Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/12/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Wade wrote: "That said, I'm just about to start "Now Let us Praise Famous Men", both for the photographs and for the controversial Ageeian prose." Ugh. Good luck. I think Evans was the better writer. Worth reading is: And their children after them : the legacy of Let us now praise famous men, James Agee, Walker Evans, and the rise and fall of cotton in the South by Dale Maharidge & Michael Williamson. They go back in the early '80s to find out what happened to the families and get at some of the effect Famous Men had on them. Good photos, excellent reportage. I've just finished Robert Doisneau, A Photographer's Life, by Peter Hamilton. There was a great shooter who was articulate and wrote very well, judging by the translations. For years the French wouldn't publish a book of photos unless a writer was involved. Doisneau had several projects fail because of problems with authors, and Hamilton was convinced that Doisneau would have done fine writing text of his own. Like Evans's NYC, in Paris photographers and writers shared the same scene and there was a cross-pollination of ideas between them. On topic: There is a very informative appendix describing his equipment and technique. Doisneau: "As soon as I could get hold of equipment that allowed me to work in low light (1952) ... I wanted to try it out in some experiments...The first photos weren't very good. They were done with the 50mm (Summitar on a IIIc) and it's lens hood, which wasn't to brilliant because you can see some flare around the edges of the frame." Hamilton: "But although he used this new camera (M3) for a considerable amount of work, Robert confided to the author ... that he always found the camera slightly difficult to work with, because with lenses longer ... than 50mm ... the rangefinder focusing (was) less than ideal." He was a master of the Rolleiflex, but in late years favored R5s. I got that book from the library. No books under the tree this year :-( I'd asked Santa for a copy of Eggleston's Guide which has just been reprinted (the pictures are kind of somber looking in this new addition - disappointingly flat, even though I thought the original was too garish) or a copy of Szarkowski's gorgeous volume of Atget. I love the classics. Carl - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html