© jmse
© jmse
By José Manuel Serrano Esparza
Between October 17, 2014 and January 4, 2015 the Leica Gallery at Wetzlar held the 100 Photographers-100 Portraits exhibition, a truly historical event encompassing a vast assortment of pictures made by the American photographer Claire Yaffa throughout a span of approximately 40 years (she started this long term project in 1974, when she made her first portrait of Eugene Smith, one of her teachers at the time along with Philippe Halsman) to a number of the most world-renowned photographers of the XX Century who defined its visual language and culture as well as having created a lot of the most iconic images ever, it all with the added bonus of further portraits made by the New York based photojournalist to other talented photographers who have developed their careers within XXI Century.
Between October 17, 2014 and January 4, 2015 the Leica Gallery at Wetzlar held the 100 Photographers-100 Portraits exhibition, a truly historical event encompassing a vast assortment of pictures made by the American photographer Claire Yaffa throughout a span of approximately 40 years (she started this long term project in 1974, when she made her first portrait of Eugene Smith, one of her teachers at the time along with Philippe Halsman) to a number of the most world-renowned photographers of the XX Century who defined its visual language and culture as well as having created a lot of the most iconic images ever, it all with the added bonus of further portraits made by the New York based photojournalist to other talented photographers who have developed their careers within XXI Century.
© jmse
Alfred Eisenstaedt, André
Kertész, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eugene Smith, David Douglas Duncan, Inge
Morath, Mark Riboud, Erich Lessing, Lisette Model, Bruce Davidson, Yousuf
Karsh, Cornell Capa, Robert Frank, Carl Mydans, Gordon Parks, Duane Michals,
Burt Glinn, Leonard Freed, René Burri, Thomas Hoepker, Ian Berry, Jim Marshall,
Susan Meiselas, Josef Koudelka, David Burnett, Eli Reed, Slim Aarons, Benedict
Fernández, John Loengard, Barbara Morgan, Emmet Gowin, Mary Ellen Mark, David
Alan Harvey, Sebastiao Salgado, Larry
Towell, Nell Dorr, Peter Marlow, Bruce Gilden, Ralph Gibson, Donna Ferrato,
Jane Evelyn Atwood, Hiroji Kubota, Constantine Manos, Bruno Barbey, Lisl
Steiner, Richard Kalvar, Harry Gruyaert, David Turnley, Peter Turnley, Martin
Parr, Cristina García Rodero, Jules Allen, Tamas Revesz, Martine Franck, Doug
Menuez, Sylvia Plachy, Craig Semetko, Alex Majoli, Harvey Stein, Carlos René
Pérez, Ed Kashi, Aldo Sessa, Jill Freedman, Adger Cowans, Rick Smolan, Larry
Fink, Nikos Economopoulos, Brian Lanker, Neil Leifer, Eugene Richards, Harry
Benson, Sheila Metzner, Jean-Pierre Laffont, Dorothy Norman, Shelby Lee Adams,
Jeff Mermelstein, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Mike Kamber, Frank Fournier, Lynne
Butler, Ozier Muhammad, Angel Franco, Ron Havivi, Magdalena Solé, Amedeo M.
Turello, Donovan Wylie, Todd Heisler, Dominic Nahr, Julia Baier, Olivia Arthur,
Ashley Gilbertson, Bieke Depoorter, Evgenia Arbugaeva, Jing Huang and Saga Sig.
Vast majority of these
portraits were photographed throughout forty years, with a Leica M3 and
Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 DR between 1974 and 1984, with a Leica M6 with
Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Type 4 between 1984 and 2009 and with a digital Leica M9
between 2009 and 2014, taking advantage of the short telephoto nature inherent
to 50 mm standard lenses and with a top priority over the technical perfection
of images : to capture the essence and main personality traits of the
photographed people and to convey emotions through the choice of black and
white, in addition to coupling the cameras to a 50 mm objective enabling a
nearer proximity with respect to subjects in comparison to 75 mm, 85 mm, 90 mm
and 105 mm lenses much more frequently used in portraiture.
Eugene
Smith.
