Sharpness is a Bourgeois Concept

Right on Henri! It’s something he said to that fashion photographer who did the huge ugly nudes, and I got a certain amount of hate mail after writing about him in less than glowing terms a few years back and I still don’t like to write his name. But I still think he made attractive women pretty ugly, and that giant quartet certainly look much better in the picture with their clothes on. It perhaps takes some kind of rare talent to make me think that.

I’m not sure that M Cartier-Bresson ever really joked, and he certainly wasn’t too bothered about his pictures being particularly sharp. They were sharp enough even when they weren’t very sharp, his seeing was a razor.  Or perhaps better a scalpel, and I’ve often thought that using a Leica is rather like using a scalpel, while today we work with power tools; they can do so much more but lack the precision.

Anyway probably a dozen people have already told you about the ‘Shit Photojournalist Like‘ blog as they have me. Which is where I was reminded of the quote in the title of this piece.  Things are perhaps a little different here to the USA, but not much.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.