D 19088 F
3. 2017
APRIL
D 7,50 € NL B L 8,70 € I 8,80 € SEK 96,00
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Roberto Salgo ENGLISH EDITION
4 198801 1 1 307506 3 6
Sarah Caron
L E I C A F O T O G R A F I E I N T E R N AT I O N A L
Bruce Gilden
Richard Sandler
Winner of the TIPA Award
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Selected by the Editors of 28 International Photography Magazines
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Lfi 3. 2017
p o rt f o l i o l i g h t b ox
F / s to p
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80 | M and colour
20 000 photographers present over 300 000 pictures in the LFI Gallery. This time, Alice in a maze, different addictions and a visual road to photography
With the M10, Leica open up a new chapter in colour rendition: reason enough to take a close look at the colour characteristics of digital M cameras and the Leica SL
P h oto
8 6 | S u m m i l u x- SL 5 0 A lot of glass, but the autofocus is still fast – the first lens with fixed focal length for the Leica SL. Eleven lenses including two aspheric ones, ensure best imaging performance
104 | Exhibitions
The S Magazine Lookbook: the Tussie-Mussies series by René & Radka
Autophoto, Paris; Larry Sultan, San Francisco; Scarlett Hooft Graafland, London; Irving Penn, New York; Helmut Newton, Nice 1 0 6 | F e s t i va l s
9 0 | H u aw e i P 1 0 At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona the Chinese technology corporation Huawei introduced its new flagship smartphones with Leica Dual Camera 2.0, the P10 and the P10 plus
Bruce Gilden 8 | D e t r o i t: Aga i n st T h e W i n d
“The people I choose to photograph are symbols” – a trip to Detroit with Bruce Gilden
Sarah Caron 2 4 | ka las h
The last of their kind: the remnants of the Kalash in the north-west of Pakistan fight for their culture
Willard Pate 38 | with Animals The first fixed focal length for the SL system, the Summilux-SL 50mm f/1.4 Asph
The real illusion of a world where the connection between people and animals is defined by love
Roberto Salgo 44 | Steel Life
Calm and deceleration, where there is usually smoke and noise: the industrial still lifes by Roberto Salgo
Lookbook 5 2 | s Ma g a z i n N o. 9
From France to Georgia: the Mois de la Photo du Grand Paris and Kolga Tbilisi 1 0 7 | L e i c a Ga l l e r i e s An overview of the programme of Leica Galleries around the world, with Toni Thorimbert, among others 108 | books New books by Giulio Rimondi, Peter van Agtmael, Thomas Hoepker, Emmanuel Georges and Mimi Mollica 1 1 0 | I n t e rv i e w Elisa Lees Muñoz, Executive Director of the International Women’s Media Foundation, about freedom of the press and women in the media industry 114 | my picture A laughing girl underlines PerAnders Pettersson’s memories of Soweto township 114 | imprint
Tasty morsels de luxe: 20 top-class portfolios reflecting the diversity of S/SL photography
Richard Sandler 68 | the eyes of the city
At a time when New York was still dirty: Richard Sandler documented the wild decades in his home town
Cover photo: Focus on Detroit © Bruce Gilden, Magnum Photos
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LFI W o r k s h o p
LFI A pp
D e c l i n at i o n o f a n a r rat i v e
LFI A r c h i v e s
T e a c h e r : c é d r i c G e r b e h ay e
For the past year, we have been successively expanding LFI’s digital archives, which will include every issue of the LFI magazine since 1949. The issues from the first twenty years are currently available in the LFI App for iPads. Others will follow. Browse through all imagery from former decades and discover long-forgotten treasures of Leica photography. The magazines are available for 99 cents per issue. Issues 2/1954 and 2/1967 are available to download for free for test readings. apple.co/1D2tHDR
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L f i o n i n s tag ra m
The D’entre eux series reveals the Belgian photographer Cédric Gerbehaye’s perspective on his homeland
When the intention is to tell a story with pictures, every step along the way is a fundamental one – from the writing of an exposé to its elaboration, from scouting around for locations to taking the photographs, from having a first look at the pictures to making the final selection. During Cédric Gerbehaye’s workshop from June 30 to July 2, 2017, he will be looking into these different aspects and, in addition to portfolio reviews and a presentation of hs own work, will also prepare 4 |
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practical exercises for the participants. The Belgian photographer has received numerous awards for his work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including a World Press Photo Award. His D’entre eux series is featured in issue No. 4 of the M Magazine. Further LFI Workshops are being planned, including a sequel to a series with Dominic Nahr and a weekend with Peter Bialobrzeski, professor of Photography at the University of Arts Bremen. lfi-online.com/workshops
Following the successful launch of the S Magazine on instagram (instagram.com/leica_s_magazine), an LFI account has now recently been established as well. In addition to traditional contributions, we will also be giving renowned photographers the chance to make use of this social media channel, presenting a temporary take-over of their projects and pictures on this platform. Look forward to unique images and fascinating stories and follow us at: @leica_fotografie_international
28,5 x 35 cm 240 Seiten Hardcover 46 Farb- und 203 Duplex-Fotografien Englisch / Deutsch / Französisch ISBN 978-3-8327-9864-2 € 98
www.teneues-buecher.de
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LFI Ga l l e r y
m u s i c p h oto c o n t e s t here are the winners
First place: Rodrigo Jardon – Black Lives Matter Movement in NYC
The LFI Gallery in collaboration with Edel AG launched another photography competition, this time for the second issue of the magazine, Vinyl Stories. As on the previous occasion, the assignment was to capture the statement of a song in a series of seven pictures. The photographers could choose between songs by Leonard Cohen, A Tribe Called Quest, Robbie Williams and Agnes Obel. First prize was awarded to the Mexican photographer Rodrigo Jardon, for his documentary-style series inspired by the song, We The People … by A Tribe Called Quest. The second prize went to Jonathan Castellino for his architecture series to Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker. Finally, the jury awarded the third prize to a poetic series by Mioara Chiparus to Agnes Obel’s song Citizen Of Glass. The winning series as well as other series will feature in the next issue of Vinyl Stories that will appear in May. lfi.gallery/musicphoto
Contributors
“I’d been dreaming of going into the Hindu Kush mountains to meet the Kalash tribe for about three years. But it’s a tough journey: access to the mountains in winter is impossible by road, and flying in is forbidden to foreigners. Then I heard about the Lowari Pass tunnel – 8.5 kms long and at an altitude of 3000 metres. This tunnel is only open for a few hours every week, to transport provisions to the inhabitants of the isolated valleys. So my husband and I finally decided to undertake the adventure.” 6 |
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R i c h a r d Sa n d l e r He is not only a great representative of street photography, but also a talented and passionate cook. “Both are handmade crafts,” explains Richard Sandler. “The place where I find so many similarities between cooking and photography is in my darkroom developing film and printing pictures: I’m cooking up chemical soups to transform silver halide crystals into food for the soul. Only kidding, but the darkroom sink does feel a lot like a stove... in both places a kind of alchemy happens.”
bruce Gilden
“The first time I went to Detroit in 2009 to work on my project about foreclosures in America, I felt inspired by the beauty of this tough and vibrant city, and promised myself to return at some point. Seven years went by, taking me to several places around the world, but in 2016, when Leica London offered to commission me, there was no hesitation: I immediately chose to go back to Detroit. Against The Wind is my ode to this great city that suffers and to its people who never give up.”
Photos: © Jean Marc Bar, © Mark Birnbaum, © Sinbad Phgura
SARAH C ARON
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De t r o i t: Ag a i n s t The wind LeicA M
Bruce Gilden
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Detroit – next to New York, of course – is the US city that particularly fascinates Bruce Gilden. In the sixties, Mowtown Music was the catalyst, today it is the unconditional will to survive of the people who have remained there. In 2009, he experienced the peak of the housing crisis, and now he has returned.
