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

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Spoken like a true dino [was:AF vs FAD]
From: Wolfgang Spekner <faber@gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at>
Date: Tue, 04 May 1999 12:21:50 +0200

>>>>>>>>
Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 16:37:47 -0700 
From: "Kotsinadelis, Peter (Peter)" <peterk@lucent.com>
Subject: RE: [Leica] Re: AF, a FAD?

Spoken like a true dino.....

- - -----Original Message-----
From: Jim Bauman [mailto:jbauman@earthlink.net]
Sent: Monday, May 03, 1999 4:47 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: [Leica] Re: AF, a FAD?


Peter K wrote...

>Face it guys.  You are dinosaurs with MF cameras...

Wait a minute. Where is the ART in pointing your camera at something,
pushing a button, having the camera focus for you, set the exposure,
ad nauseum, and then claim it's "your" photograph, or "art?"

But, he also sez...

>Nonsense, if the resulting photograph is excellent no one cares if it were
>artistically created with a manual settings camera, or done via an AF SLR,
>or for that matter a P&S.

Well..... maybe we have a little more respect for the creator...

And Greg writes...

>Don't let your equipment get in the way of a good photo. The human decision
>making process is more important to making good photographs then
technology.
>If you know WHEN to push the shutter button your are %95 of the way to a
>good photograph.

Amen.
<<<<<<<<<<
Not wanting to jump into an AF vs. MF debate, I'd like to give my 2cents to
the above quoted:

If I a put a roll of slide film in my Kodak Retina 1a (built in 1951) and
shoot it by estimating (!) the distance, the exposure and the right
aperture and if I get out sharp, contrasty slides with the right exposure,
I feel good (maybe those are dinosaur feelings), because I somehow managed
to overcome (and not OVERRIDE) the technical obstacles of photography. I
have a higher respect for these photographs, than I have for those created
by my fancy Nikon AF-system.
Nevertheless, the AF-system has its importance and use in my photography.
But mostly this use has more to do with documentary than with "art". 
I think it is important to see that art has something to do with
"creating". Let's not forget that as photographers we are mostly not even
creating our subject. It's there, waiting for us to see and capture it in -
what seems to us to be - the right way. So what makes the subject to our
object is our technique of putting it on film. Just to push a button,
having set everything automatically and having all that developped in some
remote lab is not enough to call that process "art" IMHO. Should I be the
one to develop it in my own way, I would feel myself as an artist again.
Should I scan automatically produced images into my computer and should I
alter them with Photoshop in my own way, I would feel being an artist too.
Just different sorts of artistic expressions. But, JUST PRESSING THE
BUTTON, is not enough for me. I don't think that has something to do with
dinosaurs.

Wolfgang



- ----------------
Wolfgang Spekner
Liebenauer Hauptstrasse 283a
A-8041 Graz / Austria / E.U.
http://gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at/~faber/