© Claire Yaffa
This amazing exhibition
(whose opening ceremony in Am Leitz Park Wetzlar main building on October 17,
2014 had the attendance of Claire Yaffa herself who came from United States and
Karin Rehn-Kaufmann, Managing Director of Leica Galleries International) was a
relish for any enthusiast of photography and its history, and something really
unforgettable, particularly for the many thousands of visitors from all over
the world who arrived in Wetzlar during three months to watch Claire Yaffa 100
Photographers-100 Portraits live, in what has probably been the most complete
array of portraits of legendary photographers ever assembled, including a high
percentage of the pros who were the main characters of the Photojournalism
Halcyon Days.
Susan Meiselas and
Josef Koudelka.
© Claire Yaffa
© jmse
Yousuf
Karsh by Claire Yaffa.
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© jmse
Ian Berry by
Claire Yaffa.
© jmse
© jmse
André Kértész by Claire Yaffa
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© jmse
Alfred
Eisenstaedt.
© Claire Yaffa
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Gordon
Parks.
© Claire Yaffa
Marc
Riboud.
© Claire Yaffa
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Sebastiao
Salgado.
© Claire Yaffa
Erich
Lessing.
© Claire Yaffa
Larry and Ann
Towell.
© Claire Yaffa
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Jim
Marshall.
© Claire Yaffa
Jane Evelyn Atwood.
© Claire Yaffa
David Alan
Harvey.
© Claire Yafa
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Thomas
Hoepker.
© Claire Yaffa
Inge
Morath.
© Claire Yaffa
Constantine Manos and
Robert Frank.
© Claire Yaffa
Duane
Michals.
© Claire Yaffa
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Leonard
Freed.
© Claire Yaffa
Carl
Mydans.
© Claire Yaffa
Lisl
Steiner.
© Claire Yaffa
Bruce
Gilden.
© Claire Yaffa
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© jmse
It´s true that vast
majority of world-class photographers making up this gorgeous exhibition used
35 mm Leica rangefinder cameras during their professional careers, but having a
Leica rangefinder doesn´t mean to automatically get better pictures at all, because
the key factors for getting a good picture are the photographic eye, to be at
the adequate place and moment, the experience, the intuition, the speed of
movements, the composition, the perseverance, and above all that it be
interesting, irrespective of the camera model and brand used by a photographer.
To name only an example,
Eugene Richards used Olympus OM-1 and OM-2 24 x 36 mm format cameras to make
many of his pictures, and his favourite lens was the manual focusing 11
elements in 9 groups Olympus OM Zuiko Auto-W 21 mm f/2 from 1977, which apart
from its amazing resolving power, contrast and correction of distortion,
featured very small dimensions (length of 44 mm) and weight (250 g) making it
exceedingly comfortable to use shooting handheld
It isn´t less true that
Leica M lineup of highly luminous prime lenses featuring very small size and
weight is second to none in terms of resolving power, sharpness and mechanical
thoroughness and that the rangefinder of an M camera is a wonder of craftsmanship
and precision, without forgetting the crystal-clear amazing viewfinder enabling
the photographer to watch what is happening at every moment, even outside the
frame of each focal length.
But if you are a bad
photographer you will not get good pictures, regardless of the photographic
gear you can have.
A good photographer will
be able to make good photographs with any camera, and the pros appearing in
this 100 Photographers - 100 Portraits historical exhibition could have made
good pictures with cameras and lenses from every brand.
© jmse
If most of them chose 24 x
36 mm format mirrorless rangefinder Leicas it was simply because they were the
most suitable photographic tools to fulfill their assignments, particularly
within the scope of photojournalistic activity, in which discretion, lowest
feasible noise of shutter release, optimization for handheld shooting with
available light even at 1/8 sec without trepidation, shortest shutter lag in
existence, second to none highly luminous lenses and to approach as much as
possible to the subject trying to get unnoticed are essential to get the
picture.
A wise choosing of
photographic tools will of course depend on the kind of photographic task to
attain.
