Re: [Leica] Winogrand/blind shooting

["abc" <adisoon@pl.jaring.my>]

Initially, my original post asked about the approach to seeing with a 50mm
lens. I got one good reply, but someone else chose to pick upon my method
of shooting blind, extolling it's sinfulness, and being against the way of
the great Gary Winograd. For me, there is absolutely nothing wrong with
shooting blind, Bruce's post explains the process pretty well and I applaud
it for explaining something that I myself could not. To this point of view
of previsualisation of the image, the another practical instance where
blind shooting is when you are extremely close, and raising the camera to
the eye is offensive to the people around you, or would make it at risk of
revealing your intention to photograph them.Furthermore, I usually am close
enough to my subjects to frame over the camera, by looking and deciding the
moment I want to capture. At chest level, the perspective is roughly
approximate to that which I am seeing, and so differs slightly. That is
precisely the reason I asked about the use of the 50mm in place of the 35
that I had always been used to. Ted's comments however, which I assumed are
aimed at me and others like me, are not only offensive, but show a need for
affirmation that he seems only to get from his presence on the LUG.  
 
This I say because as far as what Ted has written is concerned, the only
reason why he dispises blind shooting is because those who do it "have no
balls". All I know is, it takes one to know one, he must have gone through
a period of obtaining those manly balls. And realising the difficulty in
obtaining them, chides those who fail to make the grade. 
 Please Ted, if you had known you were stirring up trouble with your words,
( not your views), then you should have taken extra trouble to make them
come out right. 

- --adi


> 
> But I would maintain that even when we use our eye what we really use is
> our "mind's" eye.  When we become good with our Leica Ms, we use the
> viewfinder for less and less.  We pre0-focus by feel, set the exposure by
> feel, and, yes, frame in our mind.  We hold the camera to our eye for a
> second to confirm what we've already done mentally and fire away. 
Indeed,
> isn't this one of the attractions of the M system -- the fact that it
> becomes so much like anothyer arm that it isn't necessary toregard it as
> an alien object that requires attention?  The question is whether it
isn't
> possible or desirable, at least sometimes, to take the next step and
shoot
> without checking the viewfinder.
> 
> I rode the crowded, confined Tokyo subways virtually every day for two
> years and I found the same thing that Walker Evans found decades before
on
> the NYC subway -- that the only way to get anything good and not rape --
> or *sometimes* "contaminate" -- the subject is to use a hidden camera or
> to shoot blind with a visible one.  Therefore, I had to try to develop a
> sixth sense of being able to previsualize this type of shot.  I am still
> not good at it; nonetheless, like a golfer who makes a hole-in-one, I
have
> my moments and I take credit for them.  But if at all possible, I'll risk
> embarassment, if not life or limb, to check things out in the finder. 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Bruce Feldman 
> > >