John Brown

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

I'm saying a few things, none of which is charitable about the photographer.

1. I feel she is capitalizing on the suffering of the soldiers. The feeling I get from looking at the photos is that it is about her rather than them.
2. She uses the technical and aesthetic aspects of photography to push her ideas about her subject. It is extremely far from objective and it is also manipulative. Not that it should be objective, but it is important to point that out since it isn't always obvious to people that the camera does in fact lie the moment it is turned on.

You lost me. Do you object to the agenda you perceive in her work? Do you feel the public is being unknowingly duped by the effects/style of photograph? Do you feel her agenda doesn't jibe with the subjects agenda?

"Tomoko in her bath" strikes me as extremely theatrical in the lighting and printing, much more so than Berman's picture. While Berman maybe trying to push an agenda, we have no way of knowing if the agenda is hers or the subjects......or both. Berman may have sought out subjects with the same agenda as she has, or her agenda may have been determined by the wishes of the victims.

You know much more about this manipulating photographs than I'll ever know, but I though every photographer, in every picture, was trying to tell a story,....trying to set a mood,...trying to convey a feeling? In other words manipulate the picture to manipulate the viewers perception.