On 7/4/2010 11:16 PM, Ken Norton wrote:
> Moose, I think what I was saying is this:
>
> 1. I personally feel that most of the "Leica Mystique" is a load of bunk.
I tend to think so, but have no personal experience. Maybe it's wishful
thinking, as they have always been so expensive
and I don't like rangefinders.
> 2. I'm afraid that I'm "seeing" these supposedly non-existent traits in my
> own shots taken with a Leica designed and labeled lens.
So, maybe it's real.
> 3. Since we know that the "Leica Mystique" is pretty much bunk, then it's
> obvious I must be getting better as a photographer. :)
Well, I know you are ambivalent about that, alternating between liking stuff
you do and agonizing about whether it is
derivative. And now worrying about being derivative of you own, earlier work.
Life is too short. The work pleases you and the clients, why worry. If you
don't become "the next famous photographer",
it won't be because of your technical and artistic shortcomings. There are
oodles of small time pros and amateurs around
who make images every bit as good as the famous ones, or at least most of them.
They simply don't happen to have the
same drive, chutzpah, luck. etc. as those who "make it".
The equipment doesn't make the photographer and the photographs don't make the
fame.
I recently made a photo book. So far, everybody who has sat down with it has
raved. When I got a little distance from
it, sat down and went through slowly. I was wowed too. It's a damn fine set of
images, well taken, processed, chosen,
presented and printed. Original? Hey, they are pictures of Brooklyn and street
photography. Everything in this world is
original, in that it's not exactly like anything else. Everything in the world
is a whole lot like something else that
already existed.
Mostly, people don't buy original. Ask Van Gogh. People buy what engages their
emotions. Some people like sappy, or the
world wouldn't be full of sappy images and other stuff. Some like edgy. Many
like things they can't explain.
If, as friends and family suggest, I were to have it conventionally printed,
what would happen? The way I do things, I
would be lucky to sell a handful. If I did it the way a friend of many years
ago worked, I'd probably sell many thousands.
This guy was not a photographer, but a born promoter. I don't remember if he
had a photographer take the image or saw ti
and bought the rights. It was a terrific, B&W panorama of fog rolling into the
Golden Gate, with the just the towers
sticking up. He had a bunch of fairly big copies made using some sort of high
quality offset printing.
Then he started wearing out his car and shoes, hitting every shop he could
find. I'll bet he didn't stop trying shoe
stores until he was sure he couldn't sell to them. Pretty soon,I began seeing
the photo in shops all over the place. Of
course the biggest outlets were tourist places, but many other places had it at
least for a while.
Was it a great image, sure. Would any body bit the photographer, friends and a
possible handful of buyers ever have seen
it without the promotion, nope. He didn't say how much he made, but was quite
pleased.
There are competent, but not great, photographers who make a decent living at
it, great ones who don't and a few who do
both.
> Maybe it's a little bit of both. Maybe it's all the lens and I'm just along
> for the ride. Whatever it is, I'm pleased.
Goody!
> Just for entertainment, I revisited a lens test I did a few weeks back and
> compared images taken with every lens in my kit at overlapping focal-lengths.
> It's rather interesting how the color and contrast of
> the Leica lens is totally different than all of the Zuikos, but almost
> without exception, the Leica shots had a well defined edge between the
> subject (a stone statue) and the background. Not only that, but even within
> the statue, the visual perception is the face having dimension. Only three of
> the Zuikos did that: 50/1.4, 100/2.8 and 35-80, but only the 35-80 had the
> tonal subtlety which the Leica had.
So they make great lenses, and now you have one. Make great images with it and
our other good ones and sell them and
yourself. Iowa may be a pretty big drawback, though. There may be galleries in
this world that have more people go
through in a year than live in Iowa. ;-)
Cheerleader Moose
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