Three years on - 30 Keys article

[Ed Rooney]

3) Get Close – this is not just the old advice for movie-makers rehashed, ‘if it hasn’t worked you were not close enough’. It’s also a bit of visual psychology. Closer viewpoints connect to the viewer better than distant telephoto shots even if the subject has the same scale in the shot. I do not mean use an ultrawide lens and shoot from inches away, simply don’t rely on your 70-200mm for everyday shooting. Your images will lose immediacy. Henri Cartier-Bresson understood this well.

 

Since I stopped taking those obligatory travel-marketing sunsets, I no longer use a telephoto lens. I smile when newbies say they are shooting candids with a long lens from a darkened doorway. People pictures require the shooter to make a double exposure: he/she must expose themselves to make an exposure of the subject. 

 

​Cartier-Bresson's greatest talent was anticipating the moment. 

[wiskerke]

3) Get Close – this is not just the old advice for movie-makers rehashed, ‘if it hasn’t worked you were not close enough’. It’s also a bit of visual psychology. Closer viewpoints connect to the viewer better than distant telephoto shots even if the subject has the same scale in the shot. I do not mean use an ultrawide lens and shoot from inches away, simply don’t rely on your 70-200mm for everyday shooting. Your images will lose immediacy. Henri Cartier-Bresson understood this well.

 

Since I stopped taking those obligatory travel-marketing sunsets, I no longer use a telephoto lens. I smile when newbies say they are shooting candids with a long lens from a darkened doorway. People pictures require the shooter to make a double exposure: he/she must expose themselves to make an exposure of the subject. 

 

​Cartier-Bresson's greatest talent was anticipating the moment. 

 

He (HCB) was also invisible. If you look at footage of him working, you'll see that nobody notices him prior to his last image. Which would contradict your point of double exposure.

No way you could behave like him nowadays, so you are right about that double exposure now.

 

wim

[Ed Rooney]

I didn't tie that double-exposure remark to the Frenchman; that's my own philosophy. I was lucky enough to see Cartier-Bresson work twice, once at the Easter Parade here in NYC and once in the Tuileries in Paris. He was indeed (almost) invisible. Some of that was the tiny Leica he used . . . and I sometimes feel invisible with my NEXs. I'm interested now in seeing how people react to me with the RX10. (Hey, Wim . . . I own an original copy of The Decisive Moment. ) 

[dustydingo]

 

3) Get Close – this is not just the old advice for movie-makers rehashed, ‘if it hasn’t worked you were not close enough’. It’s also a bit of visual psychology. Closer viewpoints connect to the viewer better than distant telephoto shots even if the subject has the same scale in the shot. I do not mean use an ultrawide lens and shoot from inches away, simply don’t rely on your 70-200mm for everyday shooting. Your images will lose immediacy. Henri Cartier-Bresson understood this well.

 

Since I stopped taking those obligatory travel-marketing sunsets, I no longer use a telephoto lens. I smile when newbies say they are shooting candids with a long lens from a darkened doorway. People pictures require the shooter to make a double exposure: he/she must expose themselves to make an exposure of the subject. 

 

​Cartier-Bresson's greatest talent was anticipating the moment. 

 

He (HCB) was also invisible. If you look at footage of him working, you'll see that nobody notices him prior to his last image. Which would contradict your point of double exposure.

No way you could behave like him nowadays, so you are right about that double exposure now.

 

wim

 

Not sure the end results of HCB contradict the original double-exposure idea of Ed's . . . if you look at the images of HCB which are the most "popular" now, many many of them show exposure of the photographer to the subject, and vice versa. Indeed, I'd suggest some of the most compelling, warm, inclusive images show interaction to some degree between photographer and subject, exactly as Ed describes. He may have been invisible up to taking that last image, but it seems in many instances it is that last image, where he was not invisible, which has endured.

 

dd

[wiskerke]

I didn't tie that double-exposure remark to the Frenchman; that's my own philosophy. I was lucky enough to see Cartier-Bresson work twice, once at the Easter Parade here in NYC and once in the Tuileries in Paris. He was indeed (almost) invisible. Some of that was the tiny Leica he used . . . and I sometimes feel invisible with my NEXs. I'm interested now in seeing how people react to me with the RX10. (Hey, Wim . . . I own an original copy of The Decisive Moment. ) 

 

drool! (The Decisive Moment - I hope the dust jacket is still in one piece.)

