Who's the boss?

[boojum]

I think most of us here have learned our craft to a pretty good degree, but how well would we implement it if dodging bullets at the same time we were shooting? Give those combat photographers the credit they deserve!

Please do not count me as a combat photographer detractor. It's a lousy job which requires a huge amount of dedication, bravery and skill. I remember all to well the grunts returning from Vietnam. None of them found the experience ennobling. They were all damaged to varying degrees, all of them. To go into battle with only a camera or cameras so that we, back at home, can see the utter insanity, terror and fear of a fire fight requires far more bravery than I have ever had or will ever have. I think that soldiers and combat photographers are mostly young for a reason. After a while gunfire means to leave the area.

Those combat photographers could have stayed home and made a good living shooting way safer stuff. Instead they went to where you can smell the cordite to bear witness for us. And I am grateful for it. As the French say, "Chapeau."

And if you have forgotten just how awful Vietnam was, even when cleaned up, watch the PBS series on the Vietnam War. It is unsettling to realize that it is not a "movie" but scenes of brave men fighting and dying. And the innocent and not so innocent bystanders being killed. My only wish is that we could learn from this. It is so sad that we cannot.

 

[580/Q]

I once heard Jay Maisel say to a class, "And I don't want to see the 'fine hand of the photographer' in your selects." In the context of the assignment it meant something very specific (show me what you saw that blew your mind) but in the general sense it served as a reminder that craft is the tool, the servant; don't make the picture about craft. Use the craft to make a fine picture. Craft is easy to quantify. The other, less objective, values of a picture are harder to quantify. Confidence can easily falter in the landscape of the-not-easily-quantified. I've watched it happen when editors have pointed at a frame and said, "that's the one" and a strange look has come across the shooter's face. They hadn't "seen" it.

Cheers,

Shane

 

[580/Q]

I don't miss my big Olympus viewfinders. I still use them! Even the slightly smaller OM4Ti viewfinder really lights up with a 2-4 focusing screen.

Oh man! When I was a kid I used a pool kit - a pair of OM1 bodies and various three lenses - (I was coming from Pentax Spotmatics and Spotmatic Fs) and the finder was like a religious experience. Cinematic, to resort to hyperbole. Here's the bite, though: Everybody else had great experience with the kits. Solid reliable machines. But mine...mine kept breaking down.

Meters, shutters, rewind shafts sheared, mirror locking, etc.... The last straw was a customized (by the photo dept) 250 exposure back that we used with a motor drive for sporting events. It wouldn't stay attached no matter what and after the third adjustment accusations of operator error were floated. These vaporized when the back fell off while being demonstrated by the technician. I was allowed to use my own kit after that.

This soured me on what I thought was really a great camera. A stellar picture making machine. I still have an OM1 in my office. I still use an Olympus 50 on Fuji and Sony bodies with adapters occasionally. Only the Nikon D3 and its successors have given me that same feeling looking through the finder and it is still not as glorious as the Olympus. The Fuji XH1 is comparable. That body doesn't have external controls that it should - too much menu business for this operator. But the finder....

Half, no, the near entirety of the bloody battle is seeing. Having a camera that gets out of the way, optically, is such a luxury.

Best,

Shane