Perfectly touch up black M9 finish

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There is a fine line between genius and compulsion, between obsession and creativity.

 

You make it sound like artists don't work at anything but just turn up in a studio and as if by magic art appears? Without compulsion there would be no genius, without obsession there would be no creativity. Winogrand didn't shot thousands of rolls of film because he was a snapshooter with a complusion, he was working at something, like all artists do, work. Its the same in any branch of life were an individual has the complusion to go on and express themselves. A golfer rarely wins an Open Championship and retires on the profits, he's out next day with his coach working on his game. A snapshooter on the other hand can dine out for years on the one photo he was lucky enough to make that is any good.

 

Steve

[M. Valdemar]

And just think of how much better his photos would have been if he had touched up the paint on his cameras.

 

You make it sound like artists don't work at anything but just turn up in a studio and as if by magic art appears? Without compulsion there would be no genius, without obsession there would be no creativity. Winogrand didn't shot thousands of rolls of film because he was a snapshooter with a complusion, he was working at something, like all artists do, work. Its the same in any branch of life were an individual has the complusion to go on and express themselves. A golfer rarely wins an Open Championship and retires on the profits, he's out next day with his coach working on his game. A snapshooter on the other hand can dine out for years on the one photo he was lucky enough to make that is any good.

 

Steve

[Double Negative]

...There is a fine line between genius and compulsion, between obsession and creativity.

 

Sounds like a fragrance commercial from Calvin Klein.

[brill64]

 

there's a fine line between most things in life but even that in itself can emerge as an art form. could that in itself not be regarded as genius? after many years of incessantly doing the same thing, his excitement probably lay in the act of what he was doing, rather than an envisioned end result and his camera would end up an extension of his finely tuned impulsive and intuitive compulsion and actions .personally, i doubt i would look at everything. perhaps this and that moment i remembered as interesting for one reason or another. following through with that, i doubt he cared very much about recognition for his work. he probably had an agent to do most of the arduous sifting, cataloging, contacting, selecting, printing, publishing and exhibiting. another thought is that much of what he did was too contemporary or not very interesting in the art market, compared with other stuff going on around his prolific earlier years and it was not until much later that his work caught people's attention. by this time, the act of stuffing film in drawers would have become increasingly his habit and a way of preserving in a safe place. all conjecture, of course..

[Guido]

And just think of how much better his photos would have been if he had touched up the paint on his cameras.

Who knows? Some argue that the tool inspires the artist.

[d2mini]

Brass means nothing: your photos do.

 

What about photos of my brass?

[sblutter]

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Thanks - I made some annoying scratches when changing from red to black dot - a friend spotted them immediately - argh!

 

Does it matter? Of course not but it'll please me, and I'm good with tiny paint fills.

 

I used to have fun sculpting in broken vulcanite with melted black crayons on my M3's - still holding up for years

[Juseno]

Winogrand's photos that we are familiar with were taken 20+yrs ago and they still amaze me. He was a driven photographer....Clearly did need camera touch up paint though...

[Washington]

Speaking of brass. I wonder what a ‘’steam-punk’’ M-9 would look like?

[bondipix]

I despair. Garry Winogrand was one of the most important and respected photographers of his generation. And to photographers such as myself, he is in the top ten of greatest photographers of all time. He was a photographer (not a camera collector) and he lived for his work. He was not inclined to worry about little bits of brass showing through on his cameras. They were the tools which allowed him to work.

Now I have never heard of you M. Valdemar. I don't have any photographic reference on which to base an opinion of you as a photographer. No references to your photographic genius, no books by you that I can find... How strange. I thought that given your thoughtful pronouncements on Winogrand there was bound to be some snippet proclaiming your expertise. In psychology perhaps? No?

The very nature of your thread sums you up perfectly; "nut job"? I'd say that using some antique restorer to keep your M9 all shiny and new makes you the nutter. Get a life.

 

I have a burning desire to see what things look like photographed by me. - Garry Winogrand - said when he was asked why he photographs.

 

Cheers,

Jon

Jon Lister Photographer

[M. Valdemar]

I looked at your website and some of your photos are pretty good. A lot of them reflect your feelings of your superiority over the masses. Also, I'm not very sympathetic to Palestinians, but that's a matter of politics, not art, if you want to separate the two.

 

 

Having said that, we are taking Winogrand a little too seriously, aren't we? And speaking of psychology, you seem to know quite a bit about Winogrand's thought processes, and what he was worried about and not worried about.

 

I'm not surprised you have not heard of me. You may not be a big reader of American literature. Perhaps that's because I am nothing more than a nearly liquid mass of loathsome -- of detestable putridity.

 

My photos have mostly been published in magazines. I am not a website-maker or Flickr aficionado. I am not interested in public internet display or discussion of my photos. Maybe my photos stink, I don't know. And.....I'm a CAMERA COLLECTOR. I like cameras, that is true. I'm one of those terrible dilettantes who doesn't confine himself to a couple of beat-up old "tool cameras" to show my dedication as a "serious artiste". You, on the other hand, I'm sure are a serious artiste who SMIRKS at cameras kept in good condition.

