Friday, December 19, 2025

A LEICA AND THE "VEILED LADY” AT MIA (MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ART)


By Heinz Richter

Photoshop offers a myriad of possibilities to change or alter a photograph. That includes creating artistic images that did not originate as a single photograph in the camera. While combining two or more images into one photograph is nothing new, Photoshop allows us to do so simpler and quicker than ever before.

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) has a sculpture that has fascinated me ever since I saw it for the first time many years ago.  It is a marble statue of a veiled lady.  The fascination lies in the fact that the artist was able to use a solid matter, marble, and create a statue that shows the transparency of a veil in total detail.

 

I have photographed it on several occasions and recently thought if it would be possible to replace the face of the woman in the statue with that of another individual, especially one that makes eye contact with the viewer.  This is not an attempt to improve the original, that would be preposterous, but strictly an exercise in the application of Photoshop skills.

The first task was to find an image in my files for a face to replace the original.  For this I selected a picture of a model that I photographed.

 

Next there was the necessity of rotating the image to the same angle and to match the size of the model’s face to that of the original.  This had to be a trial and error approach with older versions of Photoshop. However, my latest version requires only to outline the part of the image that needs to be transferred. Once moved to the new layer, it can then be correctly sized and rotated with just the cursor.

 

 

The next step was to change the colored image of the face to black and white and then using color correction to match the color of the superimposed model’s face to that of the sculpture. Working with the two layers makes this a relatively simple task.

 

 
Now it was necessary to merge the superimposed layer with that of the original.  After that I used the “spot healing brush” in the “content aware” mode to blend the harsh outline of the model’s face with the rest of the image.

 

The final step was to use the layer of the original image side by side with the new layer  and then use the “clone stamp tool” with only 10 percent opacity to carefully paint the detail of the veil onto the new image.

 


You be the judge of how successful this has been.

Please don't hesitate to ask if you need a more in-depth explanation of the Photoshop procedure.


All Photographs taken with Leica equipment.


    For other articles on this blog please click on Blog Archive in the column to the right

To comment or to read comments please scroll past the ads below.

All ads present items of interest to Leica owners.

_______________________________________________________________________

EDDYCAM - the first and only ergonomic elk-skin camera strap     
 www.eddycam.com        

      



Buy vintage Leica cameras from 
America's premier Leica specialist 
www.tamarkin.com

 http://www.tamarkin.com/leicagallery/upcoming-show


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Thursday, December 18, 2025

THE ORIGINS OF THE LEICA BARNACK BEREK BLOG GO BACK TO 1979

 


 
Oskar Barnack                                                  Max Berek
  

By Heinz Richter

In a few weeks, on February 20, the LEICA Barnack Berek Blog will reach its 12th anniversary.  But its origins go back a lot further, to January 1979, long before the internet and all of its conveniences.

At the time I was co-owner of Photo Visuals, the first store ever to sell Leica equipment exclusively.  As a service to our customers we decided to publish information about Leica on a regular basis.  As a name, we chose “The Barnack & Berek Newsletter.”


Many people are familiar with Oskar Barnack as the inventor of the Leica camera back in 1913 and even though it was far from us to take any credit from him, we felt that rarely any mention of Professor Max Berek was ever made.  Yet without him the Leica would probably never have come into existence.  He designed the first lens for the preproduction Leicas and the success of that little camera played no small part in the decision of Ernst Leitz II to manufacture it.

Max Berek would have had little reason to design his lens without the farsightedness and genius of Oskar Barnack, yet the success of the Leica might never have happened without both of them.



The Barnack & Berek Newsletter created a lot of interest, more than we ever envisioned, and it quickly grew from the initial 8 pages to well over 30.  Initially the newsletter was sent to our customers free of charge, but the greatly expanded versions began to put a drain on the operating budget and we asked the recipients if they were willing to pay for it.

To our surprise, most were willing to do so and subscribed.  That led to the thought that we had outgrown the designation of a newsletter, that a new name might be in order.

We didn’t want to eliminate the tribute to Oskar Barnack and Max Berek and after some deliberation decided on BB - Magazine for Leica Owners.  The growth continued and we considered changing the magazine from black and white to color.


Leica experts like James Lager, who is known for his many books on Leica and Rolf Fricke, one of the co-founders of the Leica Historical Society of America, among others, submitted articles to the BB Magazine and many readers sent in their photographic work to be published.

Unfortunately the economic slowdown of the early 80s made a switch to color impossible.  As a matter of fact, at that point we were barely breaking even with the black and white version. 

To make things worse, several of our advertisers withdrew their ads for economic reasons and we were forced to discontinue publishing of the BB Magazine.


I never realized how much I missed writing many of the articles, but resurrecting the magazine was out of the question.  Enter the internet.  At the beginning of 2012 I began to think that a blog about Leica might be of interest.  Not that this hadn’t done before, but most other Leica oriented blogs are promoting current Leica equipment or they are dealing with just used equipment and the history of the Leica.

To offer something of interest for all that are interested in Leica, this blog will always try to reach a balance between contemporary and historical items of interest.  This has been the case from the very beginning of the Leica Barnack & Berek Newsletter and the BB Magazine.  I decided to use the same format for the LEICA Barnack Berek Blog.  Its growth and success over the last 8+ years seems to prove that decision to be a good one.

    For other articles on this blog please click on Blog Archive in the column to the right

To comment or to read comments please scroll past the ads below.

All ads present items of interest to Leica owners.

_______________________________________________________________________

EDDYCAM - the first and only ergonomic elk-skin camera strap     
 www.eddycam.com        

      



Buy vintage Leica cameras from 
America's premier Leica specialist 
www.tamarkin.com

 http://www.tamarkin.com/leicagallery/upcoming-show


Click on image to enlarge
Please make payment via PayPal to GMP Photography

Click on image to enlarge
Please make payment via PayPal to GMP Photography

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Please make payment via PayPal to GMP Photography


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