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”Today Detroit is still a very special city. I’m inspired by the beauty in this apocalyptic place, a place that not only breeds violence but also poor education and poverty. It’s a great city that suffers and yet has kept its soul. Detroit’s inhabitants, in their own ways, don’t give up.” Bruce Gilden
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Bruce Gilden Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow Up triggered Brooklyn-born (1946) Gilden’s fascination with photography. He photographed personal essays in England, Haiti, Ireland, Australia, India, Russia, Japan and Colombia, but always remained faithful to the streets of the big cities in the US. It was there that the Magnum member developed his confrontational but playful, socio-documentary-style street photography.
mag nu m photo s.co m LFI -O nl i n e .co m/ B lo g : Interview and slide-show with further pictures
Equipment: Leica M240 with Elmarit-M 28mm f/2.8 Asph and Summicron-M 35mm f/2 Asph
Bruce Gilden’s particular kinship with the city of Detroit goes back to the first trip he made there in 2009, while working on his project on foreclosures in America. The devastated city was an inevitable step in documenting the housing crisis. Once a city on top of the world, Detroit, until the debacle of the automobile industry in the early sixties, had 1.8 million inhabitants. Today, it has less than 700 000. “I had never seen such a thing in my life,” Gilden recalls. “It was like a war zone with rows and rows of well-built houses completely decrepit, and entirely abandoned neighbourhoods”. “Still,” adds Gilden, “I found beauty in this apocalyptic place that not only breeds violence but also poor education and poverty.” For Gilden, ‘the D’ – as its inhabitants affectionately call it – “is a great city that suffers and yet has kept its soul”. When he returned in July 2016, Gilden again felt an immediate connection with the spirit of the city and the resilience of those left behind after decades and decades of deeper and deeper decline. Since his last visit, the city of Detroit had filed for bankruptcy and come out of it successfully, and a new effort of ‘urban revitalization’ is under way. According to the photographer, “only the central downtown has changed to some extent, and Detroit is still a partial ghost town”. “Yet,” says Gilden, “no matter how down at the heel some of the people are, they’re still vibrant. Alive and tough, because to survive this place you need to be tough.” Today the city of Detroit has the largest Black majority (84%) of any other major city in the nation, and is also one of the most segregated. After the tragic riots of 1967, 90% of the white population took off to the suburbs, leaving their city behind. For Americans in general, and for American photographer Bruce Gilden, Detroit occupies a very special place in history and popular culture. “It’s hard to believe that forty, fifty years ago this was a major city, a shining example of the American middle class, and a prosperous epicenter of industry and creativity,” says Gilden, talking
about the splendid ‘Motor City’ created around the giant plants of the automobile manufacturers. Later in the sixties, the aura of Detroit took a musical turn in Gilden’s heart with the records produced by the Motown label. “The Temptations, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Smokey Robinson, The Four Tops and Bob Seger’s Against The Wind, my favorite song – they all come from Detroit!” he points out enthusiastically. Driving randomly around the neighbourhoods, Gilden noticed “a lot of liquor stores and a lot of closed churches”. In his Detroit, there is a man getting baptised right there in the open by a religious group that gives out food and clothing, and another one carrying his newspaper, The Final Call, with this headline: ‘A Deadly Love Affair With Guns’. “ The people I choose to photograph are symbols, they convey my personal comment on society,” Gilden explains, adding in the same breath, “I hate politics!” Yet, Gilden chose to photograph Detroit, the most brutal metaphor of economic failure, racism and politics in America. “I like when the viewer invents a little story about my pictures,” he continues. What happened in the life of this young white woman, posing like the fashion model she was in better days? Why is Reubin sitting in that lot, all dressed in black, rather than in one of the parks around? Reubin is Detroit, and so is Yaya, the nonchalant and sculptural beauty basking in the sun, enjoying a smoke. Firmly planted on her chair, she seems to proclaim, “This city belongs to me and I belong here!” And then, here is Gilden’s favourite photograph. “The strongest one,” he says. “The old man all bent and broken by a lifetime of labour and hardship. His eyes open at ground level, he has seen it all: the closing of the plants, poverty and crime setting in, the riots, the crack cocaine epidemic, and the blight … still running against the wind.” Sophie Darmaillacq-Gilden
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The Bumburet Valley in the Hindu Kush in the north-west of Pakistan, where the last remnants of the Kalash people live at 1500 metres above sea level
LeicA Q
Sarah Caron
KALAS H
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The last remnants of the Kalash people live in isolation in a few valleys in the north-west of Pakistan. Their numbers are calculated at around 4100 – and they continue to fall. Conversion to Islam is accelerating the demise of their culture and this does not bode well for the future. How can the Kalash people preserve their heritage?
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The road to the Kalash villages crosses over the Malakand Pass (above). Distant from the regional capital of Chitral, the people live in simple wooden huts. Traditions that are thousands of years old play a role in daily life. Women and girls always wear headgear decorated with beads and shells lFI
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Clockwise from the left: At the offices of Kalash Online News; the Gandaho, decorated wooden sculptures, represent Kalash ancestors – many were stolen, sold or destroyed; presentation of gifts at a wedding; because many Kalash have converted to Islam, mosques are now also found in the villages lFI
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Above: Gulshan and her daughter have come to Chitral. With around 20 000 inhabitants it is the capital of the district that carries the same name. The culture here is very Islamic – you rarely see women on the streets. Below: Two Moslems prepare for the evening prayer
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Sidona timidly rearranges her scarf and covers the lower part of her face. The gesture is furtive, modest but curious, the young girl with ash blond hair stares with hypnotic ice blue eyes: a brief moment where time stands still. Around her, other children continue playing. On this mountain slope where the earth is hardened by cold, ten young Kalash girls play a form of cricket, hitting a plastic bottle with branches. Wrapped up in traditional costumes – long black tunics with multi-coloured embroidery in pinks, yellows, greens or orange, and headdresses called the shushute, decorated with pearls and shells – the girls race up and down the rocky slope. Smoke from the surrounding houses fills the air with a smell of cedar, stinging eyes and nose, whilst in the distance a setting sun bathes the valley in a pearly light. As the last rays of sun disappear behind snowy mountain peaks, the children split up and make their way to their homes. The silence of twilight is broken by the neighbouring mosque’s loudspeaker calling the faithful to the fourth prayer of the day. “Thirty years ago there was no mosque here,” says Buto, father of a Kalash family, who makes the most of the last glimmer of light to enjoy a cigarette in the open air. This is the valley of Bumburet at the boundary of the Pakistani Hindu Kush, less than ten kilometres from Afghanistan, to the east of the Durand line. A mythic place where the beauty of the landscape is inexpressible; a unique energy which pushes you towards adventure and discovery. Along with Birir and Rumbur, Bumburet is one of the three valleys in northern Pakistan to still shelter the Kalash, an Indo-Aryan animistic and polytheistic people, who for years have fascinated travellers and explorers. It is impossible to not be enthralled by these light-eyed, light-haired people, lost in the Hindu Kush; or not be intrigued by their complex pantheon of gods and their different mystic
festivals where the spirits of the dead come to dance in the giant mountains. It is also impossible not to be aware of the dangers the Kalash face. “We were many more before,” Buto tells us, “but today we are only a handful, and soon our culture and our traditions will probably disappear.” There were around 40 000 in 1950, but today only around 4100 remain. At the current rate they will probably be wiped out within 50 years. The reason for this rapid decrease? The conversion to Islam, the state religion of Pakistan since its founding in 1947. The proliferation of mosques in the last Kalash valleys is the visible proof of aggressive attempts at conversion by certain Mollahs who cannot tolerate the presence of these last kuffar (literally ‘non believers’) and even less their customs, like the cultivation of wine and the lack of obligation for the women to wear veils. It is a cruel irony, because the presence of the Kalash in these mountains dates back well before the birth of Islam. Even the origin of these people, enclosed within a country infected by radical Islam, is a subject of debate. For a long time, many travellers and journalists fantasized about a link between the Kalash and the army of Alexander the Great, who crossed the passes that separate Afghanistan from Pakistan. For a long time, historians and ethnologists could find no tangible traces proving the relationship and, accordingly, negated this seductive theory. Still in 2014, an article published in the renowned magazine Science, speaks of a genetic study linking the DNA of the Kalash, to the populations between BC 990 and 210 of what are today Germany and Austria, an era corresponding to the time when Alexander passed through the region. The vast Chitral region in the north of the Khyber Paktunkhwa province, where the three valleys of Rumbur, Birir and Bumburet are found, has long been a refuge for the Taliban – the American army believed that Bin Laden was hiding there after Sep-
