Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/11/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Well, the thirteenth trip to Europe culminated in a hellish run through the Frankfurt Airport, from Terminal C to Terminal A. You know there are serious problems with your connecting flights when the other passengers cheer you as the last boarder. In short: 1. Spain - still the most beautiful country, terrain-wise, in Europe. Portugal was lovely, too. We did Madrid - Barcelona - Valencia - Granada - Cordoba - Seville - then Lisbon - Toledo - Madrid - El Escorial. Yikes. I have 24 rolls of film to develop, about half 120 and half done with the M equipment. Color with the rangefinder stuff - it will be interesting. 2. We did some in planes, some in trains, and most in a turbo-diesel Megane station wagon (sorry, efficiency nuts, but I'll give up my gasoline car when they find a way to make diesels sound a little less like tractors). It didn't shake the screws out of anything. 3. Saw the Salgado exhibit "Exodus" in Madrid's Circle of Fine Arts (sorry, but my Spanish is slipping after 23 hours awake). Lots of pictures at least 11x14, some wall-sized. First, while I think Unicef is a decent charity, I'm not sure where the human interest was in the exhibit (I did like two photos, one of the two children in the window light - kind of Vermeer - and the men pulling the fishing boat to shore - right out of Winslow Homer). Salgado's Exodus makes people part of the landscape, not actors on it, and the perspective seems to be one of a videocamera and not a participant. They are nice as landscapes, but I can't say I was very moved by it. Second, the "Children of the Exodus" exhibit (in the basement gallery of the same locale) was itself pretty contrived. Same backgrounds, same expressions. Pretty uninspiring. They even had the same fist-dodging that made every child look "angelic." (and I think this is very sloppy technique, whether in shooting processing or printing, since all of the shots were mise-en-scene). It looked a little like the Olan Mills of refugee photography. Finally, whoever was doing Salgado's printing of the wall-murals was careless. The edges did not match tonewise, and it was pretty obvious from the 8-foot viewing distance. I'm not sure why these photos were blown-up so much, since they held together much better in their smaller forms. I'm guessing that his printer did not take into account enlarger lens vignetting. That's not to say I don't like some of his other work. Just kind of disappointing for the sheer amount of hype regarding this exhibit. 4. Saw some interesting exhibits in the Portuguese Constituent Assembly in Lisbon. Lola and I slipped through a metal detector, went upstairs (this was all condoned by the authorities), walked in the wrong photo exhibit (one on East Timor - very interesting and very laced with human interest but unfortunately anonymous) and they we were escorted to where we were supposed to be, the exhibit on the history of the Assembly. Blech. 5. Interesting exhibit going on in Toledo re Castilla-LaMancha over the last 150 years - everything from Protars to Nikons represented there. Lovely photos of everyday people. More later Dante