Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/03/19

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Subject: Re: [Leica] David Bailey (slight return)
From: S Dimitrov <sld@earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 22:56:29 -0800
References: <v04011706b8bdcaed06ff@[66.81.28.6]>

I find never like Sieff's 35mm work. It's too grainy for my taste. Also,
his use of negative space always made me feel like he was winging it,
out of control. I never like the _european_style of printing that
dominates Sieff's work.
I find Bailey's 120 work much tighter. I get a sense of action, even in
his portraits, almost of an imminent sense of activity. But, being
predominately a 120 shooter, I realize that I have a bias in that direction.
 Slobodan Dimitrov


Guy Bennett wrote:
> 
> Well, I got on over the Hennessey & Engalls and picked up the next to the
> last copy of D. Bailey's "Birth of the Cool," which I spent the late
> afternoon and early evening going through. I very much like the hard,
> graphic style of his early '60s stuff, but feel that he gets less rather
> than more interesting as the decade goes on. Just for fun, I then flipped
> through my copy of Jeanloup Sieff's "40 Years of Photography." Like Bailey,
> he's most well known for his fashion photography and portraiture (though
> he's also a master of the nude, IMO), and actually worked for a number of
> the same mags as D.B. Well, I came away with the impression that Sieff's a
> much better photographer; compositionally he's a lot stronger and more
> inventive than Bailey in both the fashion work and in the portraits, and he
> takes a chance on images that don't fall into either of those categories -
> landscapes, "art" photography (sorry 'bout that), interiors - and
> frequently pulls them off. For those who go for this sort of thing, he's
> also a very articulate writer about photography, and the book includes a
> number of memorable passages. Anyone interested in this kind of stuff would
> do well to pick up a copy of this wonderful book, which, with its hundreds
> of beautiful reproductions, is one hell of a bargain at $39.
> 
> Such are my ruminations for this evening.
> 
> Guy
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Replies: Reply from Christer Almqvist <chris@almqvist.net> (Re: [Leica] David Bailey and Jeanloup Sieff)
In reply to: Message from Guy Bennett <gbennett@lainet.com> ([Leica] David Bailey (slight return))