[Leica] Re: Leica war photos

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

B. D. Colen offered:
Subject: RE: [Leica] Re: Leica war photos


> You are absolutely correct about the overall quality of the war
> photography that this war has produced. Although - I wonder if our
> reaction does have something to do with the images being in color,
> rather than in black and white.

Hi B.D.,
I'm sure the fact that it's all being done in colour is a shame. Or these 
days can flip colour to B&W with a mouse click. But the colour detracts from 
situations of death and the basic horror of it all. It's too bad some news 
media aren't running B&W, might make for some interesting picture play and 
re-actions.

Whatever happened in the past conflicts wasn't any different than this 
situation. But the look of the dragged out soldiers, the dead, dying and 
that gaunt spaced out look of war weary soldiers just gone through hell just 
isn't there in colour!

Example: Even though in the movies.

"The Longest Day" movie, B&W. And "Saving Private Ryan." Colour.

The Longest Day for me has more impact than Private Ryan, even though TLDay 
has the "soft grainless look of a Hollywood creation" it still has a kind of 
visual effect Private Ryan doesn't have in colour.

SPRyan cinematography is extremely dramatic, certainly the special effects 
through out and on the D-Day beach scenes of soldiers being blown apart and 
wounded, ( some of those scenes particularly on the individual soldier I'd 
be interested in knowing how the effects were created, without actually 
killing someone.)

But I think the same cinematography style with a harsher B&W look could have 
made SPRyan an all time best war movie ever and much better than it was. 
Colour just takes away from the grit and grime of death and destruction in 
war.

> There have been some very strong images, but they have been very few and
> far between. Of course if we were to go back and look at the bulk of the
> images from Vietnam from about 1961 to 1975, I doubt you'd be much more
> impressed than you are by the bulk of the coverage from this war.<<<<<

But after Vietnam wasn't there some kind of Pentagon and Administration 
order about keeping media completely under control in the future so they 
couldn't go wherever we wanted, as was the case in Vietnam?

Grenada and Panama being two previous exercises where only certain media 
were taken along and under military control. And not allowed to be foot 
loose and fancy free to roam and shoot on their own time and choice without 
military guides and permission.

Remember Gulf 1 and how the media were completely controlled every where and 
kept under control by threat of arrest if they wandered out on their own, 
rather than staying completely under the watchful eyes of the Pentagon folks 
to stay in designated areas.

The "embedded people" was nothing more than keep those GD media people out 
of the way so we can do our job without them showing everything back home on 
the 6 o'clock news as it was from Vietnam.

ERGO: There wasn't much of individual photographers roaming on their own 
doing the kind of independent type photography from WW2 etc. where the 
photog had the opportunity to shoot the dead and dying right in the face 
drama of previous conflicts. Bad news having the media show what war is 
like. IE: CNN TV the other evening and shooting of a wounded Iraqi.

> The reality is that most photojournalism - like most journalism, medical
> practice, engineering, fiction writing, cooking, etc. etc. etc. - is
> mediocre at best. Average is average. The reason we remember Capa, Larry
> Burrows, Henri Huet, David Douglas Duncan, is because their war
> photography was so clearly better than most. ;-)<<<<<<,,

I suppose this all comes down to "Not the time for B&W as it shows the home 
town folks the harsh gritty in your face reality of "war content".  But in 
colour, it's viewed like it's a "war movie" and all the dead will be back in 
a different programme to-morrow. And if you don't think so, take the time to 
view some of the WW2 on the scene movie material shot by all kinds of 
cinematographers. We all have pretty well seen the best B&W still 
photography and certainly nothing from the past year is any where close to 
it in colour.

Now given I had the good fortune "not to go to Gulf 1" I am only repeating 
that situation as reported on TV newscasts and situations explained one on 
one by my wire service buddies who were there.

And quite frankly I'd much rather be having a discussion about who took the 
best flower pictures in B&W or colour with which Leica glass!!

ted