Re: [Leica] Photos from a Paris workshop

["Wilber Jeffcoat" <wilber@jeffcoatphotography.com>]

Mark; Thank you for this very helpful insight. As my Leica view has not come
with any regularity I found out about this seminar after the fact. Not that
I could have attended, but----------.

Question, would you do it again if the seminar were at a state side
location, or was Paris 50 % of the draw for you?

I think that Gibson did something similar in Washington D C
Cheers Wilber
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Jem Kime" <jem.kime@cwcom.net>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 11:04 AM
Subject: RE: [Leica] Photos from a Paris workshop


> Mark,
>
> That's fascinating to hear, thank you. An intimate number for a workshop,
> I've been on several here in the UK but never one with that few
> participants. I saw the price and wondered what sort of people might go,
> now I know!
> You didn't get a free (Gibson) print thrown in did you?
>
> Jem
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark_E_Davison [SMTP:Mark_E_Davison@email.msn.com]
> Sent: 04 January 2001 13:18
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Photos from a Paris workshop
>
> In response to Jem Kime's queries:
> > can you tell us more of the workshop?
> > How long was it?
> > What was a typical day?
> > Who were the organisers (aside from Leica)?
> > Was it worth it?
>
>
> The workshop was sponsored by Leica USA, and announced in their
promotional
> magazine, Leica View. As far as I know there were no other sponsors.
>
> The workshop ran for four days. A typical day included class from 10 to
11,
> break, lunch, and then a combination of shooting exercises and museum
> visits
> running til dinner. Then street shooting at night on some days.
>
> The workshop was quite pricey relative to others, but the price included
> hotel accomodations at the Hotel Lutecia.
>
> The most unique and valuable things for me were: the portfolio review by
> Gibson, his discussion of methods of sequencing photographs, his
> explications of photographs at the museums (especially a rather complex,
> cubist landscape photo by Henri Cartier Bresson) and his myriad of helpful
> pointers on shooting technique. Gibson was shooting too, so we had a
chance
> to watch the master in action.
>
> One extremely helpful piece of advice for tall photographers: bend your
> knees! This is the only way to get vertical lines vertical, and still have
> people on the street occupying a reasonable location in your photographs.
> (If you are tall, and you hold the camera back vertical to prevent
> convergence, then people will only appear in the bottom half of your
street
> photos, since they will all be below your line of sight!)
>
> Gibson is a great believer in shooting wide open, at night, in the most
> god-awful lighting conditions, with Neopan 1600. I got the sense that he
> loves the interpretive "look" you get from lens aberrations, and he
> recommended the Summilux 50/1.4 precisely because of its look wide open.
> This led me to formulate the dictum: "you may choose a lens for its
> supposed
> perfection, but you will come to love it for its aberrations."
>
> There were only 5 participants, so it was easy to get questions answered.
>
> There were two black-paint LHSA M6 TTLs in use at the seminar--and neither
> was owned by a rich dentist! Participants were all amateurs. Occupations
> included advertising film making, social work and software engineering.
>
> Overall I thought it was worth it, but my wife found it to be too intense,
> and pitched above her level. (The workshop had been billed as being
> suitable
> for photographers of all levels.)
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> Mark Davison
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>
>