Leicas on TV

[Gerard Captijn <captyng@vtx.ch>]

>Just wondered if anyone else caught "A&E's biography" last night of Leni
>Riefenstahl. There were a few shots of here with LTM's in the thirties and
>an M3 in Africa in the fifties.

The Riefenstahl subject continues to be highly controversial, 40 million
deaths and half a century after the events. I do not think however that one
can judge this Nazi-bitch on her effective marketing of  Herr
Schickelgr=FCber (Adolf's real name) whom she was so much in love with. The
issue is what is the real quality of her images?

Imagery produced in Germany in the 1920 and 1930 was often innovative. The
development of illustrated magazines (thanks to the new Leica) , the
pictures from Bauhaus photographers and Riefenstahl's fascist pictures were
never seen before. Bauhaus photography was certainly the most powerful and
showed the way to photographers like Rodchenko, Modotti, Wolff, Ha=FCsser,=
 etc.

I think that the ultimate test for photographs, like paintings and music,
is the test of time. How will our grand children judge Riefenstahl's work
50 years from now, when all people who still carry the Nazi horrors in
their flesh will be dead? As we now judge the Pyramids or Angkor Wat,
constructed with immense suffering and human loss.

My guess would be that Riefenstahl will be catalogued as a second-level
photographer, good at illustrating the collective subconscient of her days
but producing  limited imagery, quite away from all-time universal human
issues. I think that images as Margaret Burke-White's photographs,
Avedon's portraits of people, Salgado's photographs or HCB's pictures will
resist the test of time far better.

People who don't like Riefenstahl's pictures because of the fascist
connotations shouldn't worry too much though. As a good patriot, she
photographed on on German Agfacolor rather than on American Kodachrome. And
as the old Agfacolor became terribly purple/greenish within 5 years, there
should not be left too much by now.

=20