I wouldn't want to pigeon hole any type of photography as a style related to an equipment brand. It's ok that Puts feels this way, but it is only opinion. If you agree with that opinion, then ok. However, I like to try to make art and I've used Leicas. People relate to the world in many different ways due to the fact that there are many different personality types. I don't think a formal approach is mutual exclusive to sensitivity.
I would think Eggleston's intention was definitely art. He was certainly influenced by pop art and Warhol.
Out to Lunch
Ventor
William Eggleston's name came up a few times. This is a great read about the man and his work: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/...rapher-interview-augusten-burroughs.html?_r=0
kevin m
Veteran
The cell-phone camera is the Leica of our age, but both its size and near necessity on your person make it an improvement on the original.
What I'm getting out of the OP's quote is that following the impulse to shoot without over-thinking it is a great learning tool. If you "think" you see a picture, then you do. The trick is to not hesitate on that impulse, (whether through self-doubt or having left your 'real' camera in the car) and to take the effort to follow through.
newfilm
Well-known
That reminded me of a comic strip I saw some while back:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ae/b8/48/aeb848b87d9dc063b2abfe2f7d709bc4.jpg
Attachments
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
Vibrant developing of this thread with pulsating opinions!
You could have Leica, just because you have money.
And here is nothing wrong, you are gifted on making money and respected because you made it with your money and you are valuable Leica customer who supports not only Leica, but Leica customers with less fortune. Happy snaps!
It just the snapshot which comes from gifted with something more towards the art operator of Leica is going to be different. Tripods are great for focus test and nothing else with Leica. For real snapshots you need to use hands, Leica lens with smooth focus and tab, plus, something what gifted photographers who are using Leica have in their heads. And you have to walk a lot for your snapshots. Or wait for them. If you walk, you could walk like HCB (acting goofy), you could walk like Gilden (martian war machine) or you could do it like Winogrand (acting naturally).
Personally, I'm 100% giftless on making money. I'm nothing but FSU and we were told what making money is the sin and it was prosecuted by the State. So, I'm just trying to use Leica for snapshots of people in public. If I can't get to the people in public, I'm still taking snapshots. It is all I could afford to do with Leica.
Prior to Leica and after getting it I used and periodically trying all possible methods to get those snapshots. (D)SLRs, iPhone, (d)P&S, non-Leica RF, Lomography cameras. No. It is Leica to me. Do you fiddle with conrabass or hawaiian guitar or banjo? To me to get the snapshot I have to fiddle it. Snapshot opportunity often lasts only few seconds. Sometimes it is due to what is happening around you, sometimes it is in what is happening behind your forehead, while preferably it could happens by same time.
The snap of the fingers end of this entry - Leica is good for all of us. It is good to pay for it big money and feel good about it. And it is good for snaps Erwin Puts wrote about...
My Leica is on second service,
My Leica is out from me,
I'm missing my old trusty Leica.
Oh, Leica, please, comeback to me!
You could have Leica, just because you have money.
And here is nothing wrong, you are gifted on making money and respected because you made it with your money and you are valuable Leica customer who supports not only Leica, but Leica customers with less fortune. Happy snaps!
It just the snapshot which comes from gifted with something more towards the art operator of Leica is going to be different. Tripods are great for focus test and nothing else with Leica. For real snapshots you need to use hands, Leica lens with smooth focus and tab, plus, something what gifted photographers who are using Leica have in their heads. And you have to walk a lot for your snapshots. Or wait for them. If you walk, you could walk like HCB (acting goofy), you could walk like Gilden (martian war machine) or you could do it like Winogrand (acting naturally).
Personally, I'm 100% giftless on making money. I'm nothing but FSU and we were told what making money is the sin and it was prosecuted by the State. So, I'm just trying to use Leica for snapshots of people in public. If I can't get to the people in public, I'm still taking snapshots. It is all I could afford to do with Leica.
Prior to Leica and after getting it I used and periodically trying all possible methods to get those snapshots. (D)SLRs, iPhone, (d)P&S, non-Leica RF, Lomography cameras. No. It is Leica to me. Do you fiddle with conrabass or hawaiian guitar or banjo? To me to get the snapshot I have to fiddle it. Snapshot opportunity often lasts only few seconds. Sometimes it is due to what is happening around you, sometimes it is in what is happening behind your forehead, while preferably it could happens by same time.
The snap of the fingers end of this entry - Leica is good for all of us. It is good to pay for it big money and feel good about it. And it is good for snaps Erwin Puts wrote about...
My Leica is on second service,
My Leica is out from me,
I'm missing my old trusty Leica.
Oh, Leica, please, comeback to me!
rbiemer
Unabashed Amateur
The part of Mr. Puts' article that struck me was this:
More interesting to me, however is the differences expressed by each of us in this thread. And that has me re-considering one of my own long held ideas.
I have had conversations with some of my friends over the years about this and may have briefly talked about it here, but after reading this thread...
