Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/04/05

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Capa and the Wide Angle Lens
From: csocolow <csocolow@microserve.net>
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 16:16:33 -0400

Mark Rabiner wrote:
> 
>
> Carl on your shot of the guy and gal smootching on the sidewalk:
> weren't you a little worried that the guy could turn around and punch
> your lights out?
> Or had you precleared your grabbing of that private moment?
> A great shot, but a shot many would'nt have the guts to get as the
> demeener of either of them could be a wildcard.
> Mark Rabiner

Mark,

The moment was too pure for me to pre-clear the making of the photo.
When I saw them initially they were lip locked and I just reacted by
bringing the camera up and making a photo. It was soft-focused and had a
touch of camera shake. I made a second exposure, the one on my webpage,
and by then my steadiness had returned and I took the extra moment to
focus. This is probably the better photo because they had separated to
about the same distance as Ricky and Lucy on the billboard in the
background.

It never occurred to me to interrupt them and ask. That would have meant
being an active participant in their act instead of an observer, albeit
one with a camera. It seems to me the whole essence of street
photography, at least à la the Cartier-Bresson tradition, is to document
the human condition, a moment of truth, or beauty without intruding.

I think of Robert Doisneau's photo of "The Kiss" done in Paris which was
supposed to look spontaneous but was actually, as I now understand it, a
posed shot with models and I would never want my work to have that
stigma. Unless, of course, it was for a commercial assignment and it was
understood that that was its underlying reason.

- -- 
Carl Socolow

http://members.tripod.com/SocPhoto/