Winogrand technique with the 28mm

Thanks Nando. I was asked this in a PM and I thought it was a very good question. What Winogrand book would I recommend? Without a doubt - The Animals. I like all his books but this one - I think it has been reprinted - shows what kind of photographer's eye Winogrand had.
O.C.
 
I print full frame 8x12 on 11x14 paper and sometimes 12x18 on 16x 20 paper. I would not print a shot taken ay f16 if I was concerned with resolution. If my goal was subject motion, then that is a different story. Its a fact that f16 is the worst aperture on a lens and should be avoided unless an extreme DOF problem requires this inferior aperture.
 
O.C., thank you very much for taking the time to write the story and for sharing it with us - much interesting and inspirational indeed 😀

Thanks again!
 
Schlapp said:
Very interesting thread. GW seems to have been quite a character. Please tell me, using the rangefinder with scale focus or hyperfocal distance, one might as well use a quality P&S.
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Well, yeah but you then need to make sure you've half pressed the button with the intended point of focus in the middle before recomposing and shooting. Not so quick.
 
Schlapp said:
Very interesting thread. GW seems to have been quite a character. Please tell me, using the rangefinder with scale focus or hyperfocal distance, one might as well use a quality P&S.
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I beg to differ. If you look at the video of Winnogrand working there is nothing "point and shoot" about him. He saw his subjects through the view of his 28mm so his greatest talent was his skill with composition with the camera.

He had two techniques. First, if he had "time" he brings the camera up to his eye, adjusts for composition, racks the focus of his 28mm and snaps the shutter. He seemed to use this technique most when in a large crowd where composition was tougher. His second technique was to look down at his camera, zone focus, then walk toward his subject (typically with this technique he was photographing primarily a single person or pair of people). As he got close - AND WINOGRAND WORKED VERY CLOSE - he would snap the camera up to his eye adjust for composition and snap the picture - without focusing.

Both these techniques are shown in the Bill Moyers interview.

As I said in the story, I believe many people photographed by Winnogrand had no idea they had just been photographed! And he shot with a 28mm and worked very close. He - and other good street photographers have learned from GW - worked within a person's "personal" space at distances so close that no one expects to have their photo taken.

O.C.
 
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There is plenty of footage out there on winogrand shooting and you can see he has two bodies, and you can also see that he does use a finder. There is a posting of the M4 that he used/abused.

I run the pool on flickr: Winogrand Canted Moments if you would like to find links to the videos. Some, if not most are on youtube.com.

Have you ever had a maintenance problem when you were shooting? I was on a trip recently and my Rolleiflex wouldn't fire. I didn't have a backup. Its called having a backup and if you are shooting for a living, having a backup would be a good thing.

Gary
 
ChrisN said:
I think you're right about scale-focusing, or relying on hyper-focal distance focusing....With a 28mm lens at f16 and scale-focused at 2m, the depth of field ranges from just under 1m to infinity! Even at f8 and scale-focused at 3m, DOF is from 1.5m to infinity. That sounds like a good recipe for street-photography. Maybe the DOF issue is one of the drivers for using a 28mm lens.
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This is exactly what I do! I started doing street with a 28 after reading that Winogrand did it, and it turns out to be great fun. I basically set the focus at 2m, stop down, and choose film depending on the weather. Usually Arista Pro 400. Then I shoot from the hip.
 
mabelsound said:
Then I shoot from the hip.
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Watch those videos of Winogrand. He *never* shoots without looking through the viewfinder. Shooting from the hip can be ok during emergencies, but you wouldn't go hunting by aiming with the rifle at your hip. So why hunt for your pictures that way?

Just food for thought. We should work hard to overcome shyness!
 
I rarely use the finder when shooting with the 15 and 21. It's too restricting. There are places you can hold the camera that you'd never be able to contort your body to place your eye there. I always print full frame too.
 
FifthLeaf said:
Watch those videos of Winogrand. He *never* shoots without looking through the viewfinder. Shooting from the hip can be ok during emergencies, but you wouldn't go hunting by aiming with the rifle at your hip. So why hunt for your pictures that way?

Just food for thought. We should work hard to overcome shyness!
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You're right, of course. But I didn't mean that I thought Winogrand shot from the hip--that's just my own inhibition.

Next time I'm in New York I'm going to do it his way. The problem doing it here, in the small town where I live, is that people are going to start remembering me as the guy who keeps taking their picture...
 
There are a few videos on Youtube showing him at work.

From what I've read he started out with various focal lengths and film formats and just like everyone starting out; experimented for a while. This was during the late 1950's.

At some point point he tried the 21mm, but found it too difficult to control. Too much distortion, which he felt distracted from the content. The effect overwhelmed the image.

At some point he standardized on the 28mm. Initially the Canon 28mm, but I can't remember if it was the 2.8 or 3.5 version. 2.8 seems to ring a bell.

There is a later video of him around 1980 in Venice (California) shooting with what looks like a 2.8/28 Elmarit and the big square hood.

I've only ever seen pictures of him with an M4 and 28mm brightline finder.

Like everyone else in the pre autofocus days, he scale focused. Even at f8 a 28mm will give you a huge amount of DOF. He shot Tri-X, sometimes pushed to around 1000asa and developed in D76, although I think some of his shots look like they were developed in Diafine (which was very common back then).
 
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