Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/09/04

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Subject: Re. [Leica] About all the "give us the technical detail" requests...
From: Carl Pultz <cpultz@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 23:22:11 -0400

BD quoted,

" I had just had a haircut. Was wearing black socks and a comfortable shirt.
Anyone also equipped should have no trouble duplicating this series."

Ha! That's great. I just read this quote from Cartier-Bresson:

"The actual handling of the camera, it's stops, it's exposure speeds and 
all the rest of it, are things which should be as automatic as the changing 
of gears in an automobile. It is no part of my business to go into the 
details or refinements of any of those operations .... for they are set 
forth with *military precision* in the manuals which the manufacturers 
provide along with the camera and the nice orange calf-skin case. If the 
camera is a beautiful gadget, we should progress beyond that stage at least 
in conversation. The same applies to the hows and whys of making pretty 
prints in the darkroom."

Now, obviously, I'm not that immune to the magic of these gadgets as 
objects, or I wouldn't hang around here much. But, I don't like it to be a 
fetish. When I was in school, if you asked what camera a student used to 
make a picture, the whole class would look at you like you were an idiot - 
discussing equipment make was very uncool. When I worked with pros, the 
only question was would the thing work when it had to, and was it the right 
tool for the job.

Still, the first thing I thought about when I saw  SonC's pictures, after 
admiring how fun they were, was, What film did he use? That's all I really 
need to know - the rest we can guess close enough to admire his technique.

Anyway, thought you all would enjoy that quote.

Carl

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Replies: Reply from "Dan Post" <dpost@triad.rr.com> (Re: Re. [Leica] About all the "give us the technical detail" requests...)