Re: [Leica] A day with Koudelka

[Ihtisham Kabir <Ihtisham.Kabir@Eng.Sun.COM>]

Gerry, Thanks for that piece on Koudelka. You are very
lucky to have spent some time with him. 

I am curious about his work habits, how he gets inspired,
and so on. Was there any discussion of this matter? He has been
extremely terse in his publications. For instance, he
does not even allow captions in the Gypsies book.

There was a wonderful quote by him that I read here in
LUG, I think. He had given a talk about the gypsies work
and part of it dealt with the way he had lived - basically
on nothing for several years while he spent all his
time on photography. Someone asked him how hard it was to
make the sacrifice to live on so little for so long. He said,
[I paraphrase], "What sacrifice? I was spending all my time on
photography and that was a very big luxury, not a sacrifice".

Sounds like (given the two homes in Paris and Prague) that
he has mellowed somewhat from his Spartan ways.

- - Ihtisham Kabir