Today in Los Angeles Times: Henri Cartier-Bresson

[el_fang]

<a

href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/printedition/calendar/la-

ca-hohenadel13jul13153421,1,275847.story?coll=la-headlines-calendar"

target="_blank">Henri Isn't Clicking</a>

[terry_rory]

Perhaps you could enlighten us Al?

 

I cannot get to this article without registering. (Asking for more junk e-mail in other words)

 

Actually no, dont bother. I sort of assumed "Henri isnt clicking" meant he had died or something. (Something I am dreading because Leica forum will be full of no other subject for weeks or months afterwards!)

[matt_m__toronto_]

would someone mind pasting the article here if it's worth the read. yeah yeah yeah...plagerism, give a credit to the paper and writer.

 

thanks

[ray .]

I can tell you that it pretty much reveals that everyone hanging on the meaning of his every word should lighten up.

 

Here are 2 quotes from him in the article: (credit LA Times, article by Kristin Hohenadel)

 

"I've never given an interview!"... "We're chatting, that's all. It's gibberish, an interview. Gibberish!"

 

 

 

"Because I can say any old stupid thing. I'm a specialist at that."

[terry_rory]

Are there people out their hanging on his every word? How odd. I thought he was a photographer not a prophet!

[Karim Ghantous]

"Because I can say any old stupid thing. I'm a specialist at that."

 

He said something similar in a recent French doco. He said that he developed a skill at talking about absolutely nothing in particular to the people around him so that he could concentrate on the photography.

 

A little on a tangent here: somebody wrote an article a few years back in a niche publication and claimed that HCB actually staged a lot of his shots. Wouldn't surprise me but I don't know if that would be true. I mean, he might have gone as far as asking a schoolboy to kiss a statue or something; but nobody elsewhere seems to have mentioned anything like this.

[terry_rory]

I thought it was accepted fact nowadays that HCB (and a few other 'great' photographers) staged shots. No news there.

[david_kelly1]

Good Article, with plenty in it to irritate francophobic Brits (inutile de se deranger, Trevor!) No surprise to learn that the

main exhibition space in HCB'S new foundation will be devoted to other photographers, whom he's helped and mentored

all his working life -one thinks of the homeless Josef Koudelka camped out in his apartment while documenting the

gypsies. Typically, he had fun with the the L.A.Times reporter but made sure she went away with a good story - the

ancient curmudgeon has not forgotten what it's like to be a newpaperman. And he's still got that hyperaware mixture of

sarcasm and politesse: Can I sue you? More wine?.........................

[terry_rory]

Hehe. Strange being called franophobic by a yank in the current climate! Lets think now, what was all that about Freedom fries and Freedom kissing?

[Nowhereman]

>>>A little on a tangent here: somebody wrote an article a few years back in a niche

publication and claimed that HCB actually staged a lot of his shots. Wouldn't surprise

me but I don't know if that would be true.<<<

 

>>>I thought it was accepted fact nowadays that HCB (and a few other 'great'

photographers) staged shots. No news there.<<<

 

Yes, write anything that comes into your head; don't bother to check whether it's true;

don't bother to give the source. Welcome to the internet!

 

The facts are that there was a scandal when the famous Doisneau shot of the couple

kissing in front of the Paris Hotel de Ville turned out to be staged, and it did

irrreparable damage to Doisneau's reputation as a photographer; there have not been

any revelations about any of HCB's shots being staged, and I am not aware of any

serious allegations either.

[Nowhereman]

>> I sort of assumed "Henri isnt clicking" meant he had died or something.

(Something I am dreading because Leica forum will be full of no other subject for

weeks or months afterwards!)<<

 

I see: someone's death may be undesirable because it will incovenience your reading

of this forum. Charming.

[terry_rory]

And the shot of the marines raising their flag at Iwo Jima. Staged.

 

And Capas famous 'execution' shot. Staged.

[andrew_lee2]

>>>And Capas famous 'execution' shot. Staged <p>

What, Trevor! Care to clarify?

[terry_rory]

The shooting of the partisan soldier during the Spanish Civil war. Or "falling soldier" as it is titled on Magnums Robert Capa site.

 

http://www.magnumphotos.com/c/htm/CDocZ.aspx?o=&DT=ALB&E=2TYRYDI32L7S&Pass=&Total=207&Pic=8&SubE=2S5RYDO52FJR

[terry_rory]

I am not a subscriber to the dictum that the ONLY worthwhile (and genuine) photo-journalism is undertaken by (a) Magnum Photographers (b) Magnum photographers equipped with Leica cameras.

 

Even Capa himself was an exception to (b) as his camera of choice was often a Contax and many, many fine PJs were not affiliated to Magnum. (Don Mccullin is a notable exception to both (a) and (b) because he used Nikon SLRs and was not a Magnum member.)

 

Capa's staging of the falling soldier shot is not purely gleened from the internet. I have seen this discussed in responsible documentaries on BBC television amongst others. I have heard it discussed on radio programs and come across articles in magazines and newspapers regarding the subject of documentary photographers who have 'staged' shots.

 

It is not so shocking that this was practiced. Evidence has arisen that Brassai, Doisneau, Capa, HCB and many others have set up some pictures. It does not mean they set up or staged all their shots so their great photojournalistic skills are still rightly recognised but, as with all forms of journalism, it is important that we know how 'events' can sometimes be manufactured.

