[Leica] Are we anal puddle jumpers or what?

[philippe.amard at sfr.fr (philippe.amard)]

Just for your information the original title in French is NOT the  
decisive moment,
  it is "A la sauvette"
which probably doesn't translate well
but conveys the idea that permission was not granted,
and that the action was probably swift so that surrounding people  
wouldn't notice it;
cf. end of video #2  of HCB hopping along on the streets of Paris and  
shooting by instinct,
sometimes nearly bumping into passers-by to get the shot.
REM: He'd get a new set of teeth everyday if he were to try this  
nowadays ...

VDO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqsOYsZlPX4
Photography for him is a "way/means for drawing" or "to keep a diary".
He says he would have much fun shooting without film in the camera  
were it not for the urgency to communicate and bring testimonies of  
the world as it is.

"We steal, we're picpockets" ...

Insists a lot on his background as a painter, and some of his masters

@4'50 "I have a passion for geometry" (look at his hand movements then)

MORE HERE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjjGiBUaf4s&feature=relmfu

some references to gear - asked he says there's no recipe, he sets the  
shudder speed at 1/125 and knows about the rest by instinct - the  
Leica is just there because of its format (last seconds) prefered over  
the square ... his pet lens is a 50mm, the other two are used only on  
assignments.

Some form of contradiction though : in the first document he states  
that the photog should be neutral, or at least be immersed into the  
other's culture (referring to China then) whereas in the second he  
states that the photog's - read his - point of view can conflict with  
that of the magazine's editors (in the lay-out for instance) ...

Hope this didn't bother anyone.
Bien cordialement de Metz, Lorraine
Philippe, back to flowers due to the shortage of poodles today.


Le 19 juin 12 ? 17:23, B. D. Colen a ?crit :

> 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. :-)
>
>
>
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