Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Rowell's professional career has spanned nearly three decades, and at 57 he still runs miles and climbs mountains. There is no doubting his commercial success. He comes from a musical and academic background, and came of age in the Berkeley, CA of the 1960's. His images depict how his soul sees, his "vision" as he puts it. He has never claimed otherwise, never claimed to be documenting a universal reality. Lens resolution and colour accuracy are therefore only important to him as far as they permit him to depict his "vision". His equipment has allowed him to consistently bring back the images he wants, and he is his own harshest critic. Doubtless he has tried every type and marque of camera around. At the beginning of his career he even used a Minox and an Instamatic 500 (with the Schneider lens) because of their light weight, whilst alpining. It would be incorrect to label Rowell's images as suitable for armchair aventurers, because those images are too "artsy" for anyone simply seeking a vicarious holiday in Lhasa. I wish I had 1/100 of Rowell's "vision", his tenacity, ingenuity, physical fitness...and success. OTOH, I have to say that I've always found Cartier-Bresson's work at once voyeuristic and boring. His "decisive moments" are ones I would have tried to avoid making eye-contact with...unattractive people doing mundane things. I feel just the opposite about Eisenstaedt's work. The true artistic genius of Rowell, HCB, Eisie et al, is that they all remained true to their "vision", knowing full well that some people would hate their work. IMHO, photographers who shoot to the largest common denominator are doomed to mediocrity. Regards, Nigel On Tue, 15 Dec 1998 17:22:43 -0800 "Khoffberg" <khoffberg@email.msn.com> writes: For a host of reasons, he's not going to >use >anything other than a Nikon F4 or F5 or something just like that. One >of >the more interesting reasons is that he doesn't want to have to second >guess >his format or equipment choices when he's in the field. So he uses >the best >Nikon makes, shoots on a tripod whenever he can, and stretches the >capabilities of E6 as far as he can. ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]