Just of the shoe? Sounds like a lost powerful image. I suppose anybody could throw a shoe onto the sidewalk and say, "this was his." As for the daffodil, I really do believe someone else had actually set it up. I didn't really notice (or look) to see if this ground flower was mysteriously growing in the branches above the rock. Neither did I notice a grouping of these flowers by the side of the creek. But, damnit, it has such a Hallmarky appeal it makes me want to puke (I got a couple ore daffodil shots from England that fit this bill).
But you raise an interesting point, is the shot so obvious that it must be set up? A camouflaged still life? But, also, wouldn't that depend on the reputation of the photographer or the purpose/story of the image itself? I was shocked to see a recent issue of Newsweek shortly after the Madrid tragedy which graphically illustrated victims of the bombing prior to removal from their place of death. What role might ethics play in a shot like the shoe (I realise any comparisoin is a stretch)? I personally found the photos of the people jumping from the WTC in 9/11 disgusting and opportunistic. Yet, it used to be a common (though, I'm certain, not for public display) practice to have a final family portrait done with the deceased. Nowadays, behavior like that could make a funeral a double event. Really, I question whether my family would be more offended if I whipped out a digital or a SLR at the next funeral and
started clickin'.
Trevor Cunningham, Life of a Daffodil. Ed Hart, my former editor at UPI/New
York, told the story of an accident right in front of the Daily News
building. A nine-year-old boy got hit by an out-of-control taxi, and the
impact threw his shoe onto the sidewalk. Ed took a shot of the shoe, but
then decided not to run it because it looked so much like a setup, even
though it wasn't.
"The optimist believes this is the best of all possible worlds.
The pessimist fears it's true" - J Robert Oppenheimer
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