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Response to What's the Story (Response #38)

Uploaded 463 Days Ago by tony - 14 comments

Photo © tony (Tony Hall) - flickr.com/photos/anotherphotograph/
Unauthorized reproduction not permitted.

User Comments

zorilla said 463 days ago:

Unfocussed and in need of cropping

tony said 463 days ago:

you've got a point zorilla - no focus, no crop, no story!

King said 463 days ago:

Look at them sideburns. This photographer has been taking pictures for a while, it seems. Women's lib?

Oh, just remembered a dream I had last night. I bought a Canon D5 at a garage sale for $300. Great dream.

Excuse me, back to this photo. There's certainly a lot going on from foreground to background. It was a newsworthy event, it seems, and the photographer was right in the middle of it. So what's the story? and why were you there?

King said 463 days ago:

Tony...just paid a brief visit to your photoblog. I like your work a lot and wish I had more time this morning to browse, but gotta run.

wiolka said 463 days ago:

hello, yea, ther is a story but not incredible one, I like the guy o the right.

zulu said 463 days ago:

Where, why, how old, who?
Very impressive!

gembase said 463 days ago:

I'm a bit ditstract by the lenses a the left side. a part from that a great image !

fotogeneric said 463 days ago:

Great vintage shot. An interesting cast of characters here.

JIMJIM said 463 days ago:

Great idea..many details to looking, and to wonder..
GB fore sure !!
Then, is she gonna speak to the camera !?

kadenajack said 463 days ago:

This looks like any oldie but a goody. I'm not as interested in the photo as I am in the setting and the photographer's story that goes with it.

tony said 460 days ago:

Thank you everyone for your comments.
I was away over the weekend but will now add a story to illustrate this picture, maybe even illuminate it some more, and possibly add some focus.
This was a great theme, and I'm looking forward to What's The Story ll.

tony said 460 days ago:

The original title for this images was 'Women's Liberation March, London, 1979'. In fact it was a National Abortion march that began at Marble Arch and rallied in Trafalgar Square on 31 October 1979.

In 1979 I was studying film and photography and had an interest in documentary. The picture here was an attempt to illustrate some thinking. The question I was attempting to tackle was; what makes a photograph a 'documentary' photograph. Is it just captured or is it highly constructed? Is it fact or fiction? Is it a lie or the truth? Stuff like that. The writing wasn't going well so I decided to try an experiment. The idea was to (re)construct a scene based on another (documentary) photograph and maybe by stepping through this process I would gather something to write about.

The image I chose was 'Women's Liberation March, New York, 1971' by Garry Winogrand, which is on page 87 of his book 'Public Relations'. The key elements in the image that I had decided to make were: the confrontation between interviewer and interviewee; the sound recordist and directional microphone; a movie camera lens; a look (possibly at camera) from someone in the crowd; and a written sign.

I'm not sure if making the image helped my writing, but the photographic process was much more enjoyable than doing the writing.

See the Garry Winogrand image here -
http://tinyurl.com/2plqcu

King said 460 days ago:

tony...are you saying that at least some elements of this photo are set up?

tony said 460 days ago:

I just had to wander and wait until all the elements composed themselves within my camera viewfinder!!

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