RE: [Leica] Leica quiet exposures

["bdcolen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

Shoot on, Dude! ;-)



- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Ted Grant
Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 11:40 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: [Leica] Leica quiet exposures


G'day,

Here's something slightly different for you folks which you may or may
not find interesting in using Leica's.

As some of you know my associate Sandy Carter and I are shooting in
several medical centres across North America during the next three
months to produce a book on "Women in Medicine." To say the least this
isn't a piece of cake shoot, but our good fortune in a couple of
locations, Dr.Steve Barbour of Phoenix and Emanuel Lowi of Montreal are
making life easier for us during those travels.

This past week I was shooting at a Hospice Centre photographing female
doctors and nurses in an attempt to capture their handling of patients,
many in the last stages of living. Not the easiest of assignments but
one of many for our book.

Using 2 M7's, one M6, Tri-x film rated at 800 souped in XTOL 1:1. A
variation of lenses 15, 21, 35, Noctilux & 90mm Summicron, it was a
challenging shoot.

I'm sure you can imagine it was a highly emotional situation to shoot,
certainly when one is an emotional jerk like I am. It was here the quiet
of the Leica M7 shutter was obvious in the space of a small room..
Actually under these conditions it was quite easy appreciating the
difference between the soft click of the M7 and the solid sound M6
shutter's that isn't noticeable on the street. Not that the M6 is loud,
but more so than the M7.

Here people are waiting out the time for their last heart beat, suddenly
to find a photographer in their quiet space, those that could. Trust me,
this is bigtime Leica quiet time, it sure wasn't the location for motor
driven cameras of any make. The first day was a real challenge
attempting to be invisible and as Leica quiet as possible.

I had two concerns; one, not to disturb the patients in any way and to
capture the most meaningful pictures I could of the doctors and nurses,
not an easy task. I shot a ton of film, all kinds of situations,
unfortunately at the end of a very long day it felt like I'd made
thousands of exposures, but not one meaningful photograph. :-(  12 hours
continuous on the prowl will do that to you.

I felt there wasn't one frame I was so excited about that the only thing
I wanted to do, regardless of how tired I was, to soup film as quickly
as possible to see the one magical frame burning a hole in my gut to
see. Some days are like that.

So here we are 5 days later, a pile of film to soup, contact, edit and
print over the next few days before we move onto Montreal, Phoenix, New
York, Boston, San Francisco and back here by the end of March, hopefully
with 99% of the photography completed. It's called shoot hard, carefully
and only exposures that motivate. Light, eyes, action is the name of the
game for both of us. And no flash! Only the motivating light we see on
the subjects.

So with M7's and M6's, a mix of lenses and lots of film, Sandy and I are
off and running for the next few months about the country side. ;-)
Obviously we'll not likely be on the screen too often between now and
the end of March, but we'll keep in touch.

ted

Ted Grant Photography Limited
www.islandnet.com/~tedgrant



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