Fan Ho is one of my favorite photographers, but I was very surprised (and yes, somewhat disappointed) that the diagonal shadow in his most famous 1954 photo ("Approaching Shadow") was apparently simply added in the darkroom. However, as far as I know, he did not suffer a backlash similar to Robert Doisneau's after it was discovered that he staged his famous "Kiss."
Fan Ho is one of my favorite photographers, but I was very surprised (and yes, somewhat disappointed) that the diagonal shadow in his most famous 1954 photo ("Approaching Shadow") was apparently simply added in the darkroom. However, as far as I know, he did not suffer a backlash similar to Robert Doisneau's after it was discovered that he staged his famous "Kiss."
It's worth knowing that the shadow is, literally, impossible. The scene-as-a-whole is lit by raking light across the facing wall and the high points on that wall in the shadowed area are showing that the light is, indeed, raking, but how could this be if that portion of the wall were in shadow? Regardless, a gorgeous image.
As the cited article points out, photoshopping was considered by the artist as part of his art. Maybe this is not a critical artistic issue, but for me the serendipity of an unedited capture ...
But who is to know? Maybe only the photographer. So, maybe you should be that photographer. As indeed Lev is.
He chased the decisive moment, finding and portraying it is the ultimate goal of every street photographer.
How one is able to capture it, believably, is the secret. Kind of like “only the hairdresser knows for sure”. I’m a big fan. Thanks Tiberius.
Fan Ho is one of my favorite photographers, but I was very surprised (and yes, somewhat disappointed) that the diagonal shadow in his most famous 1954 photo ("Approaching Shadow") was apparently simply added in the darkroom. However, as far as I know, he did not suffer a backlash similar to Robert Doisneau's after it was discovered that he staged his famous "Kiss."