tember 11. Strategically situated, the district of Chitral is a doorway into China, Indian Kashmir, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. If in the past the valleys attracted tourists, today it is nearly impossible for a foreigner to access them. This geographical isolation, which previously protected them, has become a trap where the Kalash are now cornered and persecuted. Because, even if the majority of Muslims show a polite tolerance towards their culture, they are, in fact, the Kalash’s only neighbours and thus the only available marriage partners. As much as possible, the qazi, shamans and guardians of the Kalash way of life, do everything to avoid too many marriages between the same families to avoid the risks of consanguinity. “When a girl marries a Muslim, she can no longer wear the shushute nor participate in our cultural festivals,” explains Taleem Shan, a young Kalash living in Salonika in Greece where he is studying languages. Sitting on the terrace of a café in Chitral where he is visiting his family, Taleem continues to speak about the sad reality that he sees for his people. On the horizon, the Tirich Mir overlooks the rocky valley where cultivated terraces are scattered with green. Outlined against the sublime, panoramic view of this ancient Kalash kingdom however, is a coral-coloured, triple-domed mosque with two minarets. “We have never seen a Muslim become a Kalash. That’s impossible,” Taleem tells us. “Conversions only go one way, and here a marriage automatically means conversion. If we could marry someone from any other religion, it would be different. Until 2015 the Kalash religion was not even recognized by the Pakistani State. The mention ‘other’ was written on our ID cards.” Secularity is a foreign concept in Pakistan. And the list of pressures aiming to smother the Kalash community is long and varied. “Muslims come, →
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sometimes from far away, to try to convince us to abandon our traditions, to tell the girls to cover themselves or to tell mothers their children will not go to heaven if they do not convert, or even that our practices cause natural disasters.” In summer 2015, heavy flooding in the Chitral valley destroyed a number of houses and carried away entire flocks of sheep. “They accuse us of being responsible! What’s amusing is that no Kalash house was touched,” Taleem confides laughing. “Most of the adults ignore those people and the absurd ideas they spread, but children are more easily influenced. Once again this is only a minority of Muslims. Here in Chitral, most of them tolerate us and do not really create any problems for us.” But this noisy minority will no doubt overwhelm the ‘infidels’. When we travelled through Bumburet we met two Muslim women, come exclusively to ‘spread the Word’. They refused to be photographed and would not speak to us. In the same way, when we were walking with Kalash women coming to the market in Chitral, even when they hid their shushute under a scarf, everyone stared at them. Another point of pressure, which a minority of the Muslim community do not hesitate to use against the Kalash, is money. The stories of fraud, where a piece of land is exchanged for trinkets are not rare. They remind us of techniques used by the conquistadors with the Amerindians. “We do not have a culture of commerce and business,” Luke Rehmat, a Kalash activist tells us. “In fact, most of the guest houses and hotels for tourists throughout the valley are run by Muslims.” In particular, Luke helped set up an information network called Kalashi Ishpata News, various workshops helping to train people in the use of computers, and a medical and vaccination centre run
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by a Kalash doctor. “Another problem is that our rituals can be very expensive: at a wedding our custom is to sacrifice a goat for every four guests, for a funeral we sacrifice over twenty, sometimes, even fifty, and we bring all sorts of cheeses and fruits.” To be able to maintain their traditions, inhabitants of a village increasingly tend to pool resources to share the costs. “Some older people choose to convert to save their families the expense of a traditional funeral.” The disappearance of the Kalash culture means the loss of a three thousand year-old heritage – the roots of their Dardic language go back 1000 years before Jesus Christ. And even if these kuffar have been persecuted over the last centuries, there is still a glimpse of hope for this unique and fascinating people. Over the last few years, Kalash activists like Luke Rehmat have been trying to register their valleys and their culture with UNESCO for the protection of a world heritage in peril. A long and tiresome process, which may be helped by the recent ascent to power of the Pakistani Movement for Justice (PTI) in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2013. Rapidly becoming the first major opposition party in Pakistan, the PTI’s projects include the conservation of this ethnic group. “The main needs of the Kalash are access to education and the protection of their environment,” Ali Amin Khan Gandapur, Minister of Finance for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, explains. “Since setting up our government, we have made education and health our priorities and this even with our limited resources. Not forgetting security, which we have strengthened in all the valleys of the Chitral district, without which the Kalash culture can not endure.” A slim hope this population must cling to whilst continuing to resist the numerous pressures upon them. A resilience growing increasingly fragile: in the one month alone, when we visited the Kalash people in the Chitral area, more than fifteen conversions were recorded in these lost valleys. vincent jolly
Sarah Caron The French photographer has been producing reportages in various areas of conflict for the past 20 years. In addition to assignments for international magazines, she also does her own projects, above all since 2007 in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Among others, her works has been recognised with the Visa pour l’Image Female Photojournalist Award and the Getty Images Grant for Editorial Photography. www.sarah caron .f r Equipment: Leica Q, Summilux 28mm f/1.7 Asph
Vin ce n t Jolly
Vincent Jolly is a reporter for the Le Figaro Magazine. As a full-time employee, he is also involved in the yearly festival for international photojournalism in Perpignan, Visa pour l’Image.
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LeicA M
Willard Pate with animals
On her various trips to Cuba and South America, the US photographer captured both people and animals sharing a common habitat. She reveals their love for each other, and their desire to maintain this connection.
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Intuitive compositions, luck and chance: these are the three things Willard Pate needs when taking pictures. She only sees the outcome when the pictures have been printed. The American photographs with film
This world appears like a dream. A dog keeps guard peacefully behind his shepherd; a lama stands in front of a backdrop of mountains, like kitschy wallpaper; a newly hatched chick experiences its first moments in a human’s comforting lap. Willard Pate’s With Animals creates the impression of an illusion: a journey deep into the past where people and animals lived together in harmony. In the black and white images we see the lively and the fictitious, wild animals and domesticated ones. In his 150 year-old poem, Song of Myself, American poet Walt Whitman described their pure natures saying: ‘I think I could turn and live with animals, they are
so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition.’ The words ‘with animals’ gave Pate’s project its title. Pate loves poetry. She is a Professor of English at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. In 2001, she became involved with photography and met the Italian photographer Ernesto Bazan in Cuba. He was living there at the time and teaching black and white photography. Pate gave his workshop as the reason for her travel because back then it was difficult for US citizens to visit the socialist island in the Caribbean. While there, she photographed Hemingway’s villa, his favourite bar and his boat, Pilar. And she met Bazan. “I consider Ernesto my most important mentor,”
she explains. “He makes it possible to go beyond the clichés of cultures. His vast knowledge of South America and Cuba makes it possible for me to meet people and have experiences I simply would not have on my own.” Subsequently she has attended another 25 of his workshops in Sicily, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Cuba. Instead of dancing girls at the Carnival in Rio, she photographed hard-working fishermen; in the lofty peaks of Peru, she captured shepherds herding their flocks. Later on, when working on a joint book project with Bazan, she was looking for a theme to connect all her work, a common thread as yet unrecognised. →
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In most of the images, Willard Pate sees a reciprocal love, a communion between people and animals. One picture shows a man carrying a pig on his shoulders. He had previously stepped on the animal
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W i l l a r d Pat e Willard Pate is a Professor of English, specialising in American literature, at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. A meeting with the Italian photographer Ernesto Bazan during one of his workshops in Havana in 2001 changed her life. Since then she has been travelling the world with a Leica M 6 and 7, exhibiting her work internationally. Her book, With Animals, appeared in 2015.
