Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/07/07

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Subject: [Leica] Mr. B. D. Colen speaks
From: mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)
Date: Sun, 07 Jul 2013 18:14:52 -0400

I think you'll like the experience Herbert! Its really great to see ones
work. And for others too as well.


On 7/7/13 5:46 PM, "Herbert Kanner" <kanner at acm.org> wrote:

> 
> 
> Mark,
> 
> 1. I'd have to work up the ambition to paw through boxes (many) of stored
> prints. 2. I'd have to see if the scanner in my cheap HP all-in-one 
> printer is
> good enough. 
> 
> Will think about it.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Herb
> 
> Herbert Kanner
> kanner at acm.org
> 650-326-8204
> 
> Question authority and the authorities will question you.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jul 7, 2013, at 7:54 AM, Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com> wrote:
> 
>> Herbert naturally it would be good to actually see some of your black and
>> white prints vs. Kodachrome vs. digital  so we can agree with your or not
>> agree with you on their relative merits and how you dealt with them. As in
>> if you can print. Words about pictures kind of only go so far. Give us a
>> url.
>> 
>> 
>> On 7/7/13 4:43 AM, "Herbert Kanner" <kanner at acm.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> Since Jayanand got auto-biographical, I thought I'd do the same.
>>> 
>>> I started developing film and making contact prints at high-school age if
>>> not
>>> before. I think my first exposure to Kodachrome was around 1948 when my
>>> wife,
>>> a friend, and I made a trip from Chicago to a series of national parks. 
>>> The
>>> friend had a borrowed Leica (F, I think) and 50, 90, and 135 mm lenses. I
>>> was
>>> hooked. He and I alternated possession of the slides every six months, 
>>> and
>>> projecting those incredible slides repeatedly brought back vivid 
>>> memories of
>>> the trip. 
>>> 
>>> Eventually, I bought an Omega enlarger and started getting serious about
>>> B&W.
>>> Never was particularly pleased with any of my prints, and the majority 
>>> of my
>>> shots were still Kodachrome. Around 1971, temporary unemployment which 
>>> in a
>>> recession promised to possibly last a year, caused me to accept a job,
>>> relocation expenses provided, with ICL in England. To my annoyance, I 
>>> found
>>> that Kodak UK was on strike, that a million rolls of Kodachrome was in 
>>> their
>>> premises waiting to be processed, and that the nearest place to get the
>>> stuff
>>> processed was in France. I decided then and there that this was a good
>>> opportunity to try to develop some skill at B&W.
>>> 
>>> I had not brought my enlarger to England, so I joined a camera club in 
>>> order
>>> to use their darkroom. It turned out that the hours of availability did 
>>> not
>>> suit me and I bought an inexpensive Opemus enlarger. But I stayed with 
>>> the
>>> club, which had monthly competitions, sometimes prints, sometimes 
>>> slides. In
>>> time, I even wound up with prints that I was proud of. An interesting 
>>> aside
>>> comment is that they expected 16 x 20 prints but I managed to get by 
>>> with 11
>>> x
>>> 14. 8 x 10 would have been totally unacceptable except for one time when 
>>> the
>>> had a competition expressly for "small" prints. What amused me was that 
>>> in
>>> this country, where people had little money, big prints were expected; 
>>> when
>>> I
>>> got back this relatively richer country, I saw competitions just full of 
>>> 8 x
>>> 10 prints an smaller.
>>> 
>>> One day, I decided it would be neat to prints some of my slides, so I 
>>> bought
>>> a
>>> color head for my Omega. I first tried the Ilford process because it was
>>> reputed to be the most archival. I ultimately came to grief with it when 
>>> I
>>> tried to print a picture of my Abyssinian cat, a mountain lion colored
>>> critter. He'd come out greenish or reddish; no way could I get his true
>>> color.
>>> I switched to a Kodak reversal paper and got a perfect print on the first
>>> try.
>>> 
>>> In time, I realized that if prints were my objective, color negs were
>>> obviously the way to go, and I switched my operation to developing color
>>> negs
>>> and printing them. For color balance, I just used very crude tools: the
>>> Kodak
>>> viewing filters, and usually got a good print on at worst my second try.
>>> Very
>>> rarely did it take three tries.
>>> 
>>> Alas, a few years after acquiring my pride and joy, an M6 TTL which I've 
>>> got
>>> to get around to selling one of these days, I just burned out on darkroom
>>> work, and several rolls of film are still sitting around unprocessed. I
>>> might
>>> in time have gone back to the darkroom, but my wife decided that we 
>>> needed a
>>> second bathroom, and there went the darkroom. I gave away the equipment.
>>> 
>>> Having spent too many hours of my life in front of a computer, both
>>> professionally and for entertainment, I was very reluctant to get into
>>> digital
>>> photography. Ultimately, I decided I had to find out if I could live with
>>> it,
>>> so I bought a cheap Nikon point-and-shoot and Lightroom 2 and played 
>>> around
>>> for a while. Having decided that I could live with it, I then thought 
>>> about
>>> a
>>> camera with a full-frame sensor. I was pondering Nikon or Canon but kept
>>> wistfully remembering how much I enjoyed using the M6 and finally decided
>>> that
>>> at my age you can't take it with you and sprung for an M9 which I just 
>>> love.
>>> I
>>> use the two lenses, 35 an 90 chrons that I bought when I got the 
>>> second-hand
>>> M6. They both were made in Canada, some time in the '70s. The 35 came 
>>> from a
>>> dealer, the 90 was bought from Henning Wolfe.
>>> 
>>> Herbert Kanner
>>> kanner at acm.org
>>> 650-326-8204
>>> 
>>> Question authority and the authorities will question you.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Jul 6, 2013, at 11:25 PM, Jay Burleson <leica at jayburleson.com> 
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> With Dr. Ted's famous quote used to sum it all up...
>>>> http://www.the.me/b-d-colen-on-the-distraction-of-color-the-subject-is-blac
>>>> k-
>>>> and-white/#ixzz2YKfnZYo6
>>>> -- 
>>>> Jay,
>>>> 
>>>> Jay Burleson Gallery <http://jayburleson.com/leica/gallery/index.php/>
>>>> "A photographer is simply someone who is
>>>> looking for something that can't be found.
>>>> The photograph is the record of that attempt."
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Leica Users Group.
>>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Leica Users Group.
>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Mark William Rabiner
>> Photography
>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information




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




In reply to: Message from kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner) ([Leica] Mr. B. D. Colen speaks)