Anyway, I used to think that a poem or piece of prose--pretty much any written piece--was eminently easier to reproduce so that every reader at least started from the same place, as it were. That any visual medium was never going to be exactly the same for any viewer, that even for something mechanically reproduced each copy would be subtly (or not) different from any other copy. And that because a written piece is not the actual typography or alphabet but those things are the representation of the idea of the words they contain, the differences between, say, a handwritten version of a poem and that same poem printed in a book were irrelevant. While those differences of reproduction of, say, a photograph can become very important in how the viewer sees the photograph.
I started thinking about this a long time ago; I had seen some of Gertrude Kasebier's photos in print in a pretty good collection of her work--mostly around the beginning of the last century--and then made a trip to see some of her original prints. The difference in seeing those originals and what the book showed was, well, eye opening for me. I had seen this before with paintings but niavely thought something like well newsprint reproductions are obviously not going to be as good as an original print but a well printed book ought to be pretty close to the original...
After that I'd been thinking that a reproduction of an image must be considered to be a symbol or maybe a metaphor for the "actual" image so my understanding of that image clearly depended on how well the symbol identified the image.
And, for something written, because the letters are the symbol for the idea, as long as those symbols are legible and I understand the language, I am seeing what the author intended to show.
So, this afternoon as I was reading this thread, there was a bit of a eureka moment for me.
Which, as best as I can write it, is that they are not that much more a precise symbol of what the author intends than a visual work, that the mechanical reproduction does not affect my perception, nor differentiate it from any other viewer/reader nearly as much as what we each bring to the viewing/reading.
Thanks!
Annd, the above is a pretty good example of why I mostly don't blab about this stuff and just try to take photos of what I find interesting or beautiful around me.
Rob
Which I'm reading as a bit of push back against the "Leicas are Serious Cameras for Art" kind of thinking.
More interesting to me, however is the differences expressed by each of us in this thread. And that has me re-considering one of my own long held ideas.
I have had conversations with some of my friends over the years about this and may have briefly talked about it here, but after reading this thread...
Anyway, I used to think that a poem or piece of prose--pretty much any written piece--was eminently easier to reproduce so that every reader at least started from the same place, as it were. That any visual medium was never going to be exactly the same for any viewer, that even for something mechanically reproduced each copy would be subtly (or not) different from any other copy. And that because a written piece is not the actual typography or alphabet but those things are the representation of the idea of the words they contain, the differences between, say, a handwritten version of a poem and that same poem printed in a book were irrelevant. While those differences of reproduction of, say, a photograph can become very important in how the viewer sees the photograph.
I started thinking about this a long time ago; I had seen some of Gertrude Kasebier's photos in print in a pretty good collection of her work--mostly around the beginning of the last century--and then made a trip to see some of her original prints. The difference in seeing those originals and what the book showed was, well, eye opening for me. I had seen this before with paintings but niavely thought something like well newsprint reproductions are obviously not going to be as good as an original print but a well printed book ought to be pretty close to the original...
After that I'd been thinking that a reproduction of an image must be considered to be a symbol or maybe a metaphor for the "actual" image so my understanding of that image clearly depended on how well the symbol identified the image.
And, for something written, because the letters are the symbol for the idea, as long as those symbols are legible and I understand the language, I am seeing what the author intended to show.
So, this afternoon as I was reading this thread, there was a bit of a eureka moment for me.
Which, as best as I can write it, is that they are not that much more a precise symbol of what the author intends than a visual work, that the mechanical reproduction does not affect my perception, nor differentiate it from any other viewer/reader nearly as much as what we each bring to the viewing/reading.
Thanks!
Annd, the above is a pretty good example of why I mostly don't blab about this stuff and just try to take photos of what I find interesting or beautiful around me.
Rob
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
It is basically a non-provable assertion. Erwin may think so, but the many professional users i know will certainly disagree - and with good reason.
Chris101
summicronia
Puts is a good writer. Everyone can interpret his article in their own, unique way, and find support for that view. He should try his hand at novelling - I'd read it.
Erik van Straten
Veteran
One of you ever saw a picture by Erwin Puts?
Erik.
Erik.
cz23
-
I once posted the same question on LUF and received no responses. I was curious to see what he shoots.
John
lamefrog
Well-known
Pioneer
Veteran
umm... maybe there is more than one erwin puts?
Erik van Straten
Veteran
No, there is only one. I've met him several times, but I hope that this never happens again.
Erik.
Erik.
cz23
-
Yes, apparently that's him. Not at all the work I would have expected.
I offered his quote, not because it was from him, but because it struck me as meaningful.
Rereading it today, I must say it still resonates with me.
John
I offered his quote, not because it was from him, but because it struck me as meaningful.
Rereading it today, I must say it still resonates with me.
John
ptpdprinter
Veteran
I suspect that there are plenty of non-art snapshots being made by the Velben goods group of Leica photographers. I would go so far to say most Leica photographs fall in the non-art snapshot category.
cz23
-
Is that a dig at those of us who are not consciously trying to produce Art with our Leicas? That we're just shallow conspicuous consumers? Or am I misunderstanding?
John
ptpdprinter
Veteran
Most Leicas are sold as Velben goods to customers who take non-art snapshots.