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The poverty of rural life is also reflected in Pate’s photographs, where shelter is also working space. The symbiosis between people and animals still has another meaning there
“I love animals,” she says. “There are probably many explanations for my love of animals but the one that comes most quickly to my mind is that animals of all kinds were a natural part of my childhood.” Cats, dogs, sheep, goats, were a part of life as she grew up in rural Georgia, USA. Moles ploughed the ground, cows were plugged into milking machines and pigs were slaughtered when the first frosts arrived. “That kind of world made me conscious of the inter-connectedness of human beings, animals, and the earth. It’s not the same for people whose experience of a cow begins with a cellophane wrapped package in the super market.”
With mysterious intimations and different perspectives, Pate stages her thoughts about the communion between people and animals. Sometimes people are at the forefront, at others only an arm or a leg is visible. The impression is that Pate shows things from an animal’s perspective, gazing at its unadorned surroundings. In addition to a love of landscapes, the use of black and white makes the poverty of the inhabitants visible. “I prefer the look of black and white for almost all subjects that I am drawn to photographing,” she explains. “When I hold a camera to my eye I do not see myself trying to record a ‘slice of life’, but rather to ‘construct’ an artefact that speaks the truth about life. Grey tones can convey or elicit volumes of emotional or psychological truth.”
Her favourite picture shows a shepherd with his dog sitting on a hill. Pate was out of breath after climbing the hill and had to wait for a long time before the dog placed itself most propitiously in relation to its owner. The image is on the cover of her book, and reflects the overlapping of the habitat of people and animals. Nature and the landscape appear to offer shelter: a place where reciprocal caring can lead to happiness. Katja Hübner
with An imal s: 110 pages, 26 × 25,4 cm, 49 B&W pictures, BazanPhotos Publishing Equipment: Leica M6 and M7 with Summicron-
M 28, 35 und 50mm f/2, Kodak Tri-X 400
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Roberto Salgo Steel Life
Steel monsters, white mountains and faded colours – landscapes that few tourists in Sardinia will ever get to admire. With his industrial images, Italian photographer Robert Salgo has turned the factories and harbours of the island into monuments.
At a first glimpse, what looks like a ship in the snow turns out to be a freighter at Santa Giusta industrial port in Oristano, Sardinia, loading expanded perlite
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Loading crane at the Oristano industrial port; salt works in Sant’Antioco; fluorite factory in the Macchiareddu industrial complex near Cagliari (clockwise from the left). All the pictures in the Steel Life series were taken in Sardinia
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Expanded perlite warehouse at the Oristano industrial port; view of the Sant’Antioco industrial port; the Macchiareddu industrial complex near Cagliari (clockwise from the left). Next page: the Keller wagon factory in Villacidro, which, before going bankrupt, produced carriages for the Italian state railway
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Roberto Salgo Born in Cagliari, Sardinia, in 1959, the photographer began his career in 1995. His reportages from around the world appear in Italian travel magazines. Another focus of his work is set and theatre photography. Salgo has exhibited in Mexico City and Modena, among other places, and one of his Steel Life pictures afforded him an honourable mention at the 2016 International Photography Awards.
ro b e rto sa lg o. it LFI -O nl i n e . D E / B lo g : Slideshow with more pictures from the Series
Equipment: Leica M-P240 with Summicron-M 35mm f/2 and Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Asph
In his 1909 Manifesto of Futurism, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti rejoiced by declaring, “We will sing of the vibrant nightly fervour of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons … factories hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke.” Marinetti, pretty much intoxicated by the speed in which the second industrial revolution was laying down tracks, could hardly have imagined that, just one century later, many people would see the West as virtually de-industrialised. Many factories have moved to Asia and the expression ‘post industrial’ is gaining a foothold in Europe and North America, but it is little more than one of the legends of our ‘post-factual’ era. Of course, a significant part of the added value of western societies continues to be based on industrial processes. However, the industries are no longer the same as they were previously. The factories ‘hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke’ are fewer and, on the whole, shipyards now mostly play a role in the leisure industry. The large industrial landscapes, where the production and processing of raw materials defined the image of a whole region – and certainly not in the manner idealised by Marinetti – have disappeared. The places where industrial regimes reigned have become ruined landscapes. Only long and arduous processes can restore them to habitable conditions – unless, of course, it is better to let them decay further for financial reasons. Roberto Salgo used Marinetti’s quote for the catalogue complementing the exhibition of his Steel Life series. Born in Sardinia and still resident there, the Italian photographer has been taking pictures of his native island for the past two years. The series’ title was chosen deliberately, a nuance in the wording turns steel life into still life. That is what Salgo is photographing: industrial still lifes. “My need for quiet drives me to look for large spaces, occupied by buildings of steel and dust, where people worked with raw materials. I find it in landscapes defined by industry, beyond the noise emitted from factories.” In this sense, Marinetti does fit into this unconventional and paradoxical perception of industrial complexes as places of retreat. His manifesto could be understood as more than just a proto-fascist pamphlet. The Marinetti quote can be seen as a naive ode to the blessing of progress. Salgo has produced enchantingly beautiful images that seem to have fallen out of time: a ship appearing to glide through mountainous white waves, machines that are reminiscent of insects sunken in the snow and, time and again, steel constructions so pale in colour it would seem they have been bleached by the Mediterranean sun. Salgo says he wants to bring the fascination he feels for these sites to life. “By exploring their form and their content I can see what others can’t see, I can describe myself through the emotions these places trigger in me. I can show industrial reality, by offering the viewer a new visual experience.” The well-composed images – taken mostly with a 35mm lens – also produce a particular effect because the photographer desaturates the colours in post-production. “The reason for this,” Salgo explains, “is closely connected to the motivation with which I photograph industrial structures and landscapes. In particular, it is a need to convey the peace and harmony I feel when I am taking the pictures. I avoid bright colours and minimise the use of colour.” The photographer describes this approach as “black and white in colour”. Bernd Luxa
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L e i c A s | SL
l o o k b o o k The first S Magazine Lookbook is a compendium of 20 high-end portfolios reflecting the remarkable versatility of S photography. Acclaimed artists and emerging talents unleash their full potential in this trailblazing magazine.
