[Leica] London challenge shoot

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Luis Miguel Casta?eda said:
Subject: Re: [Leica] London challenge shoot

> I had the luck to see Robert Capa's contacts of the Spanish Civil War, 
> almost everything he took over here. The great photographer he was mixed 
> with useless shots, entire rolls saying little or nothing... so who cares 
> if with 36 exposures the result its under average? what you can 
> expect?<<<<<

Hi Luis,
Yes of course regarding Capa or any other photojournalist in the world when 
we look at all their contacts on a project.  People would be amazed how many 
"bad exposures" they make. It goes with the territory of "writing with your 
camera when telling a story!"  Or I could say... "Illustrating a story using 
photographs that pertains to the same subject."

There isn't one single photographer in this world who shoots 36 perfect 
pictures on a 36 exposure roll. However, there are many who live in 
fantasyland and say they do..... that is until you have a look at the 
contact sheets. Quite often this is where the myth of their greatness is 
exposed to a level that the assumed "Great one" is no more, no less than 
many right here on this list.

However, this series defies the logic of the 2 hour concept simply because, 
unless these people have more than weekend photo warrior experience shooting 
on the street, to go out and try shooting serious photographs within a 2 
hour period is beyond me. Particularly when the photos were going to be 
shown around the world.

In this case it's unfortunate they didn't have two shots at it.

Assignment number 1: Shoot as they did, bring film in for critique to asses 
the quality, make suggestions to each about how to correct or better use the 
camera.

Assignment number 2: They go out again with a better idea of what to look 
for and how to attain interesting photos when they did find the right 
subject. Then in this case they'd learn something worth while and maybe 
their photography would improve. Quite frankly I've seen far better results 
than this at a local amateur camera club. And I mean a real amateur group 
with next to nothing of experience!

Right now there are more posts just ragging these folks and I bet they had 
no idea what kind of "warfare they were about to step into with their 
results!" :-)

ted