At 8:08 AM -0700 12/6/09, lookaround360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I am uneasy with photographers like Yousuf Karsh who strive for a personal statement.
Last year I went to a show of Karsh's work. Much of it was iconic images which I grew up with. Each image was a success by itself, but in the aggregate the show was not very interesting.
I never figured out whether that was because there was nothing new to me there, or because Karsh brought his own style so strongly to bear upon the different subjects that it overrode the varieties of their personalities, or because Karsh's way of doing things had become a period piece - a cliché to the knowledgable viewer, or because I'm really not much interested in portraiture.
I came away with a sense of being oppressed by the heavy hand of the 1950s, the veneration of the Western European cultural approach. There was a strong feeling of Beethoven about the entire show - no corner of Mozart's scatological humor, no spritz of the tinkle of Rameau and Couperin, certainly not a drop of an Indian rag or pentatonic twang from China.
It was interesting to try to discern just what the problem was. -- Emily L. Ferguson mailto:elf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 508-563-6822 New England landscapes, wooden boats and races http://www.landsedgephoto.com http://e-and-s.instaproofs.com/