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Don’t blame me for being coloured. An appeal for open-mindedness and tolerance: JOACHIM BALDAUF created a homage to our individuality Previous page: RUI FARIA evokes ancient Norse myths and rituals Arved Colvin-Smith turns faces into canvases for his colour and form experiments (right)
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renĂŠ & Radka pay tribute to the Victorian era, using their dreamlike tableaus to create enchanting fantasy worlds
Christian RINKe is looking for the atmosphere at the end of a great night of partying Next page: Bil Brown unites the decadence of 1930s Berlin with modern L.A. life
Benjamin Kaufmann explores the connection between classic beauty and Iceland’s Nordic landscapes (left) lFI
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Aglaja Brix & Florian Maas created a lascivious, Gothic-style allegory of a drop-out existence
Enrique Badulescu celebrates the colours and life on Tulum beach in Mexico (right)
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Monica Menez directed a racy story about an apparent love triangle Page 66: Esther Haase brings to life Serge Gainsbourg’s and Jane Birkin’s song Je t’aime… moi non plus
Elizaveta Porodina has visions of ballet girls that could have danced out of a Degas painting (right)
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S -M agaz i nE n o. 9 – Lo o kb o o k
With nine issues published to date, the S Magazine is a unique platform for photography bordering on fine art. The magazine is dedicated to groundbreaking fashion, beauty and portrait features created with the Leica S or SL. Learn more at s-magazine.photography 228 pages, 220 colour and black and white images, German or English. lfi-online.com/shop
I S S U E 9 · E N G L I S H E D I T I O N
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9,90 € · 12 US$ · 8 £ · 1.400 ¥ · 12 CHF
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Enrique Badulescu · Joachim Baldauf · Rui Faria · Esther Haase · Benjamin Kaufmann Arved Colvin-Smith · Elizaveta Porodina · James Meakin · Takahito Sasaki · René & Radka Monica Menez · Christian Geisselmann · Marie Hochhaus · Christian Rinke Aglaja Brix & Florian Maas · Bil Brown · Anna Daki · Hector Perez · Tristan Rösler S P E C I A L
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2 0 P hoto g ra p h ers Enrique Badulescu | Leica S Joachim Baldauf | Leica SL Aglaja Brix & Florian Maas | Leica S Bil Brown | Leica SL Arved Colvin-Smith | Leica S Anna Daki | Leica S Rui Faria | Leica S Christian Geisselmann | Leica S Esther Haase | Leica S Marie Hochhaus | Leica S Benjamin Kaufmann | Leica S James Meakin | Leica S Monica Menez | Leica SL Hector Perez | Leica S Elizaveta Porodina | Leica S Rene & Radka | Leica S Christian Rinke | Leica SL Tristan Rösler | Leica SL Takahito Sasaki | Leica S Ellen von Unwerth | Leica S
From breathtaking monographs to theme-driven features: the S Magazine and its accompanying digital platform are a playground for exceptional photographic achievements, with all work created exclusively for this publication. The outstanding image quality of the S and SL systems draws the viewer deep into an imaginary world, or may equally present them with a razor-sharp depiction of reality. Globally acclaimed photographers such as Rankin, Bruce Gilden and Ellen von Unwerth have previously showcased their skills in the magazine’s print edition or created digital features for its online platform. The upcoming issue of the S Magazine is dedicated to groundbreaking photography, allowing leading names of the contemporary photography scene and emerging new talents to unleash their creativity in state-of-the-art projects. Fashion and beauty photographer Rui Faria is based in London, where he has also founded the iconic fashion magazine Volt. Reduction and precision are vital focal points of his work. Inspired by the TV series The Vikings, the photographer’s S Magazine feature invokes ancient Norse rituals: under the title of Völur, he turned his models into shamanic female warriors who posed in the studio on real trees. His use of cinematic stylistic means gave rise to a magical atmosphere. Joachim Baldauf, German fashion photographer and publisher of Vorn magazine, created a campaign-style series centred around tolerance, openmindedness and sincerity. Don’t Blame Me For is a collection of predominantly black and white portraits, each of them featuring a different wording to complete the sentence. The concept arose from the thought that “we are billions of people who all look, think and feel differently”. The subjects portrayed in this series are not models. Instead, in his plea for individualism, Baldauf takes a stand against the ‘airbrushed fantasy world’ we are usually engulfed in by the media. The beauty of all that blooms prompted the German-Czech photographer duo René & Radka to embark
on a long-term project on springtime. With their dreamlike tableaus, the Los Angeles-based artists have created an enchanting fantasy world which also references the Victorian era, when people commonly used specific flowers as a discreet means to communicate their emotions. The young photographer duo Aglaja Brix and Florian Maas presented a lasciviously Gothic allegory of a drop-out lifestyle in both film and stills. When creating their feature Don’t Care with the Leica S, they let themselves be inspired by the existing environment on the site of the shoot. Enrique Badulescu, who is based in New York and Tulum, Mexico, ranks among the world’s leading contemporary beauty and fashion photographers. He has created ad-campaigns for companies such as Hermès and Dior. Expressive colours, strong contrasts of light and shadow, as well as movement and motion are distinctive elements of his individual style. Badulescu’s images and series captivate with their vitality. A closer look reveals that his subjects seem to communicate with the viewer. A fantastic Lookbook addition! Esther Haase, one of Germany’s most important contemporary fashion and portrait photographers, let her favourite song be the muse for her series Je t’aime – imagining Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin as they might have staged their relationship. Stuttgart-based fashion photographer Monica Menez uses clear-cut compositions and an eye for the absurd to capture her humorous scenes – preferably in pastel colours. Her series Bello, is a racy short-story about an apparent love triangle. The results are published both as a photo series and a film – an approach favoured by Menez in order to benefit from each medium’s expressive advantages. See the new S Magazine Lookbook for all mentioned features, and much more. Carla Susanne Erdmann
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LeicA Classic
Richard Sandler THE EYE S OF THE C ITY
Equipped with a Leica, he has been photographing New York City every day for over four decades. Now the fruit of his labours can be found in a new photo book. Sandler’s pictures offer a direct impression of New York City at a time when it was still loud, dangerous and full of contradictions.
Sign of the times: back in the day, the New York subway was completely covered in graffiti offering endless discoveries for the photographer. CC Train, NYC 1985
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Spontaneity and a strong sense of the moment: time and again Richard Sandler captured the contradictions of the city, always taking note of the smallest details, like in the picture on the right where the beggar’s Hungry sign is seen opposite the advertisement poster where Feed Me has been written across Kate Moss’s stomach. Skybo 7‘8“, 5th Ave., NYC circa 1987; Feed Me/Hungry, E. Village/57th St., NYC 1993; Tremont St., Boston, 1978; 5th Ave. & 55th St., NYC 1994; Bloomies Gal, 3rd Ave., NYC 1978 (clockwise from the top)
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Back then everyone wanted to go to the most famous nightclub in the world; founded in 1977, Studio 54 still remains a glitzy symbol of the eccentric and hedonistic life of the late seventies and eighties: Waiting Line, Studio 54, NYC 1981
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Sandler always photographed with Leica cameras. The initial IIIf was exchanged for an M2 in 1978, and in 1983 he added an M4P. He still continues to photograph with both cameras to this day, as they always allow him to take both direct and discreet street photographs. East Village, NYC 1996; E. 34th St., NYC 1980; Two Faces, 5th Ave., NYC 1989; St. Patrick’s Parade, 5th Ave., NYC 1990 and Black Nannies/White Tykes, SoHo, NYC 1982 (clockwise from the top left)
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“When I’m shooting, I’m trying to get under the skin of the time I’m living in, to make some sense of it, and my artist’s role in it.” W. 32nd St., NYC 1983 (left) and Two Dudes, 8th Ave., NYC 1989 (right)
You will be searching in vain if you look for Richard Sandler’s name in the great compendiums of street photography. In spite of that, the New York photographer is considered one of the classic proponents of the genre. This makes the first publication of his pictures in a great photo book all the more noteworthy. Maybe having a certain distance from his images was the necessary key to rediscovering his life’s work. The Eyes of the City brings together a collection of photographs taken between 1977 and 2001, most of them captured in New York, with just a few taken in Boston. This is appropriate because the photographer knows the metropolis like the back of his own hand. He was born there in 1946, grew up in Queens and was already exploring the streets of Manhattan as a child. “I just loved being out on the streets. Everything happened on the street.” Though he was interested in photography at an early age, a few decades would pass before he acknowledged it as his calling. Two encounters were to play a decisive role in his development as a photographer. The first was his meeting with Mary McClelland, who not only
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gave him her Leica IIIf in 1977 but also showed him how to develop film in the darkroom located in the house. At that time, Sandler was a lodger in the home of Mary and her husband, David McClelland, a renowned motivation psychologist and Harvard Professor. “And so I hit the streets and started shooting,” Sandler remembers. It was the perfect start for the talented young man: the rent was low and the guest list at weekly dinners was like a Who’s Who of prominent intellectuals from the seventies, from Buckminster Fuller and Gregory Bateson to John Cage. It is hardly surprising then, that Sandler dedicated The Eyes of the City to his photographic initiator, Mary McClelland. Sandler’s second encounter was even more significant: “That summer, 1977, I took a weekend workshop with Garry Winogrand and it changed my life. I think I learned almost everything I needed to know in those three brilliant days with him.” Until that time, Sandler had been working as a macrobiotic cook and an accredited acupuncturist, however, “After many years of ‘doing things for others’, I wanted to do something just for myself. That’s when photography became my obsession.” Sandler’s photographs are direct and ruthless. They have the ability to draw the viewer back to the →
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Richard Sandler Born in 1946, Sandler grew up in Forest Hills. Before discovering photography, he studied acupuncture from 1971 to 1973 in Kenilworth, England, with the renowned teacher J.R. Worsley. Prior to that he worked as a macrobiotic chef in Boston, Massachusetts, and he was part of an initiative promoting the distribution of organic produce in the USA. As of 1977 he began to work as a self-taught street photographer. Since then he has documented life in New York City, not only photographically but also as an independent filmmaker. Today he lives in the Catskills in New York State. The Eyes of the City is his first comprehen sive monograph.
