Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/10/10

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Subject: Re: SV: [Leica] Leica-Users List Digest V3 #358
From: George Huczek <ghuczek@sk.sympatico.ca>
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 09:45:55 -0600

>David Allen Harvey shoots Kodachrome 200 in florescent light pushed to 500.
>The magenta cast pretty much corrects for the green. He got into Magnum. So
>he knows what he's doing. 
>
>There are as many photographers as there are solutions to any photographic
>challenge. Ted does it his way, and being such an award winning
>photographer, respected throughout the world, that says a lot about the way
>he does things. He's not speaking ex-cathedra. He's just a passionate guy. 

Pretty much corrects for the green.  Pretty much hardly.
Shooting Kodachrome 200 in fluorescent light and pushing to expect a
magenta cast to offset the effects of the fluorescent light may give
interesting effects, but there are so many different types of fluorescent
lights that such a technique can not be recommended for reliable indoor
colour photography under fluorescent lighting.  
   The fact that DAH got into Magnum, or that Ted is an award winning
photographer matters not either.  Why is it that there is such appeal to
hero worship in this discussion?  It is a fallacy to suggest that just
because some guru does something one way then everyone has to do the same
thing.  One of the nice things about photography is that it is so diverse.
Delightful results can be obtained using a wide variety of techniques.
   Several people have taken issue with Ted regarding his condemnation for
using flash with an M camera.  He claims that the Leica rangefinder cameras
have to be used only with available light, and if anyone can read the
available light properly, given the right amount of experience and proper
technique, then flash will not be necessary.  Anything else  will spoil the
results.  Leica Ms are made for natural light. Period.
   Ted is an accomplished photographer, no doubt.  His experience had
allowed him to find techniques that work for him.  As others have pointed
out so well, there are ways in which artificial lighting can be used which
will produce pleasing results.  Artificial lighting does not have to
produce artificial-looking photos.  Color balance is certainly an issue.
So is balancing light ratios.  I suppose that using a reflector to direct
more light into the shadows might also be regarded as a taboo if one were
to be so dogmatic about their lighting technique.  
   Different strokes here folks.  It is OK to do things differently.
Photography would be too boring if there were only one "correct" way that
it could be done.  This doesn't have to turn into a slugfest.


 _
[o] -GH