RE: Sharp plane of focus

On Mon, 26 Dec 2005, Dan wrote:
> Now erase the battlefield from behind them. I don't think you would take
> away the pride and confidence from their face. That, personally, is what I
> see in Avedon's "West"--people standing forthrightly in front of their
> lives, as shown by their faces, their skin, their clothes.
>
> There's no battlefield, just white. But there doesn't have to be, when you
> can see what James Story has been doing all day, perhaps all his life, just
> by looking at his eyes.

Silly me -- I always thought those portraits of "the American West" (or
whatever they were called), far from showing "pride and confidence,"
dehumanized their subjects, making them look freakish or abject, which is
to say, subhuman and degraded.

As for scale -- most people see them in books, not the original, so if
they see them as "grand," that's another proof of the power of
suggestion... in this case perhaps by a teacher. (Although I don't think
there's much doubt about Avedon's motive for museum scale to begin with.)

> A teacher of mine, Rod Klukas, also reminded me a few weeks ago about the
> scale of Avedon's prints. Does it change the meaning of the piece to
> present it at 40"x50" instead of, say, 8"x10"? At 50" tall from torso to
> head, they are now life-size or more--a slightly super-human scale. This
> could indicate considerable respect for the subject, a desire to aggrandize
> or celebrate them. Or maybe it's just an attempt to make a big print for a
> big museum space--or big ego?
>
> But this idea of scale is something one might consider in alternative
> processes, where, many times, presentation size is limited to film size (or
> your computer printer's maximum transparency output size). I'm not going to
> be aggrandizing much of anything with my 4"x5" contact prints!
>

[Cut]

> (John
> Cremati (this thread) said "There is not a woman alive that wants her
> portrait taken with a normal lens!")

Silly me again, hanging out with so many dead women.... But let me point
out that, male or female, when a person is seriously gorgeous (and
photography reveals how many folks are) there's no point in futzing them
up with so-called "soft focus." I don't recall, however (and this may be
simply my lack of attention) that many of Avedon's subjects meant much
besides "Awful Warnings."

Judy
Received on Tue Dec 27 12:09:31 2005