THE EYES OF THE CITY
54995
9 781576 877876
Timing, skill, and talent all play an important role in creating a great photograph, but it is perhaps the most basic, primary element—the photographer’s eye—which is most crucial. In The Eyes of the City. Richard Sandler not only showcases decades-worth of his strong eye for street photography, but also the eyes of his subjects as he catches them looking into his camera at just the right moment. From 1977 to September 11, 2001, Richard regularly walked through Boston and New York City, encountering all that the streets had to offer, and the results are presented here, many for the first time. Sandler credits his fascination with street life to his years in New York as a teenager in the 1960s. Young Sandler, a frequent truant, spent much of his time in a very different Times Square than we know today. His quests were to buy illegal fireworks and visit the arcades and side shows, particularly Hubert’s Flea Circus on 42nd Street. Manhattan was was a cyclone of faces: some at play, many clearly suffering. All eyes, ears, and heart, Sandler was sensitive to it all as a kid peering into this adult world. Such early impressions would come to play a significant role in his later street photography. Living in Boston in 1977, and after two careers involved in helping others, as a natural foods chef and acupuncturist, Sandler realized an overwhelming desire to do something for himself, alone. As if on cue, a late-1940s Leica appeared in his life and he hit the Boston streets in an experimental mood. He shot in Boston for three productive years and then moved back home to photograph an edgy, nervous, angry, dangerous New York City. In the 1980s crime and crack were on the rise and their effects were devastating the city. Graffiti exploded onto surfaces everywhere and the Times Square, East Village, and Harlem streets were riddled with drugs, while in midtown the rich wore furs in vast numbers and “greed was good.” In the 1990s the city experienced drastic changes to lure in corporate interests and tourists and the results were directly felt on the streets as rents were raised and several neighborhoods were sanitized, making them ghosts of what, to many, made them formerly exciting. Throughout these turbulent and triumphant years Sandler paced the streets with all his knowledge of what the city was, ever on the lookout for what his eye connected to as the city transformed and changed the lives of everyone who lived in it. For better and for worse, one was simply “on the street” in public space, bathing in the comforts or terrors of the human sea, and Sandler’s work is the marbled evidence of this beauty mixing with decay as only his eyes could capture it.
RICHARD SANDLER FOREWORD BY DAVE
ISAY
AFTERWORD BY JONATHAN
AMES
$49.95 U.S./CAN
Th e Ey e s of th e C ity
180 pages, 116 black and white pictures; with a foreword by Dave Isay and an afterword by Jonathan Ames; published by powerHouse Books Exhibition: In October 2017, the Leica Store in New York City is presenting a selection of works by Richard Sandler. r i c h a r ds a n d l e r .c o m
Photos: © Richard Sandler/The Eyes of the City, powerHouse Books
Richard Sandler is a street photographer and documentary filmmaker. He has directed and shot eight non-fiction films, including The Gods of Times Square, Brave New York, and Radioactive City. Sandler’s still photographs are in the permanent collections of the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Historical Society, and the Houston Museum of Fine Art. He was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship for photography, a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship for filmmaking, and a New York State Council on the Arts fellowship also for filmmaking.
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the deeper it gets.” It was not easy to make selections for the recently completed book because of the sheer number of pictures to review combined with the need to find the right tone and a certain rhythm for the flow of the images. Working with editor Régina Monfort, who developed the sequence with Sandler, was decisive. Asked what he feels when he looks at his work today, his judgement is rather critical and melancholic. “What moves me especially, looking at my book now, is the fact that in those days people on the streets were present and awake: like it or not they/we had to bathe in the comforts and terrors of the ‘human sea’.” Mobile phones – which give the impression that nearly every pedestrian is remotely controlled – had not yet put in an appearance. From the photographer’s perspective, the streets of New York have become considerably less interesting. The publication of the book coincides with Sandler’s decision to leave the city. “The book was my epitaph to my New York life: to the NYC of old, and eventually to myself. I’m just happy to get out, to be in nature more, and to be in the mountains,” the photographer says. He currently lives in the Catskills about two hours drive from Manhattan. Yet referring to it as an epitaph is probably a bit too melancholic; after all, the photographer is on the go now just as much as he ever was. Consequently, he quickly corrects himself and says he would prefer the book to be seen as a eulogy to the life he led back then, which includes sweetness as well as sadness. “I don’t miss NYC because it has fundamentally changed: nowadays, it’s all about money, and only rich people and their children can live there, and those people are dull and boring. Street life in NYC has lost its ‘juice’ and is actually not so interesting any more. Sure, one can still take pictures on the street that reflect this time, but for me it’s a case of ‘been there, done that’ and I don’t want to repeat myself. These days I’m primarily a film maker anyway, though I still carry around my Leicas and take photos every day.” ULRICH RÜTER
THE EYES OF THE CITY
final decades of the 20th century. “The photographs depict a crazy time that’s still in limbo: too young to represent a historical record of the fuzzy past, and way too old to resemble contemporary culture, now moving at warp speed. They reveal a time just before the proliferation of computers, cell phones, pods, pads, digital cameras and the internet: there was no way to filter the realities of the broken city, and there was no refuge in virtual space. For better and for worse one was simply ‘on the street’ in public space.” Even to this day, the energy that drove the photographer can be felt when viewing his photos. He stepped right into the middle of the lives of everyday people, revealing all the societal and social contrasts that clashed on the streets of New York City. He looked into the tired faces of people on the subway at a time when the carriages were still completely covered in graffiti. He saw the beggar just as clearly as the lady on a shopping spree, showing off her fur coat. “Crime and crack were on the rise, rents were cheap, and tourists didn’t come here. Times Square and East Village streets were drugged-out and dangerous, but they were also home to thousands of artists and dozens of art galleries and music clubs. In mid-town the gaudy rich wore furs in unprecedented numbers, Ronald Reagan was president and, like now, ‘greed was good’. To some, the New York City of the recent past was a hell on earth, yet to others it was one of New York’s most fertile artistic periods. For me, the eighties streets were a photographic celebration and I danced with the city’s ghosts. I shot 4–5 rolls of film nearly every day.” With the distance created by several decades, the photographer takes a new look at his work and considers the delay in publication was a positive thing. “I’m glad I took this long. All the projects in my life have taken a long time. The longer a project takes,
f/ s top – l e i c a m – S u m m i l u x- S L 5 0 m m f/ 1 . 4 – h uaw e i p 1 0 –
S t ra i g h t to t h e to p : T h e S u m m i lux-S L , t h e f i r s t p r i m e l e n s i n t h e S L sys t e m , ra n ks a m o n g t h e e l i t e of Leica lenses
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a lo n g a n d w i n d i n g r oa d m colours
With the M10, Leica opens a new chapter in the saga about colour rendition in the M series of cameras. While colour is also a matter of taste, the stage appears to be set for a happy ending for all concerned.
