[Leica] century lists

[Erwin Puts <imxputs@knoware.nl>]

Asking for the nomination of the photographer of the century, is as 
Ted noted, a futile undertaking. Too many outstanding photographers, 
too many areas and for once here democracy does not work. It was 
noted that English photo-amateurs, often refer to Ansel Adams as 
their icon. Here we have the power of the  media. Adams is a 
household name in any photographic discussion and so would pop up as 
one of the few everyone at least has heard of.
As man of the century Einstein is nominated. But without any 
argumentation why, such an exercise would hardly be enlightening.
Einstein's nomination is fully acceptable: he gave us a completely 
new view and understanding of the universe, complementing or 
replacing the rigidity and elegant simplicity of the Newtonian world 
with a powerful  view of a most complex and relativistic cosmos, 
which even Startrek cannot emulate. It is most intriguing that the 
dominant type of discourse in photographic circles has  not  yet 
evolved to this relativistic view of the world, but then photography 
as a medium hardly ever was very revolutionary.
With some exceptions of course.
My nominations for century photographers with some arguments, based 
on the idea that the photographer should have Einsteinian power, that 
is, make us aware of what was not seen before:
Brassai and Kertesh: as they saw the strength of photography in 
recording the world as no one saw before. Brassai's night scenery of 
Paris is not yet rivalled.
Cartier Bresson, Doisneau and Seymour ex equo: all had the vision to 
freeze the enigmatic stream of time/space to extract the meaning of 
life by using the 35mm camera. Seymour is my favorite as his vies is 
the more disciplined.
August Sander and Man Ray: the first depicted the utterly normal and 
the second one the surrealistic, showing the wide vistas of 
photographic vision.
Don Mc Cullin as he recorded warscenes with compassion and horror
Helmut Newton as he unearthed in the strongest possible imagery the 
subconscious drives of fashion.
Paul Strand and Richard Avedon: they gave us the vision of reality in 
clean light.

In the Einsteinian tradition the Leica is indeed the camera of the 
century, because we never looked at photography in the same way after 
the Bauhaus persons adopted this 'toy' for exploration of the visual 
world. Other great marques as Pentax or Nikon and Canon may have been 
instrumental in the spread of photography as a mass medium, but they 
hardly added anything to the photographic vision explored by the 
Leica.
In this vein:
developer of the century: Agfa Rodinal
paper of the century: Ilford Multigrade
Film of the century: Kodak Tri-X

Erwin