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HCB Appreciation


Thanks for saying so sensitively what I didn’t care to mention.
 
User received formal warning for this message as it does not adhere to forum policies.

Don_ih my dear boy, if you don't understand the importance of framing in photography and hope to solve this with dodging and burning, you don't understand the taking process in the art of photography.
 
nikos79 said:
This Andre Kertesz photo is more difficult but somehow I always confuse it with an HCB photo
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Out of context reflections often create an amount of confusion to the viewer.
 
cliveh said:
Don_ih my dear boy, if you don't understand the importance of framing in photography and hope to solve this with dodging and burning, you don't understand the taking process in the art of photography.
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You work very differently then many/most photographers @cliveh .
Your preferences are fine for you.
I am just one of many who includes the availability of dodging and burning in my considerations when I make decisions while taking photographs. You are fine if you don't believe in that for you.

From a moderation perspective, we ask and expect that do not make posts where you equate "you do it differently than I do" with "you do not understand the taking process in the art of photography".
 
I think part of this idea of not interfering with the image post-processing owns a lot to some of the stuff HCB did or said in his interviews.

I remember an interview of a photographer I also like very much Dave Heath. He is using dodge and burn extensively. What he had said stroke me: Because of his great admiration to HCB, it took him years to liberate himself and feel comfortable and not guilty doing all the kind of darkroom manipulations he wanted in the dark room, which were part of his artistic expression.

Sometimes the legacy as much important as it is can hold someone else back.
 
Don_ih said:
the area around that guy is dodged quite heavily to make him stand out.
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Moreover, the dodging is crucial in separating the right-side rim of the bowler hat from the trees.

Another matter is how essential that detail is for the entire composition. It certainly helps, but in my view it's still a detail. If I remove the artificially applied (through dodging) separation, I think the composition as such still works pretty much the same:

But it has to be said that the brain needs to do a little more work making sense of the relationships between the different shapes, and that certainly doesn't add much to the effectiveness of the photo.

I think this is a good example of how print manipulations can be quite important in bringing out the composition as intended by the photographer when he framed the scene.
 
cliveh said:
Don_ih my dear boy, if you don't understand the importance of framing in photography and hope to solve this with dodging and burning, you don't understand the taking process in the art of photography.
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I'm certain HCB accepted that darkroom manipulations like dodging and burning were necessary to bring out the best in his photos. I've seen an online interview somewhere* in which his printer hands him a batch of duplicate prints for approval. He congratulates the printer on the fact that they are all identical. That would be noteworthy only if the printing had involved some tricky manipulation - if it was simply a matter of exposing and processing, they would be expected to be identical automatically.

*Edit: it's here, and a better copy here. Right at the start, you can watch the printer burning in some areas in the photo of Matisse with his doves.
 
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@cliveh what I said has nothing to do with understanding (or not) "the importance of framing in photography". It's being able to see what is right there in the print. The dodging doesn't change the framing of the photograph. It doesn't change the composition. It makes the print better, since it more easily enables a viewer to distinguish the figure from the background.
 

Don_ih, I would like to apologise for my patronising post the other day and am grateful that you responded with such a level headed response. Thank you. Please note I am not totally against dodging and burning and even one image in my present book received some burning and dodging during the print exposure. However, I would like to take issue with the fact that you mention dodging does not affect composition. I believe (and purely my personal opinion) that the tonal/density relationship within the print has a marked effect on composition, including burning in. I can also agree that in some cases it can improve composition, but it can also be detrimental to the original recording if done badly. Does that make sense?
 
cliveh said:
I believe (and purely my personal opinion) that the tonal/density relationship within the print has a marked effect on composition, including burning in.
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I can't argue with that, since it differs from my idea of composition (which I consider to be what you are doing with the viewfinder of the camera just before pressing the shutter). I consider "making a print" a separate activity from "composing a photo". But if you consider the final print the composition, then dodging or burning would impact it (since it obviously determines the print). So we're operating with different definitions.

But I think the one fixed bit of matter that is not going to change is the negative. You select what should be on it and then you can't change it. You can crop it but that doesn't change the full negative - it only changes the print. The print is imaginary at the time of film exposure and is subject to any number of choices that are to be made after the film is developed. Dodging, burning, cropping, selective bleaching - those are all actions that go toward making the print. But the choice of what can even be in that print was made at the time of exposure. Unless you're Jerry Uelsmann. Or Jerry Uelsmannish....
 
nikos79 said:
For example this Willy Ronis picture immediately brings to my mind a HCB image, although they are very different
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Stanko Abadžić - Brothers, Baska, Croatia, 1998
(Running late for the party )
 

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  • brothers.1129351dd1b5e9562cf05fc98dab0126.jpg
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Funeral - Japan
 


I wish he had walked by on my wedding.
 
cliveh said:
How do you know that?
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Compression. The figures are (or rather, appear) closer to each other than they would be with a 50mm lens.

Also, he would have had to get very close to the one nearest to get the closest figure that size. Shot was also taken from a slightly elevated position.
 
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But it could be taken with a 50mm?
 
cliveh said:
But it could be taken with a 50mm?
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...with a 28mm, with a 35mmm, with a 50mm. But each time it would have been a very different photo.

With a 50mm you would never have had this effect of closeness (both in depth and in width) between the women. Also, as I said, you would have had to get pretty close to get that group, that size. Or you could have been further, but would have had to crop. Which HCB didn't do.

Just compare with the "wedding picture" you posted today. From the way they are looking at him, he's not that far from them. Probably using a 35mm lens to get the full group.

HCB knew his instrument, and knew what to use to get what he wanted.
 
cliveh said:
Yes and that was a 50mm lens.
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That he only used a 50mm is a myth. He stated himself that when on assignment he always carried a 35mm, a 50mm and a 90mm lens.

I have no problem with the idea that my reading of how the photos was made may be wrong, but only if the argument is based on fact, not on myth.
 
BTW, in 2015, Leitz sold at auction one of the 35mm lens used by HCB.

 
I found this interview excerpt, but I don't have the actual source:

“The 50mm corresponds to a certain vision and at the same time has enough depth of focus, a thing you don’t have with longer lenses. I worked with a 90mm. It cuts much of the foreground if you take a landscape, but if people are running at you, there is no depth of focus. The 35mm is splendid when needed, but extremely difficult to use if you want precision in composition. There are too many elements, and something is always in the wrong place. It is a beautiful lens at times when needed by what you see. But very often it is used by people who want to shout. Because you have distortion, you have somebody in the foreground, and it gives an effect. But I don’t like effects.”
 
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cliveh said:
But it could be taken with a 50mm?
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Only if he was prepared to crop heavily.
Compression is the result of a larger subject to camera distance.
 
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