[Leica] Are we anal puddle jumpers or what?

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

"A la sauvette" translates directly to "On the fly".
A guy I read said idiomatically for us it meant doing snap shots. Working
fast.

Which to me suggested the direct opposite of "decisive moment".
Which sounds very precious.  and concisely planned.

- - from my iRabs.
Mark Rabiner
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/springdays/


> From: Philippe Amard <philippe.amard at sfr.fr>
> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 18:45:34 +0200
> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Are we anal puddle jumpers or what?
> 
> Just for your information the original title in French is NOT the
> decisive moment,
>   it is "A la sauvette"
> which probably doesn't translate well
> but conveys the idea that permission was not granted,
> and that the action was probably swift so that surrounding people
> wouldn't notice it;
> cf. end of video #2  of HCB hopping along on the streets of Paris and
> shooting by instinct,
> sometimes nearly bumping into passers-by to get the shot.
> REM: He'd get a new set of teeth everyday if he were to try this
> nowadays ...
> 
> VDO
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqsOYsZlPX4
> Photography for him is a "way/means for drawing" or "to keep a diary".
> He says he would have much fun shooting without film in the camera
> were it not for the urgency to communicate and bring testimonies of
> the world as it is.
> 
> "We steal, we're picpockets" ...
> 
> Insists a lot on his background as a painter, and some of his masters
> 
> @4'50 "I have a passion for geometry" (look at his hand movements then)
> 
> MORE HERE
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjjGiBUaf4s&feature=relmfu
> 
> some references to gear - asked he says there's no recipe, he sets the
> shudder speed at 1/125 and knows about the rest by instinct - the
> Leica is just there because of its format (last seconds) prefered over
> the square ... his pet lens is a 50mm, the other two are used only on
> assignments.
> 
> Some form of contradiction though : in the first document he states
> that the photog should be neutral, or at least be immersed into the
> other's culture (referring to China then) whereas in the second he
> states that the photog's - read his - point of view can conflict with
> that of the magazine's editors (in the lay-out for instance) ...
> 
> Hope this didn't bother anyone.
> Bien cordialement de Metz, Lorraine
> Philippe, back to flowers due to the shortage of poodles today.
> 
> 
> Le 19 juin 12 ? 17:23, B. D. Colen a ?crit :
> 
>> I've been reading this thread and have a couple thoughts:
>> 1. Equipment: Of course equipment is important, it was important to
>> HCB,
>> it's important to all of us today. It is not, however, the be all
>> and end
>> all many endless discussions of micro contrast, glass, and pixels
>> would lead
>> one to believe. Someone yesterday or today made the comment that
>> today's
>> photographers keep upgrading their equipment, and need to, if they are
>> serious about their craft. Well, yes, but what isn't mentioned is that
>> today's camera body is not simply the light-tight box bodies were 20
>> years
>> ago, but it is the box AND the film. That is, today a photographer is
>> required to upgrade equipment with some frequency because digital
>> sensors
>> are still evolving, just as film evolved over a period of many
>> decades. So
>> in order to be able to meet client and publishing standards, a
>> photographer
>> is required to upgrade. But the photographer who bought a pair of
>> M3s in the
>> 1950s, did NOT have to upgrade his bodies ? EVER ? if he didn't beat
>> them to
>> death. The photographer did, however, upgrade her film.  But the
>> Nikon or
>> Canon glass from 20 years ago is plenty good to shoot with it today.
>> So, for
>> that matter, are Leica's first generation aspheric lenses plenty
>> good today.
>> If someone wants the latest $7k Summicron, good for them. But there
>> is no
>> NEED to make that upgrade.
>> 2. Analism: Anal is as anal does. HCB was not the film era
>> equivalent of a
>> pixel peeper. He did not wear a loupe around his neck for counting
>> eyelashes. He was an artist who cared most about composition, and
>> the ways
>> in which visual elements came together and played off each other.
>> Counting
>> facial hairs is not photography, and really has little to do with
>> photography. Does a particular lens effectively suppress veiling
>> flare when
>> shooting with strong backlighting? That is important to a
>> photographer,
>> because it effects her ability to successful capture a given image.
>> But
>> being able to examine a pimple on the face of the man in the moon in
>> a night
>> shot of lower Manhattan? Not so much.
>> 3. HCB and how many times he pushed the shutter release: Yes, HCB shot
>> thousands of frames we have and will never seen. But don't kid
>> yourselves
>> that this somehow means that he, or similar 'giants' weren't as good
>> as
>> we've been lead to believe. The question is not, did he shoot
>> thousands of
>> frames he discarded? Rather, it is how good are his keepers, how to
>> they
>> compare to everyone else's keepers, and how many of them are there?
>> We all,
>> in our life times of shooting, may come up with one or two HCB-like
>> images.
>> What we will never come up with are the hundreds he produced.
>> 4. Was the Puddle Jumper posed, and does it matter: As I said
>> before, and I
>> gather various people's searches have indicated I am correct, that
>> image was
>> an unposed one-off. But some people have suggested over the last
>> couple of
>> days that it's the outcome that matters, 'art is art,' and we
>> shouldn't care
>> if it was posed. I vehemently disagree. Because if that, or other
>> supposedly
>> unposed images were posed, it tells us that HCB was a completely
>> different
>> kind of artist from what we thought he was. Philippe Halsman, a
>> wonderful
>> Magnum Photographer, made jumping his gimmick. He produced terrific
>> images
>> of everyone from Richard Nixon to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
>> jumping on
>> command. But Philippe Halsman was not HCB. He was not a chronicler
>> of the
>> "decisive moment." He is not noted for creating incredibly composed
>> images
>> of moments in real life and real time; HCB is. If it turns out that
>> HCB
>> posed images ? and I am NOT suggesting, nor do I believe, that he
>> posed
>> anything other than some portraits, then he simply was not the
>> photographer
>> we thought he was and his work needs to be reconsidered. (When Bruce
>> Davidson's Outside Inside came out, I went to hear him speak at Boston
>> University. During a rambling discourse he said that he ALWAYS asked
>> permission before photographing his subjects. IF that is true, I
>> think his
>> work needs to be reconsidered. He still is a brilliant photographer,
>> but IF
>> that's true, he is more a brilliant fashion-type photographer, than
>> the
>> documentarian he has been thought to be. (I must note here that I
>> have heard
>> from a number of sources I trust, and concluded myself from listen
>> to him,
>> that age has really caught up with Davidson's mental faculties, and
>> I would
>> NOT take his saying he always  asked permission as reliable
>> testimony.)
>> 5. The Decisive Moment: For all the talk about the Decisive Moment,
>> and the
>> idea many have that HCB saw these special moments flash before his
>> eye and
>> grabbed them,  I would contend that the true decisive moment is that
>> instant
>> in which he ? or anyone ? saw or sees the photographic possibilities
>> in a
>> scene, a situation, and THEN begins to work that scene, until all the
>> compositional elements come together. With the anal puddle jumper, the
>> decisive moment would have been that instant when HCB saw the hole
>> in the
>> fence, realized what was going on, and started shooting. All of
>> which to say
>> that the fulfillment of genius requires hard work.
>> Back to anal puddle jumping. :-)
>> 
>> 
>> 
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