LEICA Barnack Berek Blog: " THE WAITER ALI IN CAFÉ HAWELKA "

By José Manuel Serrano Esparza

1956. Eleven years have elapsed since the end of the Second World War. After a decade of joint occupation by the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France between 1945 and 1955, Austria has just recovered its independence on May 15, 1955.

Vienna, one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in the world, is coming back to its daily life breeming with top-notch restaurants, posh hotels, a wide range of well-known excellent coffees like the Einspänner, Melange, Schwarzer, Brauner, Franziskaner, Mozart, Kaffee Verkehrt and others, superb Apfelstrudel, the Heurigen in the outskirts of the city (where the owners offer top quality wine of their own crop to visitors and strive after making them feel comfortable, according to the local Gemütlichkeit keynote), strolls beside the gorgeous Schönnbrunn and Belvedere Palaces, the Vienna State Opera House, the Hofburg Palace, St. Stephen Cathedral, the Prater in Leopolstadt and many more things.

Now, the Austrian photographer Franz Hubmann is inside Café Hawelka, a cultural hub of the city and meeting space for writers, all kind of artists, Bohemians, etc.

It is a classic shrine of Viennese essence, pervaded with a unique ambience.

Franz Hubmann made this famous picture with a screwmount Leica IIIF similar to this, coupled to a 6 elements in 4 groups Leitz Summaron 35 mm f/3.5. The exceedingly small dimensions and weight of camera body/ lens combination of Leica screwmount rangefinder models are still to be surpassed well within XXI Century in the scope of 24 x 36 mm format cameras with interchangeable lenses, both analogue and digital ones. In addition, the beauty of contours of this LTM39 camera and its metallic surfaces is simply gorgeous. The amazing compactness of this camera and lens along with the lack of a swivelling mirror enables to shoot handheld with great stability and comfort, with the added advantage of its big RF effective baselength of 57 mm. and the almost inaudible noise of its horizontal rubberized cloth focal plane shutter.

Hubmann is holding in his hand a 24 x 36 mm format Leica IIIF rangefinder camera loaded with Kodak Super-XX black and white 100 ISO film and coupled to a very small 6 elements in 4 groups Leitz Summaron 35 mm f/3.5 lens featuring a weight of only 195 g.

He has known Mr. Ali, the chief waiter, for a long time. He is a highly experienced man, able to do a number of different things at full speed and at the same time, fulfilling customers´ wishes with remarkable commitment, going to and fro among chairs and tables where plenty of people are having coffees and chatting.

Suddenly, Franz Hubmann sees the legendary waiter listening to something that a customer is saying to him while he hastily walks holding two trays, each one with a Wiener melange coffee and a glass of water with a spoon leaned on it.

The Austrian photographer presses the shutter release button of his camera, shooting at a slow shutter speed.

It´s a very fast and instinctive shot in which the photographer reacts very quickly to capture an exceedingly defining moment of interaction between the waiter Mr Ali and the man highly probably asking something to him and visible on the right of the image with its back towards the camera.

The photographer has managed to depict the waiter in the midst of his daily frantic activity, in which speed and accuracy are fundamental for the business, since everybody wants to be served as soon as possible.

This man is a true PhD at the University of Life. His contact with thousands of people throughout his professional life as a waiter has made him gain a tremendous insight of his trade and an outstanding rapport with customers, many of whom have known his full-fledged efficiency for many years.

Mr Ali does know that he is the driving force of the café, and the image shows him immersed in an unswerving desire to thoroughly satisfy customers within the shortest feasible time.

This extraordinary and highly dynamic photograph oozes a stark contrast between the hectic toil of the waiter doing his utmost to attend the clientele as soon as possible with utter accuracy and the apparent relax of both the women in the right background talking to each other and the man in left background probably reading a newspaper.

Mr Ali appears in the image walking quickly and working at full throttle, to such an extent that his prowess and know-how enable him to simultaneously look at the sitting man on the right of the picture (paying heed to him, listening to his words and mentally joting down what he wants, to serve him as fast as he can) and advancing quickly among the chairs to deliver two previously asked Wiener Melange coffees to other two customers who are waiting in other area of the café.

This man works like a Swiss watch.

On the other hand, there are some further compositive elements of major significance:

- The visual interaction between the head waiter Mr Ali and the sitting customer on the right of the image, dominated by a powerful descending left/right diagonal line making up the core of the picture for any observer.

- Both trays with the Wiener Melange coffee cups and the glasses of water with small metallic spoons on them, are not horizontal with respect to the floor, but visibly slanted, the left one with a pronounced slope (very apparent in comparison to another tray with the same things just below it, on one of the round marble tables) toward the waiter´s stomach, and the right one slightly bent toward Mr. Ali´s chest.

