Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/04/01

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Subject: re: Burning film (was Leica bashing..)
From: "Christopher W. Morrow" <CMO1@MUSIC.STLAWU.EDU>
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 1997 15:08:29 EST

It was my understanding that National Geographic photogs
were in the field for months at a time shooting major
stories, thus they came back with tons of film. (They may
not spend as much time in the field nowadays.)

The picture editors are very discriminating at NG, and they
have a finite amount of space for pictures (and text), so
certainly excellent pix are going to be discarded, not
because they lack technical/aesthetic quality, but
because there were other shots that were even better. And those
other pictures probably told the story better, too.

I recently shot a 24-hrs in the life type assignment, was
asked to print up almost 40 b/w prints, and just the other
day the editor of the university magazine said to the
graphic designer (in my presence) that they'd be using less
than half those. Almost every one of thos shots was taken with
an M6 and 35 f1.4 summilux, and they look great. But his
decision is not based on technical/aesthethic criteria. He
needs space for other articles/stories/pictures.

Christopher Morrow
cmo1@music.stlawu.edu