 

Anyway, I am about to be locked up because I am barking mad....I was caught touching up a couple of cameras by the "serious photography" patrol. They accused me of being a rich dentist who only takes out of focus pictures of cats and my Porsche. I have no life. I spend every waking moment obsessed, examining all my cameras with a microscope looking for brassing, which I then must touch up. It is never ending, a sort of Gehenna. My raison d'etre, which Mr. Lister has cleverly deduced from my OP, is keeping my M9, which I do not deserve, because I do not have a website like Mr. Lister, immaculate.

 

Cheers

Valdemar

M. Valdemar - poseur, non-serious photographer and insane toucher-upper. My shame in life is that I will never be as pure and dedicated to art as the self-anointed Jon Lister.

 

 

I despair. Garry Winogrand was one of the most important and respected photographers of his generation. And to photographers such as myself, he is in the top ten of greatest photographers of all time. He was a photographer (not a camera collector) and he lived for his work. He was not inclined to worry about little bits of brass showing through on his cameras. They were the tools which allowed him to work.

Now I have never heard of you M. Valdemar. I don't have any photographic reference on which to base an opinion of you as a photographer. No references to your photographic genius, no books by you that I can find... How strange. I thought that given your thoughtful pronouncements on Winogrand there was bound to be some snippet proclaiming your expertise. In psychology perhaps? No?

The very nature of your thread sums you up perfectly; "nut job"? I'd say that using some antique restorer to keep your M9 all shiny and new makes you the nutter. Get a life.

 

I have a burning desire to see what things look like photographed by me. - Garry Winogrand - said when he was asked why he photographs.

 

Cheers,

Jon

Jon Lister Photographer

[M. Valdemar]

Speaking of brass. I wonder what a ‘’steam-punk’’ M-9 would look like?

 

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[zlatkob]

Winogrand most certainly looked at his negatives. He explained that he liked to put off the review for some time, so that his memory of the actual scene had faded. (I know that I have a more objective view of my photos if some time has passed since I've taken them.)

 

The fact that he left so many negatives unprocessed has more to do with his early death than with some craziness. "Spent most of his waking hours snapping photos one after another without even looking at is negatives" is such a pejorative description, and an unfair exaggeration. I really wouldn't fault a talented photographer for shooting a lot. I would fault many photographers for not shooting enough.

[M. Valdemar]

Three monkeys with typewriters.....

[Double Negative]

Three monkeys with typewriters.....

 

Well, so far - Shakespeare this ain't!

[xrogers]

Winogrand most certainly looked at his negatives. He explained that he liked to put off the review for some time, so that his memory of the actual scene had faded. (I know that I have a more objective view of my photos if some time has passed since I've taken them.)

 

I understand that Winogrand's huge store of undeveloped film was nothing more than a reflection of his workflow. He shot ten rolls of film per day, and developed the film one year after shooting for exactly the reasons you state---to keep from prejudicing his evaluation of what shots were really worth printing. This editing step was critical to his approach---he knowingly and intentionally kept a backlog of around 3000 rolls of film, and apparently developed and looked at every shot he took (leaving the backlog upon his untimely death).

 

An approach that puts priority on composition and interplay of light and dark may leave little time to precisely consider the subject, but a later editing step can evaluate the full image at greater length. If lots of shots was all it took to be a good photographer, with digital we would see a lot more great work than we do today. In my book he was more than just lucky.

 

Valdemar, I have no trouble with people touching up a beautiful camera, even if I don't feel the need. Thanks for the tip!

 

Later,

 

Clyde

[mwilliamsphotography]

Sounds like a bunch of schoolyard adolescents with expensive cameras and decent vocabularies ... LOL!

 

Battle scars are cool until you go to sell a M ... unless you are very famous, which none of us are ... a distinction some here are quick to point out as if they assume the mantle of the famous by evoking their name.

 

Caring for your tools and shooting a lot, or shooting well, are not mutually exclusive ideas.

 

I shoot my M9s a lot, but place them back in the bag wrapped in large microfiber cloth because Leica decided black paint was sexier (read: cheaper) than tougher black chrome. I'm no fool, I KNOW I will someday sell these cameras for a 30+ meg M10. Pristine fetches LOT more than battle scars ... and that is a fact.

 

My thanks to the OP for the repair tip.

 

Winogrand? Love his work, or not... both are valid opinions. Personally, I don't like anyone's work because someone says I should. I wouldn't buy one of his beat to death cameras, any more than I'd pay a premium for a perfect one from Seal. Both are odd ideas IMO.

 

-Marc

[Washington]

M. Valdermar,

Naaaah, that ain’t ‘’steampunk’’. Steampunk would be more like total polished

brass with vintage typewriter keys instead of buttons…. or something like that.