this is why I love looking at Saul Leiter images

[peterm1]

This video is by a talented Japanese photographer and its theme is how to shoot like Leiter. She does a pretty good job of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5CqtHFv0ko

 

[nightfly]

Yeah, I'm actually shooting a lot of Portra now for this reason.

 

[raid]

Thank you for the links, Peter. I can see your photography being impacted by the photography of Leiter.
I am glad to see color images.

 

[Tati]

I was trying to locate this video but had trouble because I had the lady's name wrong. Margit Erb giving a talk on Saul Leiter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsTh0dujQIE

She is the director of the Saul Leiter Foundation and she was apparently a huge help to him during the final years of his life.

(I haven't seen this video in some time but if I remember correctly this video is the one in which Ms Erb tells about Leiter's fascination with digital cameras although he didn't care much for the technologies involved. She had to read the owner's manuals of any camera he bought so she could explain to him how to use it. Leiter also shot pictures until the card was full and stored it away. Would love to see some of those photos.)

dogman, thanks for this link,...

 

[jcb4718]

Kodachrome's demise was a tragedy. However, if you are willing to look beyond slide film, there are stunningly beautiful color negative films from Kodak and Fuji today that didn't exist then, some of which have significantly higher resolution than Kodachrome (removing some of the rationale for using slide film in the first place; also, negative films are not just "print" films anymore) while also being much faster. Something like Ektar or the new Portra 400, or even some cheap consumer grade films, will still give more pleasing and balanced color images than any digital LUTs in my experience, and effortlessly so (which is why I moved away from digital - digital color is hugely labor-intensive in my experience). Many photographers I follow are using these films beautifully nowadays.

At least some of the difference between now and then is, unfortunately for us, the disappearance from the public and commercial sphere of some really interesting and beautiful colors and styles that were popular in the past (paints, advertising, fashion). It seems to me that since the 80s humanity's use of color in the public sphere has gradually been dumbed down by committee. We cannot create pictures like than anymore because the color doesn't exist anymore "in the wild." That we cannot fix.

I couldn't agree more, olifaunt. Print film produces wonderful colours 'out of the can' (and even when subsequently digitised) but I struggle to replicate them with images taken with a digital camera.

 

[Ricoh]

Thanks to Peter for initiating this thread and to all who have contributed with YouTube links etc making it an invaluable resource.

I mentioned this thread to a photographic acquaintance the other day, and to my shock and horror he said thank you, but I'm not a Saul Leiter fan. Totally shocked! Still in recovery.

 

[raydm6]

Interesting tidbits: use of the 150mm focal length in street for image compression and shooting w/outdated Kodachrome for color palette shifts.

 

[Godfrey]

Thanks to Peter for initiating this thread and to all who have contributed with YouTube links etc making it an invaluable resource.

I mentioned this thread to a photographic acquaintance the other day, and to my shock and horror he said thank you, but I'm not a Saul Leiter fan. Totally shocked! Still in recovery.

Heh!

There is enough diversity in the world of photography that we don't all have to like the same kinds of work. Thankfully!

🙂

G

 

[Ricoh]

Heh!

There is enough diversity in the world of photography that we don't all have to like the same kinds of work. Thankfully!

🙂

G

Yeah, I forgot about the three sigma outriders. 😊

 

[robert blu]

Thanks for tyhis thread. I was lucky enough a few years ago to stumble into an exhibition of hie photographs and it was really great and inspiring. Where colours and poetry live together.

 

[dof]

I too am enamored of Leiter's work. Here's a print interview I came across a couple of weeks ago:


https://photographyinterviews.blogspot.com/2009/04/saul-leiter-quiet-iconoclast-saul.html

 

[olifaunt]

Oh wow, never mind his street work, even his fashion photography was amazing. How did we have that stunning avant garde in the 50s and 60s and how did modern fashion photography become so elementary and boring?

 

[helen.HH]

Yes indeed !

I can't think of anyone better who makes me LOVE colour coupled with his Great Eye, You are hooked, mesmerized.

Yum, Thanks for the link !

 

[Guth]

I don't think I need to say much other than to post this link. He really was special and quite similar in some ways to Fred Herzog but with a bit of added surrealism due to his love of reflections. Both of he and Herzog obviously loved Kodachrome.

I don’t own many books featuring the works of photographers. But sometimes I will give in and purchase a book that I just can’t seem to stop looking at. Amongst those I have purchased more recently are two books with an emphasis on color photography. Wouldn’t you know that one features the work of Fred Herzog and the other features the work of Saul Leiter of course. Both of them were pointed out to me by the owner of Ampersand Gallery & Bookstore here in Portland. I’m thankful that places like Ampersand still exist.

 

[olifaunt]

The documentary is mostly very rambling and slow interviews, and doesn't showcase his photography. I wish it were done more in the vein of the great recent Winogrand documentary; showing photographs with most of the talking relegated to the soundtrack would have been more interesting.