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Response to Today everything exists to end in a photograph

from Edward Kang (ekang@cse.nd.edu)
What Bill Gates would say if he were Susan Sontag: "Today, Everyone exists to buy my software"

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> I've been exploring how to deal with restrictions placed on us from the outside > regarding photography (by theaters, concert halls, night clubs, public parks, and > such). Now I am exploring what restrictions we might place on > ourselves regarding what we allow ourself to photograph and what we reject...on this > forum, specifically people.

I think the issue is absolutely personal and has everything to do with personal limits. However, personal limits are only issues when you desire to be outside them.

For example, if one were to say, "Today, sex exists to end in a photograph", then I'd say, no, it doesn't. Yet, Mr. Joe Chinese Pornography photographer would say, "well, yes, I do agree with that statement". No real surprise there.

However, if my burning desire was to photograph people having sex, and, for some psychological reason, I was unable to do so (perhaps, because I felt like I'd be offending the people participating) then obviously there's something to be challenged there.

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If your desire is to be "the best photographer you can be" and you felt like having some philosophical backbone like Susan Sontag was the best way to achieve that, then so be it. Susan's comment is and always was completely false, but it's a statement of mere purpose and not of reality.

Then again, many photographers can pursue their artistic goals without having to have such a mean view of personal ambition.

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There is no universal philosophy of photography. There is no universal statement of purpose. I will probably never photograph a person who has just had their limbs fused to their torsos from napalm strikes (even given the opportunity), but obviously there are people out there who did and there are people who will.

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just my penny

(posted 8300 days ago)

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