[Leica] Are we anal puddle jumpers or what?

[bd at bdcolenphoto.com (B. D. Colen)]

Damn, that was one appropriate title, wasn't it? ;-)

On 6/19/12 4:44 PM, "Herbert Kanner" <kanner at acm.org> wrote:

>Just trying to make a friendly suggestion: After typing a long essay
>such as the one below, immeasurable improvements will occur if you
>then read what you have written and break it up into appropriate
>paragraphs.
>
>Herb
>
>
>>I've been reading this thread and have a couple thoughts:
>>1. Equipment: Of course equipment is important, it was important to HCB,
>>it's important to all of us today. It is not, however, the be all and end
>>all many endless discussions of micro contrast, glass, and pixels would
>>lead
>>one to believe. Someone yesterday or today made the comment that today's
>>photographers keep upgrading their equipment, and need to, if they are
>>serious about their craft. Well, yes, but what isn't mentioned is that
>>today's camera body is not simply the light-tight box bodies were 20
>>years
>>ago, but it is the box AND the film. That is, today a photographer is
>>required to upgrade equipment with some frequency because digital sensors
>>are still evolving, just as film evolved over a period of many decades.
>>So
>>in order to be able to meet client and publishing standards, a
>>photographer
>>is required to upgrade. But the photographer who bought a pair of M3s in
>>the
>>1950s, did NOT have to upgrade his bodies - EVER - if he didn't beat
>>them to
>>death. The photographer did, however, upgrade her film.  But the Nikon or
>>Canon glass from 20 years ago is plenty good to shoot with it today. So,
>>for
>>that matter, are Leica's first generation aspheric lenses plenty good
>>today.
>>If someone wants the latest $7k Summicron, good for them. But there is no
>>NEED to make that upgrade.
>>2. Analism: Anal is as anal does. HCB was not the film era equivalent of
>>a
>>pixel peeper. He did not wear a loupe around his neck for counting
>>eyelashes. He was an artist who cared most about composition, and the
>>ways
>>in which visual elements came together and played off each other.
>>Counting
>>facial hairs is not photography, and really has little to do with
>>photography. Does a particular lens effectively suppress veiling flare
>>when
>>shooting with strong backlighting? That is important to a photographer,
>>because it effects her ability to successful capture a given image. But
>>being able to examine a pimple on the face of the man in the moon in a
>>night
>>shot of lower Manhattan? Not so much.
>>3. HCB and how many times he pushed the shutter release: Yes, HCB shot
>>thousands of frames we have and will never seen. But don't kid yourselves
>>that this somehow means that he, or similar 'giants' weren't as good as
>>we've been lead to believe. The question is not, did he shoot thousands
>>of
>>frames he discarded? Rather, it is how good are his keepers, how to they
>>compare to everyone else's keepers, and how many of them are there? We
>>all,
>>in our life times of shooting, may come up with one or two HCB-like
>>images.
>>What we will never come up with are the hundreds he produced.
>>4. Was the Puddle Jumper posed, and does it matter: As I said before,
>>and I
>>gather various people's searches have indicated I am correct, that image
>>was
>>an unposed one-off. But some people have suggested over the last couple
>>of
>>days that it's the outcome that matters, 'art is art,' and we shouldn't
>>care
>>if it was posed. I vehemently disagree. Because if that, or other
>>supposedly
>>unposed images were posed, it tells us that HCB was a completely
>>different
>>kind of artist from what we thought he was. Philippe Halsman, a wonderful
>>Magnum Photographer, made jumping his gimmick. He produced terrific
>>images
>>of everyone from Richard Nixon to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
>>jumping on
>>command. But Philippe Halsman was not HCB. He was not a chronicler of the
>>"decisive moment." He is not noted for creating incredibly composed
>>images
>>of moments in real life and real time; HCB is. If it turns out that HCB
>>posed images - and I am NOT suggesting, nor do I believe, that he posed
>>anything other than some portraits, then he simply was not the
>>photographer
>>we thought he was and his work needs to be reconsidered. (When Bruce
>>Davidson's Outside Inside came out, I went to hear him speak at Boston
>>University. During a rambling discourse he said that he ALWAYS asked
>>permission before photographing his subjects. IF that is true, I think
>>his
>>work needs to be reconsidered. He still is a brilliant photographer, but
>>IF
>>that's true, he is more a brilliant fashion-type photographer, than the
>>documentarian he has been thought to be. (I must note here that I have
>>heard
>>from a number of sources I trust, and concluded myself from listen to
>>him,
>>that age has really caught up with Davidson's mental faculties, and I
>>would
>>NOT take his saying he always  asked permission as reliable testimony.)
>>5. The Decisive Moment: For all the talk about the Decisive Moment, and
>>the
>>idea many have that HCB saw these special moments flash before his eye
>>and
>>grabbed them,  I would contend that the true decisive moment is that
>>instant
>>in which he - or anyone - saw or sees the photographic possibilities in a
>>scene, a situation, and THEN begins to work that scene, until all the
>>compositional elements come together. With the anal puddle jumper, the
>>decisive moment would have been that instant when HCB saw the hole in the
>>fence, realized what was going on, and started shooting. All of which to
>>say
>>that the fulfillment of genius requires hard work.
>>Back to anal puddle jumping. :-)
>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Leica Users Group.
>>See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>
>-- 
>Herbert Kanner
>kanner at acm.org
>650-326-8204
>
>Question authority and the authorities will question you.
>
>_______________________________________________
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>