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Re: [OM] Whatever it is, it is

Subject: Re: [OM] Whatever it is, it is
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 05 Jul 2010 00:10:53 -0700
  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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