Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/11/15
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/salgado/salgado_serra_pelada_full.html A brand new art gallery just opened in a lower rent end of Broadway in my NW Portland. It's called Ogle and they've pulled of quite a coup by having their first show in their lovely space be Sebastiao Salgado. One of the very top touted black and white photographers out there today. Certainly in 35mm. http://www.pdn-pix.com/legends/legends10/ His subject matter: The Human Family Around the World, Leaving the Land for the Cities, Children Today: Men and Women of the New Century, Migrations: Humanity in Transition... that's what its called in the Kodak website. Looks great to me. I have no insights or criticism on his subject matter. It's all been discussed on the LUG and elsewhere. It's all beyond reproach to me but what do I know? Gorgeous. Real. Some may have problems with that, not me. Too Gorgeous to be real? To me that's what reality is all about. You just have to know where to look and how to grab it and print it. The craft end of it I guess I'm more aware and knowledgeable of. This is a breath taking display of prints. It will be up for a few months. Most of the people in this town don't even know it's up there yet. The place way empty. It's pouring outside though. I parked right outside the door of the place just now and last week as well. The owner just told me he's going to hang up a notice on the wall of "Pro Photo" soon to tell the photographers about it. At least they'll know. Could not find one thing on the internet about these guys yet. Too new. Not promo orientated. It's a big space and will be a general art gallery not just a photo gallery. I said put sculpture in the middle of the floor and save the walls for photography. The fella's wife is a photographer and is from Brazil. And knows Sebastiao Salgado. I met her today. Salgado was going to come to the opening a few weeks ago but got caught shooting in Pakistan. The TV news guy (with the pink tie) last night by the way with a straight face we are "sending packages to Pakistan." To me that's funny... Coals to Newcastle - Snowballs for the Eskimos - whatever. I digress.... In the late 70's at the Portland Art Museum i say a display of Brett Westons prints having just made the switch from 8x10 contact printing to Rolleiflex SL 66 brownie filming http://www.sl66.com/sl66_models.htm and that was the best display of prints I'd seen till this. Prints with an inner glow and a black that is just amazingly black. That's what i go for. Mud puddles are fine. I don't care what they shoot. Gorgeous image making impresses me. Haven't seen a better black since that show. Till now. And inner glow. Salgado does not sign these prints. Perhaps because he has other master printers print them. His name is embossed out on the bottom left. It looks OK. Subtle. I've not got the goods on the precedent if any for that. I know Jay Maisel signs his prints with a ballpoint with no ink in it. A blank Bic. :) Bottom right. I recall they went for 3 grand each. Twice what Steve Schapiro superb prints were going for at probably the number one photo gallery in portland: The S. K. Josefsberg Studio a few blocks away. http://www.skjstudio.com/ Schapiro could have easily been shooting with a Leica. He took a picture of all his friends and they all were shooting with Leica's if peer group pressure did anything those days. Great stuff but Schapiro compared to Salgado is like comparing Boccherini to Bach. A Great against The Supermaster. (The Gatekeeper told me this) The size got my attention of the prints. The image size indicates bigger paper than 11x14 but much smaller than 16x20. My built in ruler says he put 2 inch borders on the sides making for an image size of 10.6x16 inch. I bet i'm right. You don't ever feel like you are looking at "Salgado's 16x20's". a minor point, but one which hit me. Anyway anyone living in the north west of the U.S.A. or the west coast of the U.S.A. would in my opinion find it worth the while to travel to NW portland on Broadway and Flanders and check out this show. No way despite high domains of image making do these images look like medium format. This is 35mm photography and at it's very best. They are gritty sharp images which speak of Rodinal and in T-Max 3200 more than Tri x. I stand back and go: wow could these images have been done with a Nikon?. No. Absolutely not. I don't care who you've got printing for you. Could these images have been with an inkjet? No. Not that I've seen yet. Did I hear some company is making silver paper just for him? That's easily believable. Amidol maybe. Astondingly black with an amazing glow to the mid tones. My eye and sensibilities i root for but this show makes me darn glad I'm shooting with Leica glass. And I'll soon be shooting lots o stuff with the 65 mm lens on an R. I Like the perspective and the possible image quality. Perhaps Erin will criticized this for me getting so exited by imagery done with such high speed films as he has said in effect that you need 100 films to make Leica glass be able to do it's thing. (a simplistic out of context misquote no doubt!:) But i see it as down sampling. NO one ever agrees with me. :) Mark Rabiner Portland, Oregon USA New Email address is rabiner2@home.com Website is http://www.rabiner.cncoffice.com/ - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html