Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/07/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Thu, 4 Jul 2013 Phong <leicaphong at gmail.com>wrote: Subject: Re: [Leica] Biographical Info re Dr. Ted's Curiosity >I know of Robert Gilka thru Sam Abell's "Stay This Moment", which is one of >my all-time favorite photography books. I had never heard of either of >them when I serendipitously visited a local bookstore in Harvard Square >back in the early 1990's and flipped thru some photo books. Gilka was the >editor who hired Sam Abell at National Geographic. >Did you know him well ? As chance would have it, I heard a few days ago >that he just passed away very, very recently, as in maybe a week ago. >- Phong =========================================================================================================================================== I met Robert Gilka (and many other nationally known photographers) when our department used to host the judging for the Wisconsin News Photographers Association annual print competition. We had the space to hold all the racks for displaying 16x20 or later, 11x14 prints, and as a helper putting prints up and taking them down, I got to see the work of many photographers close up and to stand close enough to the judges to hear all their critiques. And after the judging sessions my colleagues and I were able to interact with these people. (I can hardly believe the list of photographers I was able to meet through my job - Walter Heun (of E. Leitz), W. Eugene Smith, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Ernst Haas, Ed Farber; Frank Scherschel, Tom Abercrombie, Sam Abell, A. E. Wooley, Howard Sochurek, Joseph Costa, Dean Conger, Steve Raymer, Eliot Elisofon; Harold Edgerton, David Eisendrath, Howard Chapnick, Angus McDougall...and others. I met Sam Abell when he was a judge at one of the WNPA conventions, and he permanently influenced my photography. His serene color pictures gave me such a wonderful feeling of calmness that I started taking the kind of pictures (for myself) that I later found could be categorized as "miksang" photography (Tibetan for Good Eye). Pictures that just please the eye with composition and color, or tones. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miksang> Alan Alan Magayne-Roshak, Senior Photographer University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Photo Services (Retired) UPAA POY 1978 amr3 at uwm.edu http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alan+Magayne-Roshak/ "All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for an inability to notice. " - Elliott Erwitt