[Leica] Inferno and Migrations

["B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

I spent 13 hours shooting in a bookstore yesterday and, needless to say, had
time to look carefully at both the Natchwey book and Salgado's latest. Some
observations:

First, Natchwey's work is incredibly powerful, a hard punch to the gut and
heart. I'm torn, however, about the size of the book. While the dimensions
make it impossible to just flip through the images and dismiss them, and
they have an in-your-face quality because of the size, I kept wanting to
push the book away - not because the photos were too strong, but because the
images were too big. Photos this size beg to be on a wall, where you can
stand back from them and drink them in. I actually think this work would be
even more powerful were the photos smaller, demanding an even closer, more
focused look.

Second, while there is absolutely no question that Salgado is the finer
craftsman, in terms particularly of exposure and printing, Natchwey is the
more intuitive, powerful photographer. He IS the Capa of this generation,
and, to my mind, is much, much better than Capa ever was.

This is not in anyway to dismiss or denigrate Migrations, which contains
fabulous work, and is a staggering project. It's just that Migrations
doesn't have the power of Inferno.

That said, there is one image in Migrations that I simply can't shake, that
I would argue will become an icon at some point, and that is the shot of the
hands and feet dangling over the coupling of two railroad cars; staggering
photo.

In conclusion - two amazing books by two world-class photographers.