Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/09

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Subject: RE: [Leica] Intimacy with long lenses....
From: "B. D. Colen" <BDColen@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 1998 09:32:26 -0500

Alexey...I ask the following question with the greatest respect: How old are
you? I ask this because I am becoming more and more convinced every day that
the answer to the question makes an enormous difference in what we expect
from visual images and how we perceive them. Not age, per se, but the visual
environment in which we came of age.

Interesting that you should mention the Eddie Adams VC execution photo. Were
you aware that a CBS TV crew was also there filming? Caught the whole thing.
And it doesn't have a 10th of the impact of the still photo. And sports?
Take a look some day at the B&W photos - I seem to recall there's a book of
them - of the famous sudden death playoff from 196? between the NY Jets and
the Baltimore Colts....



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of Alexey Merz
> Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 1998 12:01 PM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: RE: [Leica] Intimacy with long lenses....
>
>
> "B. D. Colen" <BDColen@earthlink.net>
> >Still photos can have unparalleled emotional and visual impact - far
> >greater than that of film because they are in front of us longer and
> >can be observed and contemplated longer.
>
> Sorry, I can't agree with that. There are certainly cases where we
> have stills and video of the same event (flag raising @ Iwo, execution
> in the street in Viet Nam) where the stills are more powerful. But
> I don't think we can generalize in this way. Akira Kurosawa's film
> _Ran_ has emotional and visual impact on par with any still photography
> that I can think of, and there are other examples as well. No still
> picture can capture the intensity of the final downhill ski run that
> won Franz Klammer his Olympic gold medal, not in the way that the ABC
> cameras did...
> ..........................................................................
> Alexey Merz | URL: http://www.webcom.com/alexey | email: alexey@webcom.com
>
>