 

My invisibility cloak: a Hi-Viz jacket. Serious.

 

wim

[losdemas]

My invisibility cloak: a Hi-Viz jacket. Serious.

 

wim

 

 

+1 to that!

[spacecadet]

 

My invisibility cloak: a Hi-Viz jacket. Serious.

 

 

 

There's a thought. Nobody would look twice round here.

[Ed Rooney]

 

I didn't tie that double-exposure remark to the Frenchman; that's my own philosophy. I was lucky enough to see Cartier-Bresson work twice, once at the Easter Parade here in NYC and once in the Tuileries in Paris. He was indeed (almost) invisible. Some of that was the tiny Leica he used . . . and I sometimes feel invisible with my NEXs. I'm interested now in seeing how people react to me with the RX10. (Hey, Wim . . . I own an original copy of The Decisive Moment. ) 

 

drool! (The Decisive Moment - I hope the dust jacket is still in one piece.)

 

My invisibility cloak: a Hi-Viz jacket. Serious.

 

wim

 

 

It still has a dust jacket, if ragged. I must ask my friend Harvey Zucker, the former owner of A Photographer's Place, the now closed book store in Soho just what that book would sell for now. 

 

I find it harder and harder to pinpoint when events happen, but when I saw Cartier-Brasson in Paris he was a senior, and I think he was using an M Leica.  That had to be the late 70s.  In NYC, at the parade, I sort of remembered him using that earlier, smaller model, and that had to be in the early 60s. I've seen and met many famous photographers, but He was special, royalty to us, right, Wim?

[spacecadet]

Tap it into abebooks and put finger under chin to prevent painful jaw drop.

A UK first edition of 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' I bought remaindered for 50p as a student is now worth £2500. Why bother with earning it?

[Ed Rooney]

On eBay, The Decisive Moment (with a near perfect dust cover) is running $500 to $1,000. Unless I get really hungry, I think I'll hold on to the book. Hmm, I wonder what that baseball signed by Joe DiMaggio is worth? 

[wiskerke]

 

 

I didn't tie that double-exposure remark to the Frenchman; that's my own philosophy. I was lucky enough to see Cartier-Bresson work twice, once at the Easter Parade here in NYC and once in the Tuileries in Paris. He was indeed (almost) invisible. Some of that was the tiny Leica he used . . . and I sometimes feel invisible with my NEXs. I'm interested now in seeing how people react to me with the RX10. (Hey, Wim . . . I own an original copy of The Decisive Moment. ) 

 

drool! (The Decisive Moment - I hope the dust jacket is still in one piece.)

 

My invisibility cloak: a Hi-Viz jacket. Serious.

 

wim

 

 

It still has a dust jacket, if ragged. I must ask my friend Harvey Zucker, the former owner of A Photographer's Place, the now closed book store in Soho just what that book would sell for now. 

 

I find it harder and harder to pinpoint when events happen, but when I saw Cartier-Brasson in Paris he was a senior, and I think he was using an M Leica.  That had to be the late 70s.  In NYC, at the parade, I sort of remembered him using that earlier, smaller model, and that had to be in the early 60s. I've seen and met many famous photographers, but He was special, royalty to us, right, Wim?

 

 

Royalty indeed.

 

To some however the Great Helmsman.

And so he became not the father, but the Pope of photojournalism.

;-)

 

Love his portraits too.

(Longer than the dentist; shorter than a psychoanalyst.)

 

That shop was on Mercer Street.

(No red lipstick on that ball? A hint of Chanel?)

 

wim

[Ed Rooney]

Mercer Street, exactly right. He's old now, but Harvey Zucker still lives over the shop, which has become a German exotic under garment store. In fact I've twice sold a snap of the front window. 

 

I am watching (again) Barry Lyndon, which I've seen several times before. Every frame in this film is perfection  .

