[rollei_list] Re: speaking of war photography

Funny how true...

My brief time on the lines, Leicaflex SLs and Novoflexes, K200.  I heard
the US army had discouraged color photography for a time, while our
(Deutsch) visionary mag SIGNAL was pushing color imagery from the
start...

Peter Nebergall

On Tue, 23 Oct 2007 01:21:00 -0400 Marc James Small
<marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> At 01:00 AM 10/23/2007, dpurdy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>  >Did anyone else sit through all 14 or so hours of the recent Ken 
> Burns
>  >film on Public Broadcasting "War"?  I think that was the title.  
> Showing
>  >WW2 through the eyes and memories of the common soldiers and 
> their
>  >families.
>  >
>  >The photography was amazing.  As black and white real WW2 footage 
> always
>  >is.  It is hard to imagine what the photographers were going 
> through and
>  >still producing that work.  How they were able to get through the 
> mud and
>  >snow and water, crawling and running and hiding in holes.  How do 
> you keep
>  >the mud or rain or ocean out of your camera to change film with 
> bullets
>  >flying everywhere?
>  >
>  >An amazing amount of movie footage as well in impossible 
> circumstances.
>  >Watching real WW2 stuff makes me fall in love with black and 
> white
>  >photography all over again.  Almost makes me want a leica.  But I 
> will
>  >stick with the more civilized Rollei.
> 
> No, I didn't watch this, though I am an active 
> WWII student.  I watched two episodes of Burns' 
> CIVIL WAR and one episode of his series on 
> baseball, and had enough of Ken Burns to last me 
> a lifetime.  I just do not like his approach or 
> his work.  Others obviously love him and he is 
> very successful.  Taste is just a matter of 
> taste, and there is no argument over it:  my 
> mother loved murder mysteries and suspense 
> stories but disliked Alfred Hitchcock's work.  Go figure.
> 
> Several points:
> 
> First, there is a huge archive of wartime 
> photography, especially in the holdings of the 
> British, USians, and Italians.  Much of it really 
> hasn't been watched since it was shot.  Burns is 
> to be commended for having gone through a lot of 
> the holdings in the US Archives, though by his 
> own admission, he barely scraped the surface of what is there.
> 
> Second, we all know that color is for happy-snaps 
> of the family and black & white is for art.  <he 
> grins>  I am enough of a snob to use 
> schwarz-weiss as my default choice.  Besides, 
> black & white is more fun to print.
> 
> Third, all of the various Armies in the Second 
> World War regularly took color footage.  A lot of 
> this has faded and is best shown today in black & 
> white.  The Germans tended to use Agfacolor, 
> which has not held up well, while the Allies 
> tended to use Kodachrome which is a lot more 
> resistant to decay.  I still have the shots made 
> by my father of the unit he commanded, G/260th CA 
> (AA), in Alaska in 1942 - 1943.  (I recently 
> offered to bring this to a unit reunion to show 
> them, only to be reminded that the last veteran 
> from that time had died in January of this year.)
> 
> Fourth, I own a bunch of Rollei gear but I also 
> own a bunch of Leica gear.  I use both for both 
> color and black & white work:  in the end, most 
> of my color work is probably done either with my 
> M6 Wetzlar or with my Hasselblad SWC.
> 
> I really admire combat photographers but have not 
> the slightest desire to join their ranks!
> 
> Marc
> 
> 
> msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
> 
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