HCB Appreciation

Think about the Kertesz photo with the broken plate glass for example.
It was a dark room accident, but he chose it and for very good reason.

As this thread already goes to 52 pages, I may have already included this, but if not: -

Very nice Clive, & more worthwhile than many of the 52 pages of "appreciation"....
Indeed, "a picture is worth a thousand words"......

nikos79 said:

there is also another thing:
50mm is the more discreet or neutral lens. It doesn’t overwhelm with its form. I have the feeling HCB preferred things simple, no contrast exaggeration or dark room manipulations and the choice of a 50mm supports this philosophy

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Perhaps it is also due to the perspective a ‘normal’ focal length lens provides the viewer. The lens and the viewers’ eyes are processing the visual data with a common perspective.

Our stereoscopic vision fails and the world is 2D in appearance beyond 60 feet from our eyes, so beyond 60 feet we depend on how big something looks to determine its distance relative to our position (perspective). For example…We can get a good idea how fast a car is driving away from us by how quickly it gets small. But through binoculars something seems a little off…the car is taking forever to get small and the fellow with the 24mm lens on his Nikon lost sight of the car a while back.

So if other than a ‘normal’ lens is used, the relative size of objects in the scene will be different than experienced in our visual reality. Which in turn can be used to influence the viewer.

There are a couple of images in that YouTube video are not from HCB. For example these two photos I recognised being from other photographers:

1. Piergiorgio Branzi at 7:05
2. John Leonard at 7:13

Also the swinging girl at 01:53 I doubt is HCB. But I also have no clue who the photographer might be.
Apart from that many nice photos I never saw before thanks Clive!

A Legend

I recently came across this artefact at the Helen Levitt exhibition in Madrid.
It looks like the print could have been pulled from HCB's scrapbook.
Please excuse the photo quality, the print was under glass and difficult to reach.
If anyone is in or visiting Madrid I highly recommend a visit.
The prints look mostly original with some clearly printed on Levitt's favorite Ektalure paper.

Elmarc said:

this artefact

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That would be an expensive little print. He enlarged it himself - not a lot of those floating around.

Don_ih said:

That would be an expensive little print. He enlarged it himself - not a lot of those floating around.

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The print did not look like something one would expect from a master printer but certainly from an accomplished one. If it did come from his scrapbook I presume he printed to work print not exhibition standard.

Elmarc said:

The print did not look like something one would expect from a master printer but certainly from an accomplished one.

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He wasn't a master printer. He had no interest in doing it and, for the most part, let someone else do it. A print made by him is a real rarity.

Don_ih said:

He wasn't a master printer. He had no interest in doing it and, for the most part, let someone else do it. A print made by him is a real rarity.

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Yes, even though he did not have much interest in printing, this particular print was more than acceptable.
Certainly fascinating to see it.