HCB exhibit

[Paul Schliesser <paulsc@eos.net>]

>I was amazed at how few of
>his images are truly sharp and how little the technical ne plus ultra of
>Leica lenses really matters. On the other hand, some of the lighting
>circumstances could only have been handled by glass that I have found to be
>very generous in its ability to record extremes of contrast. And, most
>certainly, the ergonomics and spontaneity offered by the camera mechanism
>itself have been maximized by this master.

Carl,

I saw an large exhibition of HCB's work when I was working in Sweden, in 
about 1982. I was also impressed with many photos that I had not seen 
anywhere else, and was also surprised at how many "flaws" were present in 
many of them, things that are not so noticable when reproduced as 
halftones but are really obvious at larger sizes. What I remember is that 
most of the photos were around 11x14 in size, and I remember them being 
very well printed. It was very large; it was at least 200 prints, maybe 
more. At the time, I was most familiar with his European photos, so these 
prints were my first exposure to many of his Mexican, Chinese and Indian 
works.

What I found extremely interesting is how the motion or focus blur that 
many of them show don't really hurt the images, and in some cases even 
enhanced them.

Once odd thing that I noticed is that several photos show the sprocket 
holes in the film running diagonally along the edge of the frame, where 
the film was at an angle behind the aperature plate, probably because he 
had loaded film quickly and didn't check that the sprocket teeth were 
engaged. Having used a IIIc for a while, I can see how this might happen. 

I liked the fact that he refused to crop the images and refused to fix 
cosmetic glitches like this.

What has always amazed me about his work is not just how fast his eye 
was; in addition to seeing and being fast enought to capture what he saw, 
he also created beautiful compositions in the process.

I think that the exhibit was called "The Decisive Moment," an obvious 
title for an HCB exhibit. I have the poster from the exhibit; it shows 
the image of the man jumping across a puddle, which is a favorite of mine.

Of the photos I've seen "live", this HCB exhibit, the "Let Truth Be The 
Prejudice" W. Eugene Smith exhibit and a Steiglitz exhibit in Washington 
are the absolute tops. I've seen many others, but these are the ones I 
would not have wanted to die without seeing. The Steiglitz and Smith 
prints were absolutly beautiful. I was slightly dissapointed that the 
Smith exhibit was mostly the LIFE photo essays; the original "Let Truth 
Be The Prejudice" show (which Smith put together during his lifetime) had 
over 800 photos (or so I've read). Maybe we have shorter attention spans 
today. It was wonderful to see these as prints in the flesh, but I had 
hoped to also see a bunch of Smith photos which I had never seen before.

What I love about seeing actual prints is that, even years later, I can 
look at them in books and see the originals in my mind. Some other 
photographers whose work I've seen, like Avendon, Penn and Adams, 
although technically brilliant, don't grab me on as many levels as some 
of the more "photojournalistic" photograhers do.

- - Paul