Critics

(Sarah Moon)

I've been reading an interview with Sarah Moon.  Even she is hurt and made uncertain by her critics.  I think they are why she makes so few images now.  It is easy to say simply that people are manipulative and always seeking to make the world in their own image, some much more aggressively than others.  It is easy to fight back--for others; but for your own work--well, that's another thing.  

Sarah Moon : I've always felt that photography provides an opportunity for staging, for telling a story through images. What I aim at, is an image with a minimum of information and markers, that has no reference to a given time or place - but that nevertheless speaks to me, that evokes something which happened just before or may happen just after. I know that many people question this way of photographing, but why should there be only one sort of photography? I want to create images with elements of my choosing, narrative or evocative, beyond the document about that particular woman wearing that dress. I give myself a literary frame, I tell a story. It's the only springboard I have found for taking a leap. On the other hand, I am interested in commercial photography because it provides me with a purpose. The agreement between client and photographer seems perfectly fair to me. They give me the opportunity to make images, on condition that I show their product in a favorable light. I get paid for doing it and am given the means to do it well. This submits me to a discipline, which is something I need, because for me it's easier to do things when I find myself obliged to do them. To do them just for my pleasure would seem irrelevant.