Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/05/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I heartily, thoroughly and completely agree. Some of HCBs best stuff is as blurry as hell (don't even start me on Robert Capa). I opened a recent compendium of pictures from NG last night and all the photographs had perfect colour, were 100% sharp and very well printed. Only two of them grabbed me by the proverbials. Looking through my Magnum Bumper Fun compendia still induces a sharp intake of breath every other page even though I've had them for ages. Probably a third of the pictures in the books have huge amounts of grain, movement blur or, in the case of the older shots, some serious optical aberrations. They are without exception phenomenally powerful. I often wonder, when I amble through the photo.net galleries and read the criticisms by people who rate some of the journalistic photographs badly due to poor contrast or sharpness or some other technical flaw, whether the critics actually SEE the photographs. Perfect optics, fine grained film etc. are great for nice portraits, nice landscapes and nice travel shots. They are almost irrelevant for transcendent photographs. - -----Original Message----- From: Ted Grant [mailto:tedgrant@shaw.ca] Sent: 02 May 2002 05:48 To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Subject: [Leica] Great exposures & sharpness don't...... Hi Guys, Sometimes you shoot a frame or two and you know you've captured the sharpest properly exposed, lighting great picture & it's going to be a beauty! Then. :-( Then you make an 11X14 print and you can count the eyelashes of this female surgeon, the tonal range of the print is perfect, the Leica glass 100mm f 2.8 macro lens used in an available light operating room setting, lens has cut an image into film you might cut your fingers if not careful. You stand looking at all these photographic technical niceties and most of all the great looking "only Leica Lens sharpness crispness, pure magic technically speaking photograph." So what. Then you look at it and for all that wonderful technical stuff that some folks rave on about, the great mm per line and squigglies to make any Leica carrying member wet their pants over the Leica sharpness look! And what do you have? You don't have to look very hard to realize you have a perfectly technical everything picture that the techno freaks would drool all over while peeing their pants! And? You just shrug your shoulders, " Oh well so big deal!" Throw it down on the out pile. Why? There isn't any "LIFE IN THE PICTURE! :-( It's like one of those absolutely technical crisp everything metered to death salon magic dead photographs that we are lead to believe, is the ultimate Leica image on film and print! All the initial excitement is lost because the damn thing is way too perfect without any feeling of heart or emotion. Technically great, but hell there's an awful lot more to great pictures than being in zone 88, sharp and perfect tonality. Sorry folks I don't know where the hell I'm going with this as it's sort of letting it all hang out frustration! On the one hand I have this wonderful sharp / crisp Leica glass cut photograph and unfortunately it just sits there and does nothing! So you see sometimes it doesn't matter if you use a Leica on a tripod, the slowest film on earth developed in the finest grain developer and the techies are all excited at the look and what the expensive lens has cut in film. But if there isn't any life to it what the hell have you got but a very leica sharp picture. Big deal! :-( good night! ted Ted Grant Photography Limited www.islandnet.com/~tedgrant - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the designated recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. This communication is for information purposes only and should not be regarded as an offer to sell or as a solicitation of an offer to buy any financial product, an official confirmation of any transaction, or as an official statement of Lehman Brothers. Email transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free. Therefore, we do not represent that this information is complete or accurate and it should not be relied upon as such. All information is subject to change without notice. - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html