Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/03/01

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] Re: Pondering an R8
From: "Emanuel Lowi" <mano@proxyma.net>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 23:37:25 -0500

The issue for me is not how the R8 appears to my eyes. It's how it looks to the
people I'm photographing. If one is photographing pro athletes at big time sports
events or executives at scheduled sessions, hell, bring in the motorized super SLR or
even an 8 x 10 view camera, two assistants, a bank of remote triggered lights and a
couple of scantily clad dancing girls -- up go your fees, & the clients will love you
for it.

A few years ago Modern Photography arranged a photo shoot with some models, testing a
traditional motorized Nikon against a quieter new model with integral motor. The
models preferred the noisier older camera: it made them feel important to have all
that banging and slapping going on (no puns intended), all that jagged gear pointed
their way.

If you are photographing people who are inherently modest or even shy, who are
reluctant to be photographed and guard themselves from the rest of the big bad world,
you want to operate discretely. It has been proven to me time and again that pointing
an M camera and shooting off a few frames will get me little attention and frequently
a real keeper of a photo. Point a current SLR with all of its sinister contours even
for a half minute and any country man in a pristine location will understand that
there's a nefarious purpose afoot. Bye bye pictures.

Emanuel Lowi
Montreal

 

- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html