[Leica] Group f/64 Today

["Jeff S" <segawa@netone.com>]

- -----Original Message-----
From: Alan Hull <hull@vaggeryd.mail.telia.com>
>I am not 80 years to late for the f64 club.  Ansel Adams and his group was
>80 years too early because the  technical quality of the film then
>available forced a very slow shutter speed for the DOF they sought.  It was
>not even fast enough to freeze the moving clouds or the wind in the trees
>or moving water.  But at least they tried.  The experiment failed for
>technical reasons not for aesthetic.
>
Alan, my understanding of Group f/64 is somewhat different: I don't believe
they were out to make "realistic" photos, but rather, to break away from a
tradition of "painterly" images (typically soft, flarey, maybe hand-tinted)
and a belief that the photograph as a means of expression was in some way
inferior to oil on canvas. But there is nothing objective about an Ansel
Adams photo! Moonrise Over Hernandez, Dogwood Blossoms and Black Sun
would've looked very different in person, I think. Adams' genius was in
manipulating the medium to invoke a desired ("previsualized") emotional
response, but in a way which owned nothing to the traditions of the past.

>The comment that the eye doesn't work that way so why should pictures, is
>correct, however the eye has a brain behind it and signals the eye to
>adjust focus until a mental image of the whole scene is gathered.  A good
>picture allows the viewer to do the same.  I don't live in a 1/125 sec
>world.
>
But in a photo, allowances must be made for the flat image, in which our
eyes determine distance and scale only because of certain visual cues that
we, the photographers, choose to incorporate into our image, or deliberately
omit. A sense of distance might be achieved by emphasizing atmospheric haze
(as classical Chinese paintings do),  perspective,--or selective focus!
Let's not limit the tools at our disposal. Stylistic excesses devoid of any
deeper meaning, well, let's not worry about those--they tend not to endure
any more than the shaky camera, rapidfire cuts and grainy video that MTV
made so popular a few years back.

I'm glad that there was a Group f/64, and even have 3 AA silver-gelatin
prints on my wall (no, not printed by the man himself-where's my BMW?) but
let's not turn the lessons learned into a new dogma, eh? :-)

Jeff