Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 10:00 AM 11/20/99 -0500, Summicron1@aol.com wrote: >but i agree -- who cares what camera he used/promoted. Hell, the man had to >make a living. He probably didn't care what brand of tool he used that much. He actually did care very much for his equipment. Not brands in large format as for the quality of it. Though he did speak highly of some older Zeiss large format lenses he wished were still in production once. He said he always used the finest lenses he could get his hands on. But you are right, he never went out with one sheet of film, and I suspect many of his mistakes were better than a lot of photographer's best efforts. His 35mm portrait of Alfred Stieglitz was one frame. But he had 35 others in case the moment lasted long enough to make more I'm sure. He is quoted as saying "A dozen good negatives in a year is a good year." Let that sink in. Gene Smith has a reputation for being a meticulous printer of anal retentive proportions, but his answer to that was a story he told about one time he had some 12 negatives to print for publication on deadline and he had something like 14 or 15 sheet of paper to do it. And he succeeded. That's a benefit of being a master of his craft. When I used to print basketball or football pictures on deadline (that is, about 15 minutes to print 2 or 3 pictures dodging, burning, bleaching - the whole ball of wax - I always kept that story in mind. Gosh, I miss those nights in the darkroom. It was fun to meet the challenge! (Amazing exercise of memory making old pains less painful I'm sure). Eric Welch Carlsbad, CA http://www.neteze.com/ewelch The best pictures differentiate themselves by nuances...a tiny relationship - - either a harmony or a disharmony - that creates a picture. -Ernst Haas, "More Joy of Photography"