The way the different models of the digital Leica M render colours is a subject we have touched on before. In LFI 6/2014 (The Colours of M & M) we provided a detailed comparison between the colour characteristics of the – then new – M240 and the M9. At the time there was a debate about ‘CMOS colours’ being different from ‘CCD colours’, a myth that needed to be busted. But while the supposedly different colour characteristics of CCD and CMOS sensor technologies do not exist, differences in the colours delivered by the M9 and M240 are quite real. It will come as no surprise that the M10 does, again, behave slightly different in this regard, and so we set out to identify and show the changes of colour through 80 |
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the M generations, as well as doing a comparison with the other full-format Leica, the SL. In a second instalment of this article we will demonstrate how an M’s – any digital M’s – colour rendition can be tweaked to one’s liking. f ilter layers . The sensor chip itself is unable to distinguish different hues of colours. Silicon is sensitive to all the wavelengths of visible light, and its sensitivity to the near infrared is even higher. Infrared thus needs to be blocked and if just a few percent still creep through, as it did in the M8, the colours shift in ways that are complex and difficult to correct. With more effective filters keeping out infrared light installed in the M9 and all the models following it,
only the visible light between red and violet needs to be dealt with. Below the infrared blocking filter and the microlenses there is a colour filter array and if it was not for this layer the sensor would be monochrome – like the sensor in the Leica M Monochrom. 50 per cent of all sensor pixels are fitted with a green filter; pixels with red and blue filters make up equal parts of the remaining 50 per cent. The colour filter pattern with red and green alternating in one row of pixels and green and blue in the next is named after its inventor Bryce E. Bayer, a Kodak engineer. Several alternative patterns have been proposed and implemented, but the Bayer pattern is still the most popular.
F ro m se nso r co lo urs to r ea l i st i c co lo urs.
With sensor pixels sensitive to either red, green, or blue light, it looks like we are all set. Eventually the camera needs to deliver an image comprising RGB pixels, and red, green, and blue colour data is what the sensor provides. While each sensor pixel only captures one colour so the missing primary colours must be interpolated between neighbouring pixels sensitive to those colours, one might naively assume that a demosaicing algorithm creating full RGB pixels from the sensor data should suffice to yield realistic colours. But alas, the resulting image has a greenish tint and all the hues are way off. This disappointing result is not the sensor’s fault. In fact it is even a
Photo very top: Markus Tedeskino
good thing. With just three different kinds of pixels, the sensor should be able to differentiate thousands of different hues, rather than just red, green, and blue. This requires a great deal of overlap of the colour filters’ transmission curves. The sensitivity of green pixels should extend far into the realm of red and blue while red and blue pixels must also capture some green. Most if not all hues of light should have at least two kinds of sensor pixels respond to it, and the exact hue can be derived from the relative brightness of two primary colours. When a sensor excels at distinguishing even just slightly different hues, the resulting colours will have a low saturation at first. There will hardly be a case where a colour is a pure red, green, or blue, and there will nearly always be some green mixed in for good measure – thus the greenish tint. There needs to be another image processing step converting the colours from the sensor’s colour space into a standard colour space such as Adobe RGB or sRGB, at the same time regaining the saturation expected from our photographs while keeping fine distinctions between similar colours. →
Red has been a tricky colour for some cameras bearing the red dot. With the M240 and related models, some red hues were overly saturated. This can easily be corrected, but M10 colours are better to begin with
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Leica M9
A po-Su mm icron -M 1 : 2 /50 AS PH
The M9 produces slightly subdued colours that can optionally be enhanced as wished; this goes for the whole gamut of the colour wheel. The camera is also quite capable of producing pleasing skin tones.
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Leica M10
A p o -Su mmi cro n - M 1:2/5 0 AS PH
The colours of the M10 look a lot like those of the M9, with only moderate saturation even of primary colours and pleasant skin tones.
Leica M24 0
A po-Su mm icron -M 1 :2/5 0 AS PH
A p o -Su mmi cro n - M 1:2/5 0 AS PH
The SL shows similar colours as the M10, if only after correcting the white balance that required a higher colour temperature than any of the M models. This peculiarity is limited to the embedded profile; it does not apply to Adobe Standard.
Photos: Markus Tedeskino
While the reds could be kept in check here and there was still no clipping in the red channel, both the sweater vest and especially the ruddy skin tones illustrate the propensity of the M240 for producing overly saturated reds.
Leica SL
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Em bedded or stand ard. On the one hand
the colour space conversion takes into account the specific way the sensor captures colour. This depends both on the sensor chip itself – light of different wavelengths penetrates the silicon to different depth – and on the filter stack on top of the chip. On the other hand the output colours should conform to some ideal. This can be naturalistic colours or a specific look like the look of a certain film stock. The specific conversion to be applied is defined in a profile. Each DNG file contains an embedded profile – usually just a bare-bones profile comprising two matrices for two different colour tem-
peratures. The matrices containing 3 × 3 coefficients are multiplied with the sensor’s RGB values to yield the corresponding RGB values in a standardised colour space. In Adobe Lightroom this profile shows up under ‘camera calibration’ as ‘embedded’ – only the new M10 is an exception in that the embedded profile is identified specifically as LEICA M10. In fact the M10 embeds a slightly more fancy profile including this name, but otherwise the profile does not do much more than the plain profiles embedded by other models. Presumably the embedded profile is also applied internally when the camera creates a JPEG file so these are relevant
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T he holy g ra il of opt im u m L eic a colou r s has b een fou n d, it a p p ea r s, a n d w e ex p ec t f u t u r e L eic a m od el s – n ot j ust t hos e of t he M l in e – to adhere to that sta n da r d.
even for photographers eschewing a raw workflow. If anything defines the colour characteristics of a camera it is the combination of the sensor with its stack of filters and the embedded profile. But there is an alternative readily available, namely the Adobe Standard profile that Lightroom offers as another option beside the embedded profile. Now the name Adobe Standard should not suggest this is a standard, ‘one size fits all’ profile for all kinds of cameras. It is quite the opposite as there are individual profiles designed to turn the sensor colours into standardised colours – not just colours in a standard colour space but a colour rendition deemed ideal by
Adobe. As the Adobe profiles employ complex look-up tables on top of the conversion matrices they are also much more powerful. The Adobe Standard profiles have the advantage to ensure a common ground across different models from different vendors. Colours are not absolutely identical but close enough that, for example, one white balance setting chosen for a picture taken with one can be reused for a another picture taken with a different camera under the same lighting conditions. One would think that Leica’s embedded profiles yield identical ‘Leica colours’ just like Adobe’s profiles yield ‘Adobe colours’ but in reality there is a lot of variation,
partly accounting for the perceived differences in the characteristics of the various camera models. T hree M a n d o ne SL .
To get an idea of how the colour rendition of the M9, M240, M10 and SL differ we shot a Colorchecker test target with each model and employed Adobe’s DNG Profile Editor to create individual profiles. Analysing the look-up tables within these profiles indicates how some colours need to be corrected to conform to the standard, thus also demonstrating how the original colours deviate from the standard. M9 colours are distinguished by their moderate saturation; only hues between blue and violet
could do with a little less. This is actually a good thing as a moderate saturation preserves fine distinctions and can easily be boosted if necessary; over-saturation, on the other hand, can destroy distinctions. The M240 behaves quite differently, showing some over-saturation of orange, red, violet and blue hues, while yellow, green and cyan tend towards undersaturation. Especially over-saturated reds are a well-known M240 issue. With the M10 Leica went back to a colour rendition that is reminiscent of the M9, while its hues are even more spot on where M9 colours still require small corrections. Only for highly saturated shades of blue
should the saturation be reduced. Interestingly the colours produced by the SL are a close match to those of the M10, suggesting that Leica has finally found an ideal way of rendering colour that is now applied across the different models. Do i t yo u r se lf . The
changes in the colour characteristics of the digital M tell the story of a quest. The holy grail of optimum Leica colours has been found, it appears, and we expect future models, not just those of the M line, to adhere to that standard. But colour rendition remains a matter of taste and in the next issue we will show how to make it conform to one’s preferences. Michael j. hussmann
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F o r i OS a n d A n d r o i d
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E ag l e ey e S u m m i l u x- SL 5 0 m m f/ 1 . 4 A S P H
With the Summilux-SL, Leica introduce the first fixed focal length in the SL portfolio. The lens is astonishing in every way – from its imposing dimensions to its outstanding imaging performance.
