Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Snapping the past

The Leica Camera is an icon.

 Yes, so recognisable that it can be used in software as an icon signifying taking a photograph.
And like other icons like the Coca-Cola bottle and the Harley Davidson Electroglide. It is spoken off with a hushed reverence.
Here is a homage (and a reasonable explanation) by a sensible Hong Kong vlogger Kai Man Wong. He starts out by describing a Leica M3 as "Camera Porn" but does a more than reasonable job of explaining why this camera was, and still has a special status

Leica has not been slow to capitalize on this legend. Descendents of the M3 are hideously expensive.
The latest in a long line of such tributes is an entire feature movie, called Kodachrome based on a short New York Times article mourning the closure of the first last development lab for Kodachrome.
​As you can see from the poster a Leica M3 had equal billing with the rest of the stars of the movie released in May.
Unfortunately, the film wasn't nearly as good as it should have been: great actors but a poor script that didn't do justice to the original idea spark
The camera is never really explained except that we see it being cleaned, fondled, loaded and one memorable moment when a single photo is taken.
It also didn't explain the Leica heydays were those when black and white images were in most demand for the dominant newspaper media.
Even today, the best photographers note that the best photos they have taken with the Leica M series tend to be monochrome because precise focus that you can get with the Leica's rangefinder is so important
The final titles of the feature film showed some of the best of the Kodachrome photos featured in National Geographic but most where not snapped with a Leica.
Here is my favourite Kodachrome photos that didn't appear and should have: Steve McCurry in 1985. of an angry Afgan girl.

 McCurry also claims to have shot the final roll of Kodachrome and published the result on his website. However, the camera used was the next generation's iconic camera more suited to colour the Nikon F a single lens reflex that allowed photographers to see exactly what they were shooting.


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