Review: Worldview

Leonard Freed: Worldview, by Leonard Freed.
[rating:5/5]

Photographer Leonard Freed is quoted in the introduction (by William A. Ewing), saying, “I think there are informational photographs and emotional photographs. I don’t make informational photographs. I am not a journalist. I am an author. I am not interested in facts.” Ewing goes on to explain, “this seems an astonishing admission- until we realize that Freed was speaking in a figurative sense: that he was searching for unederlying realities which are obscured by the cloud of facts.” Back to Freed: “The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is. Otherwise it would be propaganda.”

Chew on that.

Freed’s work is top-class black and white, organized into several groupings and mostly chronologically. You can easily see the progression of his style. My favorite photo (and it’s not done justice here on the web) is this, Sicily, 1974:

Leonard Freed: Worldview, by Leonard Freed.
[rating:5/5]