To Me Documentary Photography Means Making A

Almost Inevitably There Are Tensions In The Picture, Tensions Between The Outside World And The Inside World. For Me, A Successful Picture Resolves These Tensions Without Eliminating Them.

I May Be Wrong, But The Essential Illustrative Nature Of Most Documentary Photography, And The Worship Of The Object Per Se, In Our Best Nature Photography, Is Not Enough To Satisfy The Man Of Today, Compounded As He Is Of Christ, Freud, And Marx.

What Is The Subject Matter Of This Apparently Very Personal World? It Has Been Suggested That These Shapes And Images Are Underworld Characters, The Inhabitants Of The Vast Common Realm Of Memories That Have Gone Down Below The Level Of Conscious Control. It May Be They Are. The Degree Of Emotional Involvement And The Amount Of Free Association With The Material Being Photographed Would Point In That Direction.

The Business Of Making A Photograph May Be Said In Simple Terms To Consist Of Three Elements: The Objective World (whose Permanent Condition Is Change And Disorder), The Sheet Of Paper On Which The Picture Will Be Realized, And The Experience Which Brings Them Together.

However, I Must Stress That My Own Interest Is Immediate And In The Picture. What I Am Conscious Of And What I Feel Is The Picture I Am Making, The Relation Of That Picture To Others I Have Made And, More Generally, Its Relation To Others I Have Experienced.