Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/05/19

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Subject: Re: [Leica] [leica] streets and other...
From: Johnny Deadman <deadman@jukebox.demon.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 19:51:54 +0100

on 19/5/00 6:52 pm, Michael Bell at mbell@mail.utexas.edu wrote:

> Guy Bennett <guybnt@idt.net> writes:
>> maybe the point is documentation. to capture on film the way life is being
>> lived by the inhabitants of a given place at a given time, all going about
>> their business as they normally do, unaware for the most part that they are
>> being recorded on film.
> 
> Did anyone see the movie Smoke?  One of the characters in the movie
> owned a smoke shop in New York City.  I think the actor was Danny
> Aielo?  

I remember it as Harvey Keitel.


> Anyway, every day at the exact same time and from the same
> place he would go outside his store and take a single picture. Didn't
> matter what was in the  picture.  As soon as the time struck, he
> snapped it.
> 
> He did this for many years, decades I think, and had several albums.
> Looking at the pictures you'd see the seasons change.  Over a longer
> period of time you saw clothing and car style changes.  Sometimes
> there is nothing but buildings in the shot.  Sometimes a big crowd of
> people.
> 
> At first impression it seems like a silly thing to do.  But then when
> you are able to grasp the whole scope of it, it is quite moving.

Bill Gedney did the same thing, kind of, from his apartment window. When he
went on vacation, he left instructions for his bemused landlord to take the
shot for him.

- --
Johnny Deadman

photos:      http://www.pinkheadedbug.com
music:       http://www.jukebox.demon.co.uk