HCB and his camera

[Evergreen States]

I know this guy is good, but how do you smoke a pipe and shoot at the same time?

Kids these days call it the Sigma Grindset
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sigma-grindset-hustle-culture-memes

 

[Coldkennels]

It is a Zorki 4, a very good camera. Picasso had a Zorki too.

Erik.

Nah, it's definitely not a Zorki 4. The Zorki 4 is knob-wind, not lever-wind, and the lever-wind Zorki 4K doesn't have the weird dome over the film advance lever.

It's either a Zorki 5 or 6 - they both have the same distinctive arrangement over the film advance and the giant disc for the rewind "knob". My guess, based on the brief flash of the side of the camera, would be the Zorki 6. It's tough to tell at that resolution but the back doesn't look solid like the Zorki 5.

HCB had taste. Those were the best cameras Zorki ever made, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Erik van Straten]

I'm sorry, I'm no expert on Zorki's. It's been years since I've wondered what kind of camera this was. The answer then was "Zorki". Perhaps Picasso's Zorki is a Zorki 4.

Erik.

 

[oldwino]

One of the interesting things about HC-B (to me, anyway), is that he was able to use classic composition even while on the street. So many of his frames are just perfectly composed. No twisty horizons or "radical" angles. I think that's an innate skill.

 

[Erik van Straten]

One of the interesting things about HC-B (to me, anyway), is that he was able to use classic composition even while on the street. So many of his frames are just perfectly composed. No twisty horizons or "radical" angles. I think that's an innate skill.

Maybe he was helped because in the 1930's he used a "Vidom", a viewfinder that showed the image mirror wrong. Many painters view their paintings through a mirror to better assess the composition and to detect "drawing errors".

Erik.

 

[raid]

I may have a Vidom, but will I take better photos then? 🙂

 

[Erik van Straten]

I may have a Vidom, but will I take better photos then? 🙂

Don't forget that Cartier-Bresson was a painter, in the late twenties pupil of André Lhote .

Erik.

 

[raid]

Oh shoot! I am not a painter, Erik. Thanks for this information. I was unaware that HCB was a student of Andre` Lhote. Cool.

 

[raydm6]

Maybe he was helped because in the 1930's he used a "Vidom", a viewfinder that showed the image mirror wrong. Many painters view their paintings through a mirror to better assess the composition and to detect "drawing errors".

Erik.

I have read that too Erik. The reversed and inverted image helped with compositional and geometric abstraction.

Interesting article about that here:
https://fotophilosophy.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/external-finders-for-leica-ltm-cameras/

 

[Erik van Straten]

One of the oncles of Cartier-Bresson was a painter, but he died as a soldier in WW1. As a child Cartier-Bresson was often in his studio.

Erik.

 

[raid]

This is interesting to learn about. Thanks. I love history.

 

[Erik van Straten]

There is a biography of Cartier-Bresson by Pierre Assouline (translated from the French by David Wilson) "Henri Cartier-Bresson - A Biography" (Thames & Hudson) ISBN 978-0-500-29052-1. Paperback edition 2012.

Erik.

 

[p.giannakis]

Very nice video - thanks for sharing.

 

[xayraa33]

I'm sorry, I'm no expert on Zorki's. It's been years since I've wondered what kind of camera this was. The answer then was "Zorki". Perhaps Picasso's Zorki is a Zorki 4.

Erik.

HCB did use a Zorki 6 and even a Jupiter 3 lens but like his use of the bottomloader Canon and the Canon "Sonnar" lens...not for very long.

The famous photo of Picasso with a USSR made camera usually shows him with a Fed 2 camera.


https://www.flickr.com/photos/garythegit/95313877

 

[jpressman]

Great video, thanks! Wonderful reminder to just get out there and shoot.

 

[Erik van Straten]

Cartier-Bresson used a Leica I in 1932 and I use it now.

(shot this afternoon)

gelatin silver print (elmar 50mm f3.5) leica l (1930)

Erik.

 

[boojum]

I may have a Vidom, but will I take better photos then? 🙂

Only with a Leica I ;p)

 

[raydm6]

Since I'm in the market for a VIDOM and am doing some research, I came across another reference to HCB's usage of the device in his recommendation to Inge Morath (alongside 'looking at photographs upside-down'):

From: "Inge Morath’s First Months at Magnum"

Now Cartier-Bresson taught her to see composition by looking at photographs upside-down, a standard teaching method for photographers and painters. He gave her a Vidom viewfinder, which allowed the photographer to view her subject not only upside-down but also reversed right-to-left.[SUP][ii][/SUP]

[SUP][ii][/SUP]Inge Morath, “I Trust My Eyes;” Russell Miller, Magnum: Fifty Years at the Front Line of History (New York: Grove Press, 1997), 103.

If I understand correctly, the VIDOM provides an upside-down image *only* when the camera is held on the vertical and if the rear knob is not turned. Horizontal usage only provides a reversed (and not upside-down) image. Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[raydm6]

Cartier-Bresson used a Leica I in 1932 and I use it now.

(shot this afternoon)

gelatin silver print (elmar 50mm f3.5) leica l (1930)

Erik.

Nice image Erik!

I have early Leica camera gas at the moment and am on the hunt for a nice specimen.

 

[Erik van Straten]

gelatin silver print (elmar 50mm f3.5 fixed) leica 1a