That´s why Yousuf Karsh
used a large format Calumet camera with 8 x 10 plates (contacts of 20 x 25 cm)
to do his extraordinary portraits, David Douglas Duncan used a Minox 8 x 11 mm
getting pictures in 1954 inside a Saigon casino risking his life and putting the
shutter speeds and diaphragms without looking at the camera while pretended to
be interested in the gambling, Alfred Eisenstaedt used a Rolleiflex 2 1/4 x 2
1/4 medium format camera to do his stunning reportage of the farewell by
girlfriends and wives to servicemen going to war within the Pennsylvania Train
Station in New York in 1943 with a high percentage of his pictures made from an
exceedingly short distance, taking advantage of the great discretion provided
by the waist level finder of this MF camera, René Burri (a mostly Leica
rangefinder photographer) used a Pentax Spotmatic 35 mm camera with Takumar 135
mm f/2.5 lens in 1959 in Cyprus to capture three war widows, Harold Feinstein
used Olympus Pen 18 x 24 mm half-frame format camera during sixties to get
maximum depth of field in the specific street photography he was doing then
(while in 1952 he had made with a 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 Rolleiflex Automat Model 3
medium format camera his great essay on bidding farewells in Camp Kilmer, New
Jersey, to American soldiers going to Korea War), David Burnett used a large
format Speed Graphic 4 x 5 with a gorgeous Aero-Ektar 178 mm f/2.5 to get
pictures with really shallow depth of field and the remarkable aesthetics of
image inherent to LF bokeh in photographs like the Ford Mustang half-buried by
a house in Lakeview (belonging to his series Aftermath of Katrina 2006) or a
perpendicular shot of the athlete Marion Jones during the 2004 USA Olympic
Preview in Los Angeles, Daido Moriyama used a 8,6 x 8,3 cm format Polga (a
hybrid Holga with Polaroid instant film back) toy camera to make his fabulous
black and white book T-82 with images of Japan boasting unique image aesthetics
and stunning layers of diffused grays in synergy with the abundant vignetting
featured by its 60 mm f/8 lens of Japan in 2006, sports photographer Bob Martin
used a Canon New F-1 camera and Canon FD 400 mm f/2.8 L superteleobjectives to
photograph Edwin Moses during the 1987 World Championships in Rome and a Nikon
D4 with 80-400 mm and 200-400 mm lenses with 0.1 second latency robotics setup
to get pictures from amazing angles during Wimbledon 2013, John Loengard (one
of the most influential photojournalists in the history of Life magazine, of
which he was picture editor) and a great master of Leica rangefinder cameras
uses currently a 10 megapixel Canon G12 camera for his personal photographs,
sports photographer Pascal Rondeau used a Nikon F3 with motordrive and Ai-S
Nikkor 600 mm f/4 IF ED super tele photo lens with monopod during the Monaco
Grand Prix 1989 to capture the very low profile Formula 1 Brabham BT58 cars
after prefocusing and intentionally underexposing 1 diaphragm for the sparks to
show up better, Terry Fincher used a homemade 9 x 12 cm glass plate folding
camera during fifties to get maximum sharpness and stability (avoiding any
shrinking or deform during the development) in his handheld press photography
of stars, Sheila Metzner used a 35 mm camera and old lenses to achieve her
wonderful images featuring a pictorial soft-focus dreamlike approach fostered
by the gorgeous Fresson color printing method (unbeatable in terms of control
during the development) as a way of expressing her artistic feeling and vision
and providing rich and textural chromatic nuances with a golden glaze flawlessly
matching the romantic sensuality of her photographs rendering a signature
ethereal mood which merges ancient myth and tradition with contemporary
sophistication, Annie Leibovitz used a black Konica Hexar AF with its top-notch
35 mm f/2 lens ( optimized for full aperture but automatically correcting the
shift focus on selecting small f stops) to do the kind of street photography
she wished in Paris in 1997, Douglas Kirkland used a Nikon F with Non-Ai
Nikkor-UD 20 mm f/3.5 UD Auto shooting from a a very low angle to get his 1967
portrait of Maurice Chevalier with the Eiffel Tower behind him and a Hasselblad
500 C/M and 250 mm lens for his portrait of Kelly McGillis on the beach of San
Diego in 1985 (in both pictures with some fill-in flash to give punch), Diane
Arbus used a 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 Rolleiwide with Zeiss Distagon 55 mm f/4 in 1962 to
do the extraordinary picture Boy With a Toy Hand Grenade, adding tremendous
levels of tension and impact, bringing the observer closer than with a
Rolleiflex with standard 75 mm lens and going with this very powerful image far
beyond than with her customary excelling at revealing the character of her
subjects, .......