[wiskerke]

He used to send some newspaper. Dead trees. By mail. Print.

He will be in his eighties now.

Great store.

Why didn't I shop there more often. (well it did involve a long plane ride, not to mention money)

 

wim

[Ed Rooney]

Yes, Harvey had a busy mail order business, which continued even after he closed the shop. Mr. Sugar is about 84 now I believe, my elder brother's age. I worked weekends at the shop for a while when I first returned from Oxfordshire. Harvey and I also shared a studio on Fifth Avenue at 27th Street briefly.  Before that, Harvey ran a great fish and chips shop in Greenwich Village next to the theater where The Fantasticks played for so many years. I was theater manager and understudied three parts for a year before moving to Rome. Where did we get the energy? Ah yes . . . youth! 

[wiskerke]

Shouldn't we rename this thread?

 

30 years on - 3 keys article. ;-)

 

OK here are my 3 keys:

 

Learn to use your camera like a pencil. (You don't have to think how to use a pencil.)

Shoot what you like and how you like it. (Not how your club, forum, gf/bf likes it. You may however want to change your style if your goal is to make money with it.)

Upload only what clients will want. (Do your research.)

 

Rinse and repeat.

 

(What is style? Style is the sum of how you solve photographic problems.)

 

wim

 

edit: sorry David ;-)

[Ed Rooney]

Hey, isn't this the Whatever Happened to Harvey Zucker thread? 

[wiskerke]

That and our gray bearded avatars is the 30 yrs part ;-)

Maybe we can all find a Santa hat.

 

wim

[Ed Rooney]

Did I mention that Harvey Zucker has a grey/gray beard? 

 

To pay respect to David K's article, I've always loved to-do lists. Each of us adjusts such lists to our personal situation, of course. I try to start each day with a to-do list, but often at end of the day, nothing on my list has been done. So I just change the date and begin the next day fresh, in a state of optimism. 

[Allan Bell]

Know the feeling. I start one job - see something else needs doing and start that one - etc - etc. Nothing is finished by end of day. Will finish them all tomorrow. (I hope)

 

Allan

[Mark Baigent]

David,

 

that is unusually generous, publishing that to an audience of competitors.

 

Would you be the gentleman that I used to buy "Freelance or Freelancer"  magazine from?

 

ATB

Mark

[David Kilpatrick]

Yes, Mark, that's me. It is now in other hands and not the same magazine. I should have kept f2 (Freelance) but rather rashly let it go when the figures stopped adding up. The new owners had a simple answer - stop paying anything for writing or pictures, and suddenly the figures make a profit, even if what you get for free is not exactly the same as what you get when you pay for it. A lesson, I guess, learned from most of the UK's newspaper groups and many other media.

[Martin P Wilson]

..

 

The new owners had a simple answer - stop paying anything for writing or pictures, and suddenly the figures make a profit, even if what you get for free is not exactly the same as what you get when you pay for it. A lesson, I guess, learned from most of the UK's newspaper groups and many other media.

That's why I stopped buying (and writing for) it. Very cynical - purport to tell people how to make money as freelance photographers and then not pay contributors! It now feels to me like it is all advertorial whenever I browse a copy.

 

But David, if the numbers did not add up when you were paying contributors then you couldn't afford to keep it. I don't think you would have wanted to go down the free content route for an overtly commercial magazine. If it had been a labour of love, art type magazine, then that might have been a different story.

[John Mitchell]

Yes, Mark, that's me. It is now in other hands and not the same magazine. I should have kept f2 (Freelance) but rather rashly let it go when the figures stopped adding up. The new owners had a simple answer - stop paying anything for writing or pictures, and suddenly the figures make a profit, even if what you get for free is not exactly the same as what you get when you pay for it. A lesson, I guess, learned from most of the UK's newspaper groups and many other media.

sounds very familiar

[spacecadet]

- stop paying anything for writing or pictures, and suddenly the figures make a profit,

I emailed them after you let it go re. a piece for Photokina.

Now I know why I didn't get a reply.

[Doc]

Thanks David, for posting this again. I remember it well from 3 years ago, and it's all still valid today. A good reminder for us all

 

Kumar