Monday, July 12, 2010

Headshots

New York, NY

Spent the weekend in New York teaching a platinum workshop at The Center for Alternative Photography. I didn't get a chance for any real shooting sessions on the side but made a few snaps walking to and from restaurants.

I wonder if sticking a printed pirate advertisement over a paid-for sidewalk billboard counts as graffiti, or something else?

5 comments:

Markus Spring said...

Uh oh - it seems that I have to desensitize myself regarding the words shoot/shooting in photography. Yet I can't get over my aversion against this usage since Eddie Adams' Saigon photo...

Martina said...

LOL - what Markus said - I always delete "shoot/shot/shot" (with photos) if I write it by mistake.

It sounds brutal and cruel to the non-English ear. To the German ear at least.

btw I saw some Kenro Izu pt/pl prints" in Paris - not that I would ever recognized this before my "Carl Weese era" - very impressive. Thanks for learning so much in the last months, Carl.

Martina said...

forgot to activate email follow up's - therefore ....

Carl Weese said...

Martina, it may well be that the word shot and/or its German language equivalent comes across more harshly, more inappropriately, for the context of a photograph. BTW, from the beginning of my professional career in 1972, photographic assignments, whether for a magazine, an ad agency, or a graphic design firm, were almost always referred to as "shoots." The collection of contact sheets or transparencies from an assignment was also referred to as "a shoot."

I saw some of Izu's work when I was first deciding to seriously address using the Pt/Pd medium and found it very enlightening. I think a special thing about his pictures is that he works perfectly to the strengths of the medium. I think it's significant that, last I heard, and, like my practice, he only makes platinum prints by direct contact from original in-camera negatives intended to end up that way. Pictures shot (oops) without Pt/Pd in mind and then "repurposed" for platinum by making enlarged negatives just never make the grade to my eye.

Martina said...

Yes, the compound English "photoshooting" is used in Germany as well in the professional world.
Reading "headshots" I am sure someone is seriously hurt ... ;-)

We also have the German "Foto schießen" (to shoot a photo) - I never use this and I am not certain under which circumstances this is generally used.

I wonder where this metaphor originates from ... cameras resembling canons?