Emmet Gowin.
©
Claire Yaffa
Benedict J.
Fernández.
© Claire Yaffa
David Burnett.
©
Claire Yaffa
René Burri.
©
Claire Yaffa
Mary Ellen
Mark.
© Claire Yaffa
© jmse
As well as being a
research center and ultramodern production plant, the state-of-the-art Am Leitz
Park building is the venue of the Leica Gallery Wetzlar, which has turned into
an internationally praised shrine of top-notch photography since its
inauguration on May 23, 2014.
Nick
Ut.
© Claire Yaffa
Burt
Glinn.
© Claire Yaffa
Henri Cartier-Bresson.
© Claire Yaffa
Bruno Barbey.
© Claire Yaffa
© jmse
Detail of the main façade
of Am Leitz Park building, made with very special concrete and glass. It is an
architectural wonder oozing class and elegance to spare. Created by the
architects Martin Gruber and Helmut Kleine-Kraneburg, it is the first thing the
visitors see before entering the Leica Gallery Wetzlar, whose wide and very
well devised inner spaces enable a fairly comfortable and quiet viewing of the
photographic displays.
Cornell Capa.
© Claire Yaffa
Bruce Davidson.
© Claire Yaffa
Ralph Gibson.
© Claire Yaffa
Eli Reed.
© Claire Yaffa
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Martine
Franck.
© Claire Yaffa
Hiroji Kubota.
© Claire Yaffa
Peter Marlow.
© Claire Yaffa
David Douglas Duncan.
© Claire Yaffa
Neil
Leifer.
© Claire Yaffa
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Sylvia Plachy.
© Claire Yaffa
Amedeo M. Turello.
© Claire Yaffa
Craig Semetko.
© Claire Yaffa
Dominic Nahr.
©
Claire Yaffa
© jmse
Evgenia Arbugaeva.
© Claire Yaffa
© Claire Yaffa
Julia Baier.
©
Claire Yaffa
© jmse
The unforgettabe 100 Photographers-100
Portraits exhibiton held at the Leica Gallery Wetzlar (Germany) between October
17, 2014 and January 4, 2015 meant a thrilling travel in time through the
history of photography and a significant percentage of its most talented
professionals, who in addition, had major roles in the development of top class
illustrated magazines like Life, Camera, Du, Loo, Colliers Paris Match and
others which sold in the millions and were also instrumental in the development
of such first-class agencias like Magnum, AP, Keystone Press, Contact Press,
etc.
But Claire Yaffa made also
portraits of more modern and likewise greatly gifted photographers like Amedeo
Turello (one of the best fashion photographers on earth), Craig Semetko (a
recognized world-class Leica M photographer), Dominic Nahr, Evgenia Arbugaeva
(recipient of the Oskar Barnack Award in 2013, the ICP of New York Infinitity
Award in 2015), Saga Sig, Jing Huang, Julia Baier and others.
Claire Yaffa, an acclaimed
photojournalist featuring 47 years experience publishing photographs in many
important illustrated magazines, as well as having extensively worked for The
New York Times and Associated Press and having held a number of exhibitions
worldwide, made portraits of all of these prominent photographers throughout
four decades, with remarkable sensitivity, effort, travels to different
countries and above all great respect for these masters of photography from
whom she learnt very much and who were instrumental in her development as a
professional photographer.
This unique exhibition was
to all intents and purposes a homage and sincere testimony of gratitude,
respect and admiration to all the great photographers who allowed her to
photograph them and have them as a source of inspiration, since their immense
legacy of defining images is a real and everlasting trove for future
generations.
For other articles on this blog please click on Blog Archive in the column to the right
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