Karl Shah-Jenner wrote: > > I don't know if it's 'honest' or not, but if anyone asks how the picture was > made I'll tell them all I can. Herein, I think, lies the basis of my question? Did anyone ever think to ask Doisneau if the image was staged or not? I am under the impression that he was trying to make a living. He had done other things to this end, from his beginnings as an industrial and advertising photographer for a pharmaceutical firm and an automobile manufacturer to forging documents for the Resistance to his efforts as a postcard photographer. I believe that these things made him a stronger photographer when on that fateful day he was chosen to illustrate the fact (?) that public displays of affection in Paris don't cause intolerant cries of "That's what hotels rooms are for!" that they would in the USA. So, as the picture (as per his assignment) was to illustrate the nonchalance of the Parisian public to such matters what better way to get to the "truth" of the matter than to hire a young couple to stand around the streets of Paris sucking face while passersby went obliviously about their business? The (non)reactions of the passersby were the original subject matter (the truth as it were) of this image... But in America, perhaps, everyone missed the mark? "Those frogs are licking each other crosseyed over there right out in the ding danged open air in front of God and everybody! Blazes to glory!" Taken out of context, the image was about the people kissing. About devil may care romance. Chances are good too that it was influenced by another image of a U.S. sailor coming home a hero and snatching girls on the street for a kiss. The image could very well have been the basis for the story Life ran? Anybody know which came first? "You cain't hep them young fellers come back from Europe all hot and bothered, Ma! Heck they been over there watching them frogs suck face for 4 years! Tha's gotta get a feller revved up!" Now as mentioned, Doisneau had a background in eeking out a living as a post card photographer and an obvious ability to keep his mouth shut when confronted with the origins of some of his documents. (Theese ees a very beautiful passport, Robert!" "Thank, you." So, as he was somehow lucky enough to own his work and had releases. He could allow the image to strike out on its own and "be all that it could be". In a postcard/poster sort of way, of course. If people told Doisneau, "Oh my goodness! That is a fabulous image, I must have a copy, you are a fabulous photographer! You give me joy for living!" and he replied, "Thank you." Instead of, "I am sorry but I have to deny the pleasures you glean from my image by describing to you the mechanics involved in producing it and how you might be mistaken in your interpretation of it." I would say that he was a good business man and a kind, gentle soul. The abilities one hones as a street photographer, that is, the imagination to anticipate the unexpected combined with familiarity of equipment so complete as to make it an invisible extension of ones own body, the patience to wait for it to happen and the instantaneous recognition and response to it happening makes it a LOT easier to set up believable situations in a commercial environment. So, in the end, a street photographers childlike imaginations can be very beneficial to a commercial or freelance photographer. It seems that only when a photographer is truly a GREAT street photographer would he be chastised for applying his skills to earning a living. Even IF he inadvertantly took one of the worlds greatest images. (Friedlanders pictures of Madonna notwithstanding) r
