[Leica] Making sure the decisive moment happens

[abridge at dcn.org (Adam Bridge)]

On 5/26/04 <KCassidy@asc.upenn.edu (Kyle Cassidy)> thoughtfully wrote: 

>I can't see any advantage of using a rangefinder, certianly not of using a
>film camera. I knew certain elements I wanted, )I should really go back and
>document the photos but you people don't seem to appreciate my blood sweat
>and tears as it is! (juan excluded from "you people")) for example, I
>noticed after a few shots that while she was running the side lighting gave
>an unflattering apperence to her stomach which looked undulating and weird,
>so I knew I wanted her to hold the dress over her midriff, I also knew I
>wanted part of her in the light, and part of her out of the light. I knew I
>wanted a foot in the air, and I knew I wanted some motion blur. I also
>wanted her looking over her shoulder with her hair moving. So you have a
>handful of elements that all need to come together (but not as well as that
>old life magazine shot of the naked kid running down the hall persued by
>some authority figure). The only way I can imagine doing that is with a
>bunch of polaroids or digital. The only advantage I could see to a
>rangefinder is the old "no shutter blackout" thing, but I wasn't even
>looking through the lens. I had the camera set on a tripod and just watching
>the scene in the hall, we'd do three or four and I'd run through and check
>them and we'd go back to doing it again.

The first frames - maybe the first 3 rows - instantly reminded me of the scene
from "Evita" where Evita evicts the previous lover of Colonel Peron. She then
gets one of the best of the tunes from Evita "Another Suitcase in Another Hall".

I'm surprised that it was her abs that caused you to have her holding her slip.
For me it was immediately clear that the less body you show the more you involve
the viewer's mind. The black hair bouncing certainly pushes the photo into a
genre mood and the side-lighting is straight from the cover of a 50s or 60s
detective fiction magazine.

I'm glad you omitted blood as it wouldn't fit, I think, with the era.

 So thanks - it's like reading through drafts of a short-short story which are
always difficult to craft - like commericials.

There should be publishers who could use this for cover art.

Adam