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100 years of Leica in Hamburg

darkosaric

Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2008
Messages
4,567
Location
Hamburg, DE
Format
Multi Format
Hi all,

I finally visited 100 years of Leica exhibition here in Hamburg, and it was very nice indeed with some smaller issues like taking credit for some photographs that are not taken with Leica (HCB and Gare St. Lazare, some contact prints 6x9 from WWII, and some more), and going very technical details about prints: Silver gelatin print, modern silver gelatin print, Modern GSP, C print, Modern C print, Archival pigment print, Silver print on fujiflex HR... Usually I don't like to read anything in exhibitions, just to look on the art. But ok - I guess this is somehow exception. Also book "100 years of Leica" costs 98 euros! Uh! Not cheap.

So when already going very technical - one print was very strange to me - it is huge print from Ara Guler from 1954. For a print that was about 50x60 cm or even bigger - it was unusually grainless, hard to believe that was made from 35mm format at that time. My question is: what was the best film concerning grain at that time? Even at close inspection - looking from 15cm distance there was no grain at all. I took some photos with mobile phone:





And on the end one praise to Ilford Pan F


But all in all: Salgado, Bresson, Gilbert, Araki ... many great masters on one place - enjoyment.

 
In the olde days you could get images with very little grain with 35mm film if you used slow film. In the late 1950s I used Panatomic-X with my IIIf and got negs that would knock your socks off. The trade-off, of course, is it was harder to get fast action shots.
 
I have two Large prints from Ara Guler and he uses Ilford for 30 years or more. He said best film in the world is Ilford.

I went to his home and spreaded 1000 prints on the the floor and selected two and he said you can take one more also to the same money. I was in his 20s idiot and I said I dont take I did not pay for.

Now each print costs 6000 dollars or more , least 3500 euros.

He put my prints at the end of his catalog. In usa and england , elected two times one of the seven best photographer in the world.
He said take that Picasso portrait but I refused and got two Istanbul ones.

Picasso and Dali painted his prints and his portraits , orson welles to hitchcock to ansel adams to anyone you wish is his subjects.

Old Magnum and Life photographer and master of leica.

he used one of my 3c 1946 with elmar 5.

I took his portrait with kiev 88 and 80 mm.
 
He is old and sick , if you want to meet with him , come to istanbul and lets visit him.

He found noahs ship remains on mount ararat and efes.
 
Leica is one strange animal, If you find a Summicron , you cant believe your eyes what it can do. Such a thing you have da vinci , van gogh and rembrandt and expressionists , impressionists characters in one such 500 dollar lens. Even an Leica Mini 2 is a great school. It makes film works as it once designed for. Look for Şakir Eczacıbaşı.
 

If you like Ara Güler, I can recommend his big exhibition at the Willy-Brandt-Haus in Berlin (Kreuzuberg), still open until the end of January, IIRC. Definitely worth a trip from Hamburg. I saw the exhibition in October and was deeply impressed or should I better say moved.
 
darkosaric said:
Thanks snapguy. I know that it is possible to get grainless results in 35mm with Kodak TP and with today's CMS 20, but I was not sure what was "35mm grainless" in 1950's .
Click to expand...

Hi,
there was Perutz Silbereosin, orthochromatic at 12 ISO.
I used some glass plates of it this summer, fine grain like PanF, but not like TP or CMS20.
Best
Jens
 
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