[Leica] MM - first impressions

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

The Doug Ball shot of Trudeau is a weak photograph.
You can't tell what Trudeau  is doing unless you read a caption.
He's twisted in an awkward unattractive way and is almost unrecognizable
without a caption. The entire image is a week composition which communicates
little if not nothing.

The Ted Grant shot of Trudeau  is an exceedingly strong image in which the
Prime minister is totally recognizable and communities completely his joy de
vive in a way the Ball shot can only dream.
It needs no caption.
Though I wonder what they one they did you said.
Something redundant and unnecessary no doubt.
Re stating the obvious.

Wiki in this case is totally out of the Loup.

Mark William Rabiner
Photography
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/


> From: Emanuel Lowi <manolito at videotron.ca>
> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2012 22:54:37 -0400
> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] MM - first impressions
> 
> Ted Grant blasted:
>> 
>> SO EMANUEL WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS???
>> 
>> My photograph of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot  Trudeau of Canada sliding
>> down a stair case bannister hands held on high doesn't count, because it's
>> shot in B&W. And not Velvia??????
>> 
>> When it's recognized as the most iconic politcal photograph in the history
>> of Canada! Not by me, but the National Archives of Canada and many other
>> organizations of similar position.
>> 
>> Is that correct good Sir?
>> 
> 
> To be clear, I'm now saying that Trudeau on the banister would have been
> wonderful as colour video -- full motion, with sound!
> 
> For me, a better photo of PET was taken by Doug Ball, in London, England, 
> in
> 1977. It shows Trudeau pirouetting behind H.R.M. Elizabeth II and her
> entourage, all oblivious to Trudeau's balletic maneuver.
> 
> That's the Trudeau I recognize. (Full disclosure: he was my M.P. and worked
> down the street from me after he retired from politics and got back into
> law. I'd run into him on the corner at lunch hour.)
> 
> Wikipedia refers to Doug Ball's photo as "arguably the most famous photo of
> Trudeau."
> 
> Ball also captured Robert Stanfield's infamous football fumble, which "is
> said to have cost him (and the Conservative Party) the election."
> 
> I worry when folks talk about souls, photographed or otherwise. It's a
> quaintly hopeful idea for the artsy photographer or for the pious. From 
> what
> I can see, Life is in Living Colour. Death seems to be about fading into 
> the
> momentary White and then into the permanent Black. That's why we don't want
> to go There.
> 
> Most of the great B&W photos (I worry about this icon stuff too, seems
> somehow connected to souls...) were taken at a time when there was no 
> colour
> film. B&W photography ain't coming back, despite the Leica MM.
> 
> Emanuel
> 
> 
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