HCB and his lenses

Here's an enjoyable first-person account of traveling and working with him in India. It says he used a 35mm lens with no focusing ring. What would that be?

http://www.ishupatel.com/bresson.html

I'm always surprised by his use of the 50. He includes so much setting sometimes that he must have been at quite a distance. Very different from the street photography model so widely espoused today. But when your vision leans more to the form side of the form/content scale, perhaps a little distance works better.

John
 
johnwolf said:
Here's an enjoyable first-person account of traveling and working with him in India. It says he used a 35mm lens with no focusing ring. What would that be?

http://www.ishupatel.com/bresson.html

I'm always surprised by his use of the 50. He includes so much setting sometimes that he must have been at quite a distance. Very different from the street photography model so widely espoused today.

John
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see post #22...


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HCB has been photographed taking pictures of people using a longer lens on his ltm camera. The lens extends quite a distance in front of his focusing hand.
Without a focusing ring? Maybe, or not. Errors happen in peoples observation and without confirming views it introduces some doubt.
 
PKR said:
You might find this interesting:
http://www.ishupatel.com/bresson.html
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That was absolutely fascinating! He seems to be using a Barnack in the late '60s! Also an Elmar 50/35. No focusing ring would mean he was focusing with a tab. The author was a Contarex shooter, and that would have seemed very strange to him. Was he loading his own cassettes? Thanks so much for posting this!
 
mfogiel said:
This story says a few interesting things:
- first, he took MANY photographs - 20 rolls a day make 720 frames, therefore there was little luck involved, it was mainly hard work
- second, shooting at f8.0 and 1/60 or 1/125, he had to have the time to set up the photo perfectly in his mind, and have the camera focused at the right distance, before freezing for a moment to frame and shoot, in other words, he was shooting on auto everything, the only critical element was the perfect framing, this can only come after extensive practice
- third, I believe he used f8.0 so often also because he was interested to "show the truth" about human condition, he wanted to describe men in their environment, therefore isolating the subject did not seem something of particular interest, the photos with shallow depth of field from him, that I have seen, are mainly taken on the streets of Paris, which perhaps was so common to him, that he felt a minor urge to document it

A myth of a rich dandy playing with a Leica and taking good pictures through pure luck is completely misplaced. It is evident, that he was passionate, hard working, and had evolved a personal technical set up appropriate for the results he was after.
In other words, he was a SERIOUS PROFESSIONAL. Not everybody has to love his style, but none the less HCB produced an amount of strong and memorable images, that would suffice as "iconic visit cards" of several scores of photographers.
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VERY well said.
 
Nice pictures of him.

Quite a bit more kit on his left shoulder descending the stairs.

Something bigger than a 50 finder on top of a Leica M - MR Meter.....?

Black tape on his black M6 covering the red dot.
 
Richard G said:
Nice pictures of him.

Quite a bit more kit on his left shoulder descending the stairs.

Something bigger than a 50 finder on top of a Leica M - MR Meter.....?

Black tape on his black M6 covering the red dot.
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A few myths busted by looking at these images: It seems he used a lot of different cameras and lenses. And he used a neck strap! :eek:


... and a lens hood!
 
PKR said:
Much of what’s on the web about HCB is Leica cult myth – nothing Cartier-Bresson is responsible for. The Leica nuts will look at the photos posted and still insist that HCB never used anything but a 50mm lens - that he never used 35, 28, 90 lenses or a light meter. That he never worked in color – even though his color work was published. It’s stuff they want to believe; it’s a myth-based cult.

The guy was a great photographer who happened to use a camera that has a cult following - and he became their idol.
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Exactly. He was a good photographer. He wasn't the Only Son of the Great Yellow Father.

Cheers,

R.
 
Perhaps a solution to the bickering would be to ask 'where do I see clear examples of Bresson using different focal lengths'? And the answer would be shocking for the '50mm street photography' myth meisters because it includes the word 'landscape'. So try 'Henri Cartier Bresson - Landscape, Townscape' published by Thames and Hudson.
 
Richard G said:
Agree. The old 10,000 photographs thing.....
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Which is of course pure drivel. It sounds good; it's an eye-catching number, with absolutely no basis in research; just anecdote. Even worse than the '10,000 hours' story.

A far more accurate summary is 'if you practise, you usually get better.'

Cheers,

R.
 
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