If the glasses in this picture said “merde” or “jara” or “pendejadas” would it mean anything to those who don’t speak those languages? I doubt it, and therefore find it hard to find objective humor or attachment to the picture. Without linguistic relationship I feel this image–although technically excellent–falls closely into the realm of stock or commercial photography because it speaks in a sub-genre of visual language that implies cultural symmetries between the audience and the photographer. This is a legitimate field to delve into and hard to succeed at, and if that is the intention, then congratulations. However, it requires a parallel discourse that does not transcend into universal human reaction, and I find its resonance limited.

as for the pairing of photographs. This is NOT about photographers or photographs competing, not at all. Photographs and photographers do not live in isolation by live in connection and collision to one another. The Burn readership and the comments since it’s inception (as is true at other Magazines) attest to that. We compare, we react to photographs not only on the merits of their singularity but we make a comparison, an inventory of other pictures, of other styles of other moments. Rarely do people look at a photograph in isolation but often make a mental (consciously or otherwise) of other photographs, other representations. We read and discuss and experience photographs the same way. It is also interesting, since Burn is a magazine dedicated not only to showcasing photographs but also encouraging and discussing and promoting (sometimes provoking) the range of what it means to live and be a photographer: make photographs, discuss photographs, discuss the ethics, the aesthetics, the practicalities, the community, all that go into the life of being and working with the photographic life. This is not something that is being overly clever or ‘arty’ but actually, simple.

We sit in a room and read a paper, or look at a book, or scan the internet looking at phootgraphs in conversation with one another. We read the NYTimes (or any other paper) and see the variety of coverage. We compare genres against one another. We also get stoked by seemingly similar or dissimilar pictures and the whole joy and electricity begins again….

If anything, Burn is not just a photo magazine, but hopefully, and humbly, just an on-line materialization of this thing we call loving and living with photographs.

Dissent and argument and friction is part of that life too.

Above all, to appreciate and enjoy the experience.

all the best
bob

i do not like the white corners of either the Crying Communist or Bullshit…i prefer an “edge” tone to keep my eye inside the photograph….

thanks for the “shout out”, but there are quite a few Magnum photographers who do mentoring…some of mine just happens to be online….we cannot sustain ourselves with self congratulation, but must always be looking for new talent which we do with gusto….

cheers, david

it´s very different from any othe political rally photos which have been spinning round for a long while now..
nice one
david

so analogies right?

rhino-thickskinned-towel-endangered
man-probablytoovocal-bullshit!-endangered

nice one. mr. m!

nothing intellectual about this photo.
nothing pretentious.
i love it too.

just trying to keep you awake…more portraits posted just now….tomorrow??? ha ha ha…….

“The March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad — at least not so mad as it was in March.”
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll

(again,… This is just panos interpretation of
the DAH infamous “pairing”.. which only happened two or three
times the last 24 months..btw)

Why oh why are taking everything so seriously???
We choose to pay for cable TV but we don’t complain about
the tons of commercials we are forced to watch…
and we give the editor man here a major headache just
Because he is willing to promote NOT ONE but TWO photographers
at the same time ( plus the essay )?????
ALL,
please tell me another name MAGNUM or not ..
That really promotes anyone but themselves???
Name one… Just one person that is helping promoting us…
People think…!!!!
Please..

the folks who do know me,my friends, feel strongly that i should be punished for my sins…the problem is they are usually riding shotgun when the bank gets robbed….keep your distance Gracie, i would not want to see you get hurt!

fade in Vincent Price laugh from Thriller …..

cheers, david

Patricia

(though hmmm.. even though i dont know you
for some reason i can imagine you with a diabolical laugh
mwahahahah – laughing too, i am so kidding)

peace

those two totally unrelated pictures taken by two different photographers for two totally different reasons came to me in submissions at the same time today…they were both portraits taken at the same distance and both with their eyes closed/hidden, one sad the other funny, and both with their individual message of lost in their own thoughts, which i saw as their only similarity or connection….it would certainly have taken a lot of time and plotting and a diabolical mind to have come up with that combo to create some kind of twisted political agenda to be foisted on the readers of BURN….by your reasoning ANY picture published BEFORE the “bullshit” picture would have been smeared…what if it had been a picture of a mother with a new baby or an aids victim??? if i had thought about it long enough, i would have published the bs picture first therefore not having you confuse a random sequence with some sort of double meaning…my apology back to you…stick around….i would miss you…

cheers, david

i see a crying communist mourning for her icon of her belief and the next picture says bullshit.

i am glad my ‘foregone erroneous conclusion’ was totally wrong.

i spoke too hastily but that is what i thought.

i apologize. (no refunds requested)