Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/09/27
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Eric Welch wrote: > > At 10:12 PM 9/22/97 -0400, you wrote: > >OK. In an excerpt from "Slightly Out of Focus" quoted in "The Art of > >Photography" 1839-1989, Capa himself says, "But the excited darkroom > >assistant while drying the negatives, had turned on too much heat...." > > "Slightly out of focus" in typical Capa style, full of exaggerations and > downright fabrications. Whether this particular piece of information was > true or not is not really important. But using that book for evidence isn't > convincing. ;-) > Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but here goes.... John G. Morris, a professor of mine from RIT days and one of the founders of Magnum and also photo editor of the NYTimes, told me this story first hand. He was working for LIFE (?) in London during the war and was there in the lab, I think maybe even as Capa's boss. In the rush to develop the film, the unnamed technician turned up the heat on the film dryer to the point where the emulsion slid right off the film backing on all but a few frames, which were salvaged, printed, and ran in LIFE with the extraordinary and accidentially-created "smeared and rainy" look from that fateful morning on Normandy Beach. Most of the emulsion, and the imagery, according to Morris, sat in a puddle at the bottom of the dryer at the end of the day. John G. Morris, a great guy, was at last count (10 years ago) in Paris working for National Geographic. Cheers, David W. Almy Annapolis, Maryland