Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/03/18

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Subject: [Leica] Beware HCB Wannabes
From: steve.barbour at gmail.com (Steve Barbour)
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:55:37 -0700
References: <B0912E14-CBBE-4C3C-8485-F7472772ECA3@gmail.com> <C7C83FA3.5F9CC%mark@rabinergroup.com> <19b6d42d1003181804y611a8bd1v72ab4c596f3f28a4@mail.gmail.com> <30C52375-4AD5-49AF-8308-99682D76A6D6@gmail.com> <19b6d42d1003182010m14c30769gc7fabd69228aed86@mail.gmail.com>

On Mar 18, 2010, at 8:10 PM, Vince Passaro wrote:

> I don't who "you" is here Jeffery but my point was that the least safe and
> comforting the artist, the better the artist. The great artists who've been
> in practice and at home obnoxious and worse are legion, and I do believe
> there is a correlation between their vision and the barbed wire they seem 
> to
> be wearing as jock straps. Being nice doesn't get the job done, most of the
> time. There are of course exceptions. Many. Still, if you want to use
> "obnoxious" as the measuring term, you've lost most of us; it's a school
> marm's word, an accountant's word, a ticket collector's word, and efforts
> not to be obnoxious while likely good for the smooth operation of polite
> society (and all its hidden crimes) are not interesting or important to us.
> Sometimes the best technique is  'silence, exile and cunning' which I think
> is what you really mean, outside the ninth grade geography teacher vocab of
> 'obnoxious'; and sometimes it's not and the artist has to become something
> of a terrorist.  Sometimes we have to INTERRUPT.  There is no way really to
> be discreet taking people's photos on the street and indeed one of the
> complaints was not that he was up in people's faces but that he was trying
> to be discreet: far away with telephoto lenses -- ie, "creepy."
> 
> As far as his work goes (I'm about to go look at it), we should all keep in
> mind that art of the second order makes art of the first order possible. 
> And
> on down the line. So Rabs is quite right: he is us, period.


hi Vince,  

you may be at least provocative at times, and I don't always agree wth you, 

God forbid,

but you are brilliant as a writer, a thinker, and a provocateur,


Steve




Steve


> 
> Vince
> 
> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 9:34 PM, Jeffery Smith <jsmith342 at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
>> You agree that the more obnoxious the photographer, the better the
>> photographer, as long as he's doing whatever he wants? Cool.
>> 
>> On Mar 18, 2010, at 8:04 PM, Vince Passaro wrote:
>> 
>>> I agree with Rabs. Of course. And a further thought: I remember one day
>> not
>>> long ago -- within the last decade that means, to us oldies -- seeing a
>>> photographer with a Leica 35mm camera on Fifth Ave near the corner of
>> 57th
>>> or 58th St I think (possibley a few blocks osouth of there) standing in
>> the
>>> flow of the crowd just whirling right and left and all the way around
>> taking
>>> pictures of people only .7 meters from their faces in many cases, or
>>> sometimes a bit further. He was like a dervish: to watch him was to see a
>>> man who was completely lost in what he was doing, the faces in the crowd,
>>> images momentarily clarified within a blur, him catching them probably
>> not
>>> in full focus most of hte time, taking pictures (and manually advancing
>> the
>>> film) as fast as I've ever seen anyone with that kind of equipment work.
>> I
>>> deeply admired him. He looked insane. He was frightening people. Some
>>> people, that is. It was New York after all and many just made their way
>>> around him and kept on without a backward glance.
>>> 
>>> Here's a very short, famous, Eastern-ish poem for street photographer's
>>> everywhere. The title is "In a Station of the Metro" - it's only two
>> lines
>>> long:
>>> 
>>> The apparition of these faces in a crowd;
>>> Petals on a wet black bough.
>>> 
>>> it's like a Capa picture double exposed onto an Ansel Adams....
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 8:37 PM, Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>>> I think the size of his cannon...er....Canon..is what is making him so
>>>>> conspicuous and is what is unnerving his subjects. My reference to the
>>>> Leica
>>>>> RF is not so he can be like HCB, but so he might be less conspicuous.
>>>> Robert
>>>>> Capa's Contax would be fine too. Using a big SLR with a telephoto to
>> get
>>>>> pictures of young ladies is paparazzi-ish, not streetphotography-ish.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Jeffery
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I think he can set up an 8x10 view camera if he feels like it if he's
>> not
>>>> blocking the sidewalk too much.
>>>> 
>>>> [Rabs]
>>>> Mark William Rabiner
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
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>> 
>> 
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>> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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Replies: Reply from richard at imagecraft.com (Richard Man) ([Leica] Beware HCB Wannabes)
Reply from passaro.vince at gmail.com (Vince Passaro) ([Leica] Beware HCB Wannabes)
In reply to: Message from jsmith342 at gmail.com (Jeffery Smith) ([Leica] Beware HCB Wannabes)
Message from mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner) ([Leica] Beware HCB Wannabes)
Message from passaro.vince at gmail.com (Vince Passaro) ([Leica] Beware HCB Wannabes)
Message from jsmith342 at gmail.com (Jeffery Smith) ([Leica] Beware HCB Wannabes)
Message from passaro.vince at gmail.com (Vince Passaro) ([Leica] Beware HCB Wannabes)