Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/06/19

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Subject: [Leica] Are we anal puddle jumpers or what?
From: mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2012 02:11:21 -0400

I improved yours!

- - from my iRabs.
Mark Rabiner
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/springdays/


> From: Herbert Kanner <kanner at acm.org>
> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 13:44:56 -0700
> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Are we anal puddle jumpers or what?
> 
Just trying to make a friendly suggestion:
After typing a long essay
such as the one below,
immeasurable improvements will occur
if you then read what you have written
and break it up into
appropriate
paragraphs.

Herb

> 
>> I've been reading this thread and have a couple thoughts:
>> 1. Equipment: Of course equipment is important, it was important to HCB,
>> it's important to all of us today. It is not, however, the be all and end
>> all many endless discussions of micro contrast, glass, and pixels would 
>> lead
>> one to believe. Someone yesterday or today made the comment that today's
>> photographers keep upgrading their equipment, and need to, if they are
>> serious about their craft. Well, yes, but what isn't mentioned is that
>> today's camera body is not simply the light-tight box bodies were 20 years
>> ago, but it is the box AND the film. That is, today a photographer is
>> required to upgrade equipment with some frequency because digital sensors
>> are still evolving, just as film evolved over a period of many decades. So
>> in order to be able to meet client and publishing standards, a 
>> photographer
>> is required to upgrade. But the photographer who bought a pair of M3s in 
>> the
>> 1950s, did NOT have to upgrade his bodies - EVER - if he didn't beat them 
>> to
>> death. The photographer did, however, upgrade her film.  But the Nikon or
>> Canon glass from 20 years ago is plenty good to shoot with it today. So, 
>> for
>> that matter, are Leica's first generation aspheric lenses plenty good 
>> today.
>> If someone wants the latest $7k Summicron, good for them. But there is no
>> NEED to make that upgrade.
>> 2. Analism: Anal is as anal does. HCB was not the film era equivalent of a
>> pixel peeper. He did not wear a loupe around his neck for counting
>> eyelashes. He was an artist who cared most about composition, and the ways
>> in which visual elements came together and played off each other. Counting
>> facial hairs is not photography, and really has little to do with
>> photography. Does a particular lens effectively suppress veiling flare 
>> when
>> shooting with strong backlighting? That is important to a photographer,
>> because it effects her ability to successful capture a given image. But
>> being able to examine a pimple on the face of the man in the moon in a 
>> night
>> shot of lower Manhattan? Not so much.
>> 3. HCB and how many times he pushed the shutter release: Yes, HCB shot
>> thousands of frames we have and will never seen. But don't kid yourselves
>> that this somehow means that he, or similar 'giants' weren't as good as
>> we've been lead to believe. The question is not, did he shoot thousands of
>> frames he discarded? Rather, it is how good are his keepers, how to they
>> compare to everyone else's keepers, and how many of them are there? We 
>> all,
>> in our life times of shooting, may come up with one or two HCB-like 
>> images.
>> What we will never come up with are the hundreds he produced.
>> 4. Was the Puddle Jumper posed, and does it matter: As I said before, and 
>> I
>> gather various people's searches have indicated I am correct, that image 
>> was
>> an unposed one-off. But some people have suggested over the last couple of
>> days that it's the outcome that matters, 'art is art,' and we shouldn't 
>> care
>> if it was posed. I vehemently disagree. Because if that, or other 
>> supposedly
>> unposed images were posed, it tells us that HCB was a completely different
>> kind of artist from what we thought he was. Philippe Halsman, a wonderful
>> Magnum Photographer, made jumping his gimmick. He produced terrific images
>> of everyone from Richard Nixon to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor jumping 
>> on
>> command. But Philippe Halsman was not HCB. He was not a chronicler of the
>> "decisive moment." He is not noted for creating incredibly composed images
>> of moments in real life and real time; HCB is. If it turns out that HCB
>> posed images - and I am NOT suggesting, nor do I believe, that he posed
>> anything other than some portraits, then he simply was not the 
>> photographer
>> we thought he was and his work needs to be reconsidered. (When Bruce
>> Davidson's Outside Inside came out, I went to hear him speak at Boston
>> University. During a rambling discourse he said that he ALWAYS asked
>> permission before photographing his subjects. IF that is true, I think his
>> work needs to be reconsidered. He still is a brilliant photographer, but 
>> IF
>> that's true, he is more a brilliant fashion-type photographer, than the
>> documentarian he has been thought to be. (I must note here that I have 
>> heard
>> from a number of sources I trust, and concluded myself from listen to him,
>> that age has really caught up with Davidson's mental faculties, and I 
>> would
>> NOT take his saying he always  asked permission as reliable testimony.)
>> 5. The Decisive Moment: For all the talk about the Decisive Moment, and 
>> the
>> idea many have that HCB saw these special moments flash before his eye and
>> grabbed them,  I would contend that the true decisive moment is that 
>> instant
>> in which he - or anyone - saw or sees the photographic possibilities in a
>> scene, a situation, and THEN begins to work that scene, until all the
>> compositional elements come together. With the anal puddle jumper, the
>> decisive moment would have been that instant when HCB saw the hole in the
>> fence, realized what was going on, and started shooting. All of which to 
>> say
>> that the fulfillment of genius requires hard work.
>> Back to anal puddle jumping. :-)
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> 
> -- 
> Herbert Kanner
> kanner at acm.org
> 650-326-8204
> 
> Question authority and the authorities will question you.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information




In reply to: Message from kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner) ([Leica] Are we anal puddle jumpers or what?)