- Evidently, this is a difficult balance to attain, and there´s a strong visual feeling that the cups and glasses are about to fall from both trays, but by dint of tons of practice and many years of experience, this amazing waiter has developed an unutterable tactile dexterity enabling him to avoid dropping them in the middle of his walk while listening to the customer´s order.

Franz Hubmann has just turned a daily fleeting moment into something extraordinary, creating a timeless photograph in which he has masterfully captured the very special atmosphere inside one of the most famous cafés in Vienna, to such an extent that sixty-three years after the picture was made, any viewer can nowadays almost hear the talking among customers, to smell the scents permeating every corner of the mythical Hawelka café.

On the other hand, the tension holding sway of the whole image is enhanced by three further aspects:

a) The waiter is not holding both trays with a hand under the middle area of each one. Mr Ali has developed a style of his own,

grabbing each tray on one corner and having everything under control.

This man is a genius, featuring a great gift in his trade, incredible speed and accuracy of movements and working ability to spare, a key factor in an environment like this, with massive quantity of visitors, so it´s not possible to take one tray in each walk, since it would substantially delay everything.

Franziska and Josef Hawelka are the owners, but they have had the wisdom of giving Mr Ali the command, greatly putting the business on his shoulders.

Therefore, this great professional waiter is the top authority inside this famous café of the Austrian capital, making everything at full speed, with painstaking attention to detail and customers.

b) The metallic spoons on the water glass of each tray are aiming at the man on the right, begetting a symbolic message: Mr Ali´s life is at the service of customers and he is a master of his trade. And particularly the spoon on the left of the image conveys the sensation that it is about to fall, fostering even more the stress of the scene.

c) The picture is slightly out of focus, because top priority for Franz Hubmann has been to capture the decisive moment.

When realizing that the waiter is with his five senses on the customer´s face and words, the Austrian photographer has shot very quickly, at full f/3.5 aperture and with a very slow shutter speed, since it is an indoor context and the Kodak Super-XX features a sensitivity of ISO 100 (fast for the time, but lacking the adequate speed for shooting handheld in an environment like this).

This way, it is a photograph taken at the limit in terms of available light and a very fast reaction by the photographer to get the fleeting and very meaningful defining instant, something that he does achieve in a masterful way.

And the lack of precise focus transmits a vivid feeling of motion.

This is an image boasting the classical fabulous vintage Leica aesthetics of image stemming from a non 100% perfectly accurate focus,

6 elements in 4 groups Leitz Summaron 35 mm f/3.5 in LTM39 mount (manufactured between 1946 and 1960). It is a far from perfect lens, pretty soft in the corners and with good sharpness in the center, but it excels in black and white photography, yielding a very special glow in the pictures, emphasizing the capture of moods instead of high levels of resolving power and contrast, since it is a lens with great character, obtaining artistic images through its wisely preserved degree of aberrations and vignetting and a ten blades diaphragm rendering very beautiful out of focus areas. Besides, its mechanical construction is of the highest level, so many decades after having been built it can be used by means of an adapter with 24 x 36 mm format digital rangefinder cameras like the Leica M10, M10-P, M Monochrom, etc, with excellent results.

the unique kind of image delivered by the Leitz Summaron 35 mm f/3.5 wideangle lens

Kodak Super-XX ISO 100, the par excellence black and white photojournalistic film during forties and fifties. It was considered a high speed film for the time and very versatile thanks to its great exposure latitude making it ideal for different developments. It was discontinued in 1960, because the Kodak Tri-X became increasingly widespread among professional photographers since his introduction as a 35 mm film in 1954.

and the great acutance of a black & w chemical emulsion with relatively coarse grain like the Kodak Super-XX ISO 100, featuring great quantities of silver halide in its formula, resulting in outstanding sharpness of contours, even in a picture like this, so the profiles of both men and women appearing in the image, along with the garments and coat hangers in the background can be discerned thanks to the good acutance of the b & w film.

And once more, the absence of technical perfection in this superb photograph doesn´t matter at all in a photojournalistic image like this in which to be at the adequate place, at the most relevant instant and to approach as much as possible to the main subject, getting the picture, are the factors making a difference.

In addition, Franz Hubmann has achieved the dream of every good photojournalist : to go unnoticed during the photographic act, above all thanks to his talent and experience, in synergy with the inherent virtues of Leica rangefinder cameras enabling maximum discretion : a very small size and low weight of body and lenses, a whispering shutter release noise, the lack of a swiveling mirror making possible to shoot handheld

at very low shutter speeds between 1/8 s and 1/25 s and an exceedingly short shutter lag (time elapsed between the instant in which the photographer presses the shutter release button and the exposure).

d) The waiter´s countenance reveals that he has been working for many hours, and in spite of being visibly tired, with eye bags and his mouth half opened, he keeps on earning his living, without even imagining that a great photographer has just immortalized him forever.

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