[Leica] Rules + new HUMAN TRAFFIC images (kind of) WAS Dogme95 etc

[Johnny Deadman <john@pinkheadedbug.com>]

on 4/1/01 9:08 pm, Leica Users digest at
owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us wrote:

> Well, not exactly.  Slow speed color film for candid street work?  Not all
> that common.  Input analogue, output digital?  Nothing beautiful?  I
> wouldn't say that these are precisely standard Leica practices.  Certainly
> not for years:  digital output wasn't all that tempting years ago.
> 
> Anyway, the rules that *do* apply to years of Leica practice are not out of
> place.  (If you check out the Dogme95 manifesto, you'll find rules that have
> applied for years to documentary and independent film work:  handheld
> camera, authentic locations and props, no genre work, etc.)  What is unusual
> - -- I'm not suggesting unique -- is photography that adheres to *all ten* of
> these dicta.
> 
> If you find, however, that you've already been doing this for years,
> congratulations:  you're a member of this elite group, whether you want to
> be or not!

I quite liked these rules. The difference from Dogme95 is that D95 rules
were formulated specifically to make filmmakers concentrate on what the
scribblers considered 'important'... to level the playing field, mitigating
against visual operatics etc. In terms of a CameraDogma I'd say it would be
truer to the Lars van Trier spirit to insist that all developing be done at
the corner store, everyone shoot with the cheapest manual camera they owned,
using widely available (say 200 or 400) color negative film, within one mile
of their home etc etc. The idea is to send a message that 'you can do this'.

Here are some images that almost conform to this: shot with a R**eiflex on
color neg in London just before Xmas. They only diverge in that they use
open flash. The camera cost less than a new baseplate for my M4-P.

    http://www.pinkheadedbug.com/htrevisited/index.html




- -- 
Johnny Deadman

http://www.pinkheadedbug.com