Celebrated American photographer William Klein gave an address at this year’s Visa Pour l’Image photojournalism festival on the lack of context in too many of the slide shows, referring to them as “un festival de bidonvilles avec pas tellement de recul” [a festival of shantytowns with no context].
The video is in French with English subtitles.
William Klein on Photojournalism – Visa Pour l’Image from Olivier Laurent on Vimeo.
source bjp
Visit Visa Pour l’Image and check out for yourself if you agree with Klein.
Also, here is another video of Klein where he talks about his photographs [warning: swear words sprinkled here and there]:
source lcontenttv
I love this phrase: “Photography seems to me like something magic.” And the short sweet anecdote about how he met his wife.
Notice the blurred images: “a style that came out of necessity“, photo manipulation: “painted out the faces” for the Vogue shoot, “pasted all this up” for the Times Square shoot.
Genius: The red marks, the crosses on the contact sheets all became part of an exhibition.
Great pictures don’t need to always be the sharpest to capture a moment in time, a snapshot of life, a lingering feeling. In other words, your camera/lens is probably plenty sharp enough, so go out take [great] pictures.
This is also an example of an expertly directed and edited video. Note especially the subtle use of background music at different parts of the video, with appropriate sections with no music at all — which contrasts so beautifully with the loud and incessant music of most videos [that require you to quickly mute the sound as soon as the video starts].