Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/10/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Carl, Nice to hear from you. I will take these in reverse order, which is how I am reading them. Yes, I do have a small reserve of Soft touch releases that I found in the basement this year. They are $10 each plus $1 shipping. Mail a check to me at: 7106 Saunders Court Bethesda, MD 20817 I am pleased that you looked in on the Black Star site. I think they did a fine job with the material. It is a fascinating collection of images. I am also glad you noticed and appreciated my pictures on the site. Those years were exciting times, working for LIFE, TIME, NEWSWEEK, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, SATURDAY EVENING POST, LOOK, and all the European picture magazines. And the visual history of our time that was pouring from Washington made this the center of the world for photojournalism. The Kennedys were in the White House, there was no Vietnam, and the world was a bright, promising place. Today I was looking at one of the original prints from the Beatles performance.... their first USA show. They came directly from the Ed Sullivan show to Washington for this performance. Incredible day. No, we had no sense of the history involved on that day with the Beatles. I know I did not. I did a great deal of performance art at the time, theatre, movies, musicals, etc. But this show was different. The kids were out in force, yelling and screaming, which was not the normal behavior in the early 1960s. It was an amazing and memorable performance in every way, but there was no way to tell that this was historic. I had free run of the arena, there were probably only 4-6 photographers present. No restrictions of any sort. It was, at the time, just a show. But I got some pictures there that are classics.... showing the Fab Four as the kids they were, alive and all energy. I shot that job for Newsweek the same way I show almost everything at the time. I used Leicas, M3 and M2 then, with 35mm and 50mm for the wider views and the original Nikon F cameras for 85mm, 105mm, 135mm, and 200mm for the telephoto pictures. There were no zooms then. Are such days gone forever. I think not. But it is oh so much more difficult now. I used to go to the White House to cover Kennedy for someone. Often on the off hours and for the less-then-obvious events there would be an Army photographer working for the White House, AP, UPI, and me. Four of us. That was it. Now when I go to the White House, no event is worth less than having the presence of 100 to 300 photgraphers. It is a nightmare. There is no such thing as calm, steady, careful work. All you need is an image that shows what happened. I used to be able to call up the White House and ask for an hour or a day with the President. That is totally impossible today. I did a book on Ford (PORTRAIT OF A PRESIDENT) that was the last time anyone outside the staff ever had regular access to a President. For two months I was inside the White House with the President night and day. Those days are probably gone forever, and we are all the poorer for it. Sound bites and TV clips do not make visual history. With great equipment and the technical ability to provide true graphic, historic records of our time, we are not getting it because of restrictions. It simply is no longer possibl to accommodate the numbers of people involved in covering major events. But that is another story for another time. Fred Ward