I.A.T.Y.Q....everybody knows we photographers are always considered the enemies of authority...In Communist countries,lackies of Imperialism and Capitalism.In the 'Democratic' nations,Socialists and worse Communists! Otherwise plain Anarchists. If we see and record the wrongs to individuals,peoples or the envoirment,we do not find favour

-- jason gold (leeu72@hotmail.com), January 26, 2002.

Craig,I would love to travel everywhere in first class(wouldn't we all?)however,as most of my projects are self funded I don't think I ever will.The quote about flying first class is something my father says whenever he buys an expensive toy for himself and has to justify it to my mother!

My father also tells me to "buy the best you can afford,even if you can't afford it"

-- Phill (philkneen@manx.net), January 26, 2002.

I think a lot of documentary and news photography is driven by a concern with oppression and exploitation, and a desire to tell people about it. It seems natural that at least up to the time Stalinism was unmasked in, what, the sixties, Marxism would be the natural political outlook of someone with those concerns. Even now, when the left/right divide seems less relevant and human and economic rights as defined in international conventions have largely replaced class struggle as a defining focus of concern, the PJ/documentarist is more likely to belong to the "left". It would be surprising if it was any other way.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), January 26, 2002.

Interesting Rob; even more interesting your apreciation about on wich side PJ should belong; your kind of work for sure can belong to that side and many in this forum, but we have many that can fit on the other, I may ask if it makes a diference when we talk photography, humanism is a better word to describe it, at least the kind of work you and many others here do,

Yes humanism should replace Marxism , Captalsm or Comnism, at least from a photographer point of view.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), January 26, 2002.

Yes, I think you've got that right, Roberto. Humanism I'm not too sure what it means, but compassion above all. And the will to face "things as they are" without cynicism or despair.

I'll stop before I short out my keyboard with tears ;-).

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), January 26, 2002.

Many of those Magnum guys had been in Spain during the spanish civil war and had watched Stalin betray the spanish Left (as decribed by Orwell in "Homage to Catalonia"), so, if they were still socialists, it was with eyes wide open. But Ce Soir, the communist daily that gave most of them gigs, was edited by Andre Breton, the "Pope" of Surrealism. Paris was probably the only town on the planet where the top surrealist could end up in charge of the major communist media outlet! Breton wisely used his position to fill the bellies and pay the rents of the most talented photographers around. Just to balance the cosmic scales two decades later, Alexander Lieberman dipped into Vogue's very capitalist capitalto fund the visually subversive William Klein. Susan Sontag is right when she calls photography the only truly surrealist art fo

-- david kelly (dmkedit@aol.com), January 26, 2002.

i introduced an error: of the actual Magnum founders only Capa and Chim actually covered the spanish war; but so did many others of their circle. "Humanist" in it's simplest definition means simply a scholar in the humanities; but by extension anyone who tries to do research into human culture that is free of any ideological or religious bias. The term "secular humanist" is therefore often used as a perjorative by conservative christians. A further extension of "humanist' includes the notion that drives many of the best photojournalists: that as humans we are responsible for each other and should not wait around to be rescued.................

-- david kelly (dmkedit@aol.com), January 27, 2002.

"we are responsible for each other and should not wait around to be rescued"

That does it for me. I'll have to have it engraved on my top plate ;-)

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), January 27, 2002.

So then where does a photographer like Helmut Newton fit into all this? Before HCB, Robert Capa, Chim... didn't Newton only start making a name for himself during the pop art era spawned by David Hockney, Andy Warhol and the likes? Pop art heralded the era of mass consumerism starting with Campbell's Soup so in my eyes it is a deviation from the path of the surrealist movement: cultural branding in the place of visual/spiritual impact.

-- John (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), January 28, 2002.

Well, I don't think Helmut's really a PJ, is he?

He did a shoot for a company near to here, in Carpi, a couple of years back. He charged 50,000 USD for a day's work and shot one roll of 120 film.

Marxist? Not bloody likely!

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), January 28, 2002.

That's my feeling Rob. I see Helmut Newton as a follower of the Andy Warhol school of thought. Make it epic, make it accessible to a wide audience, make it BIG.

Like his book SUMO.

At least we still have Jeff Dunas and his Laura series.

;-)

-- John (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), January 28, 2002.

Rob, Picasso charged a lot higher for his paintings.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), January 28, 2002.