Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/05/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Rich Lahrson wrote: > Hi Ted and Tina, > > In the heyday of news flash with a Graflex and sheet film, ONE SHOT! > In the early thirties news photographers were staff, that's what you used. > The era of the photo story didn't emerge until after World War Two. > > It's probble that, indoors, 99.9% of drugstore finished prints are flash.<<<<<<< Hi Rich, Right on the mark! And you don't have to go back to the thirties for Speed Graphic and flash! Heck when I started in the early fifties we used only Speed or Crown Graphics and flash bulbs, eventually evolving into 40 lb. strobes with wet cell batteries. And yes it was one sheet if you could do it and never more than two sheets on any assignment! Now those were the days when you better have it all to-gether before you pressed the shutter release, as there weren't 35 more frames to go to get it right. :-) >>>>>> The era of the photo story didn't emerge until after World War Two.<<<<<<<<< That's true and it was the influence of LIFE and LOOK magazines that started me on the life of a photojournalist working with available light, when and where ever I could get away with it. Must confess I blew a few trying to be the "available light wunderkin" but that's the life of learning. I don't think until I started to use Leica's that I really got the available light shooting down to what I've practiced for many years now in a somewhat successful mode. It's been the Leica glass that made the difference more than the black box holding the film. It's because of these many long years, that I'm surprised anyone would consider a "cheap alternative to a lens like the Noctilux!" Quite frankly there isn't an alternative, you either have the best or don't bother. I feel that when you are working at it for a living there develops a technical quality expected of you as a photographer and in that case, you don't have any choice but to maintain that expected level. If that means you go into hock for a Noctilux, so be it.. It's the cost of your personal image as a photographer and the quality expected of you in your images. ted