 

Some great photographers started out as artists (For example HCB, Brandt, Adams) in other mediums/disciplines than photography. I think this is interesting because of the approach to 'photographic truth' that someone with an artistic mindset is going to bring to journalism.

 

That has definitely hurled some cats into the pigeons so I am off for a day now. (Taking care to switch off the notification of responses on the way out.)

[david_kelly1]

Mitch, hiring models to kiss in various locations around Paris for an editorial shoot for Life did no damage at all to

Doisneau's reputation -it was and is accepted practice to stage editorial shots for light features which don't pretend to be

either news coverage or social documentary. So far as I know HCB never took that kind of assignment.

 

And the idea that Capa staged the falling spanish soldier shot was put to rest when the man's identity, place and time of

death were established years ago. Finally, Trevor not all Americans are moronic right-wingers, most of us are still

calling them french-fries, and lots of us still enjoy Paris whenever time and money permit, even though we have to cross

Perfideous Albion's airspace to get there............

[i want my photo.net histor]

BBC and responsible, you got to be joking right.

[tom_burke3]

As regards the Capa question, there was a long article about this in Aperture 166

(Spring 2002) by Richard Whelan, complete with reproductions of the images. There

isn't space here to rehash all the arguments, except to say that the writer reaches the

conclusion that the shot wasn't staged.

 

However, I'm not convinced. There are shots of two soldiers, apparently falling, shot,

at just about exactly the same location. One must have happened before the other,

the other must have occurred after the other. It isn't know for certain in which order

the pictures were taken (the negatives have been missing for decades). However

neither picture shows any evidence of the presence of a body, or that a body had

been there. To me the most obvious conclusion is that whichever soldier fell first

subsequently picked himself up and removed himself from the frame. Occam's Razor,

and all that.

 

To be fair, Whelan's article goes into many other issues - the identity of the soldier,

for example - that do point in the other direction. There again, I gather that Whelan is

the author of a biography of Capa, and has always held the view that Falling Soldier is

exactly what it purports to be - a picture of a Spanish Republican soldier at the

moment he was killed.

 

Perhaps the best advice is for forumites to read the article and reach their own

conclusion.

 

Nothing about HCB, however!

[Richard Williams]

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<a

href="http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-ca-hohenadel13jul13,0,5801979.story?coll=cl-home-more-channels">Henri

isn't clicking (direct link)</a><br>

<br>

<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/capa_r.html">"Falling

soldier" (Richard Whelan)</a><br>

<br>

<a href="http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0203/howe.htm">Digital

Journalist article on the Iwo Jima and Falling Soldier photos</a><br>

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[h._p.]

"BBC and responsible, you got to be joking right"

 

Unlike much of the 'news media' in the US, the BBC goes to great lengths to get their stories right. That's why they're currently at daggers drawn with the British government over the 'forty five minutes' issue. You can say a lot of nasty things about the BBC but irresponsible is generally quite wrong.

[bds1]

Trevor

Don McCullin WAS a member of Magnum for a while, he left after falling out with

Philip Jones Griffiths. There's quite a bit of his stuff in the Magnum 1968 book

 

B

[i want my photo.net histor]

"You can say a lot of nasty things about the BBC but irresponsible is generally quite wrong."

 

Far be it from me to comment on the current row as I stopped watching the BBC a while ago. But firstly you honestly believe the BBC doesn't have their own agenda and bias?

 

Also can you honestly say that the television tax (license fee) is good value for money (ref story on the telegraph stating the redefining of the word repeat by the BBC to get round their commitment for new programming). Also as I believe that TV is a luxury I do not believe that I should be paying for something I do not watch and is not essential for the general well being of anyone else.

 

This is before looking at the inefficies of the BBC w.r.t the money it recieves and their policies on spending money on forming channels that many of the public cannot recieve. I will admit though that it is not entirely their fault the goverment should just pull the plug on them and tell them to survive by generating their own funding or die.

 

I apologise for taking this off the leica theme and will go back to lurking.

[jay_.]

HCB: ""Because I can say any old stupid thing. I'm a specialist at that."

 

And a specialist at photographing any old stupid thing too.

[h._p.]

"the goverment should just pull the plug on them and tell them to survive by generating their own funding or die"

 

What happened to you, did you get bitten by Margeret Thatcher as a child? The BBC is the model for a publicly funded independent broadcaster, copied world wide. The licence fee not only covers television but also the radio services, the BBC's web activities and a huge amount of educational and specialist production without which this country would be enormously poorer. It also manages to please a lot of people with things like 'Eastenders' which I personally dislike but which appeals to a very large audience.

 

The licence fee is a tax, and unlike many taxes falls only on those who select themselves in by choosing to have a TV receiver. If you really don't want to pay, dump your telly.

[i want my photo.net histor]

Harvey,

 

No I did not opt in to pay the license fee. I have to pay the license fee as my parents want to watch Sky. They do not watch the BBC but it is the law that we have to pay the BBC so they can show repeats. Tell me how I selectively opted in.

 

As for being bitten by Margaret Thatcher I don't really understand that remark. I'll take it in good humour as thats probably the way it was intended.