[Leica] Bull

[timatherton at theedge.ca (Tim Atherton)]

> I HAVE seen the contact sheet in question.
> As I recall it was about 18 shots of HCB covering the jumper from
> a variety
> of angles as the jumper did different takes.
> Pretty much what I would do in the same situation if the kid was up to it.
> Not that anyone's asking me.
> Are people looking for some kind of ultimate truth when looking at HCB's
> prints? I don?t think that is the first thing on their minds.
> Me I'm looking for beauty.

The problem comes when this image is cited as the "ultimate" decisive moment
photograph, caught by the master photographer/photographic predator prowling
the streets of Paris, leica in hand - he happens upon a gap in the fence by
the railway station and as he glances through his eye takes in the puddle,
the poster and with the hand eye brain coordination of a Zen archer ,
catching the movement of a pedestrian from the corner of his eye raises his
trusty rangefinder camera, already prefocussed, correct exposure set and
catches forever that one fleeting moment through the small gap, frozen in a
fraction of a second, while the reality itself passes on and is gone.

The mythology of the picture is often made out to be the coming together of
all those elements, almost mystically, before the cameras lens in an act of
virutosic photogrpahic seeing.

That is what this photograph is so often sold as, when it would appear to be
nothing of the sort. Still an elegant, ephemeral caught vision - yes, quite
beautiful - but of a different sort.

tim