Raymond Carver Strikes Again
Amy Stein, High Grass, date unknown
Kind of an interesting colloquy a while back between Amy Stein and Graham Miller:
Amy Stein: Sometimes people are downright angry when they learn my Domesticated photos are staged. Do you feel any push back from people when they discover your images are constructed? Why do you think people have such a hard time allowing for the personal vision and imagination of a photographer compared to a painter, musician or writer?
Graham Miller, Frank, date unknown
Graham Miller: I've not got the downright angry reaction...more like a kind of knowing, dismissive sigh. I guess the reason people have such a hard time with the constructed image is that for them it somehow feels like cheating. They still believe that because the photograph so closely resembles reality that somehow it must also be "true". For me photography is much like writing- in the sense that you can approach writing about a subject or photographing it as fiction or non-fiction. Both are equally valid, and both are able to speak of the human experience in a moving and profound way. It does puzzle me when people go on about it. It just doesn't feel the right approach for me to work in a traditional photojournalistic sense.
Daido Moriyama, Stray Dog, 1971