It seems genuinely unlikely that there has ever been a more impressive 50mm lens for the 35mm format. Even the dimensions are something of a statement: at 12 cm long, almost 9 cm wide and weighing more than 1 kg, the new Summilux-SL 50mm f/1.4 Asph is the most compact SL lens available to date – but compared to the 50mm lenses of the M system, this bulky piece makes even the Noctilux look like a dainty pancake lens. In short: the SL with Summilux is not a camera to take along on aimless strolls, but a purposeful tool for specific applications. I m ag e q ua l i t y f i r st.
The Summilux-SL is rather sizeable, but the absence of an aperture ring on all SL lenses leaves plenty of space for an ergonomic focus ring
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The developers have made sure that the range of these applications is remarkably broad. The Summilux-SL comprises eleven elements – two of which have aspherical surfaces, and three of which form a light-weight internal focusing group for a speedy autofocus. Yet the great size of the SummiluxSL compared to the more simply constructed M lenses cannot be attributed to its focus drive and aperture control alone; it is also a visible expression of the uncompromising strategy to dedicate the SL and its lenses to image quality above all else. Other mirrorless systems, including Leica’s M system, may be more compact and elegant – but when it comes to the SL, attaining the utmost recording quality takes precedence over everything else. This brief has also been fulfilled with the Summilux-SL. You will have to zoom in to pixel level with fully open aperture in order to detect any weak-
ness, and scrutinise the image not just along the edges, but all the way to the outermost corners. Even then, the slight softening is something you almost sense rather than see. The absence of distortion, colour fringing and vignetting may also partly be due to the correction of the camera, but the result remains the same: completely flawless images. Up aga i nst m l e n se s.
Based on its level of performance, it seems apt to compare the Summilux-SL with two alternative options from the M series – its direct M counterpart, the Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Asph, and the Apo-SummicronM 50mm f/2 Asph. What quickly becomes apparent is that the Summilux-SL bears much more resemblance to the Apo-Summicron than it does to the SummiluxM. At open aperture, the rendition of the compact, renowned but older Summilux-M visibly decreases towards the edges, and even the central part of the image is a good deal softer than the SL version. Of course the recording quality can still be enhanced by stopping down; the aperture →
The Apo-Summicron-M only marginally supersedes the imaging performance of the Summilux-SL: both deliver spectacular results
Photos: Markus Tedeskino
These two images, taken with the Summilux-SL 50mm f/1.4 at an aperture of 1.4, illustrate that even at open aperture, the lens delivers full imaging performance all the way to the edges. This setting also allows for a selective play with focus and blur
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Though neither lightweight nor compact, the combination of Leica SL and Summilux is by no means unwieldy. And thanks to the autofocus, this is a fast and extremely high-performance set-up
of the Summilux-SL, by contrast, only has to be closed to control the exposure or increase the depth of field. The competition with the Apo-Summicron-M is much tighter, with differences found only at pixel level. In the majority of our test shots, Leica’s super-lens succeeded by a wafer-thin lead, conjuring just that bit more sharpness into minute details. However, there were also times when the images of the SL lens appeared a tad sharper. In any case, we are talking about nuances which are apparent only if you have both lenses sideby-side and meticulously compare the results, and which have no bearing on practical application. 88 |
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Both lenses deliver images that are crisp and sharp, from the centre to the edges of the picture and at all distances. The rendition of the Summilux-M is slightly softer by comparison, but this, too, is scarcely noticeable. Given that anyone shooting portraits at open aperture is specifically aiming to blur the subject’s surroundings, it follows that some photographers may particularly appreciate this characteristic. At the same time, the Summilux-M still delivers sharp, crisp images when slightly stopped down. n o comp romis e s. This
brings us to the one aspect of the Summilux-SL which, aside from its extensive size,
might warrant a small criticism: it does not have the same distinctive character as, for example, the Noctilux with its inimitable pleasing bokeh. Compared to such extraordinary lenses for special occasions, the Summilux-SL may seem a little like a cold technocrat who always delivers perfect work. This is a fate it shares with the Apo-Summicron-M, whose perfection is not only the reason for its popularity, but perhaps also elicits the occasional yearning for some kind of flaw that could be deemed a character trait. However, neither lens shows any weakness – and yet there are still a fair few differences between them: the Apo-Summicron-M
is committed to either painstaking manual shooting on the M or an adaptor-based application on the SL, and cannot impress with high speed. The Summilux-SL, on the other hand, is both faster and more flexible: its higher light sensitivity of 1.4 enables a noticeably wider scope for playing with blur. This results in a greater range of creative possibilities which, in turn, can be utilised with no drawbacks, given that the imaging performance is virtually undiminished at open aperture. The AF speeds up the shooting process, especially in portrait situations. While the AF motor is almost inaudible even from a close distance, its vibrations travel through the camera to your fingertips so you can feel the focus operate. co nc lusi o n. Our initial surprise that a straightforward standard lens could be constructed into such a large and heavy object soon turned into admiration, and finally enthusiasm for the capabilities of the Summilux-SL. Its dimensions and weight are something we simply have to accept – but this is more than compensated for by a truly superb imaging performance in every single frame. There is no doubt that the Summilux-SL takes its due place among the best Leica lenses made to date. An impressive debut for the first fixed focal length of the SL system, whose appeal has been greatly enhanced by this addition. holger sparr
Did you know ? Whether colour filters, a second battery or a camera bag – at the LFI Shop you can find a large selection of original Leica accessories.
Lo o k f o r t h e Lo o k P i ct u r e C o m p o s i t i o n
Photo: © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
P h o t o g r ap h e r s m u s t b e m i n d f u l o f h o w t o app r o a c h t h e i r p r o ta g o n i s t s o n t h e s t r e e t.
Even Garry Winogrand must have felt a twinge of intimidation when he found himself on the receiving end of this girl’s stare. She stands like a bouncer, guarding her friend with eyes so stern they seem to be saying, “that’s quite close enough, buddy”. Meanwhile, the other girl’s eyes tell an entirely different story. She seems perfectly happy to be snapped kissing a young cadet in a doorway between puffs on a cigarette. Looking at this picture is like entering into a visual game of tug-of-war. The direct gaze will produce this effect, and is something we should always be aware of. If a subject looks directly into your lens, they will consequently look directly at the viewer. This instantly creates an encounter between the viewer and the subject. How you choose to interact with a subject will incite all kinds of different looks. Bruce Gilden ambushes passers-by with his flash, while William Klein encourages subjects to play up to his camera. In this instance, a bumbling Winogrand bounded up to some kids on the street and pressed the shutter the moment they noticed him. I am sure the photo would have been followed by some kind of chat, but at this point the eyes were doing all the talking. It is important to be confident about the approach you take on the street. After all, a subject’s look may reveal something about them, but the way you make them look reveals even more about you.
O rd er n ow:
lfi-online.com/shop H e nry C a r ro l l is the author of the bestselling
Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs series of books published by Laurence King.
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T h e S e c o n d Wav e H u aw e i P 1 0 , P 1 0 p l u s
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Chinese technology corporation Huawei introduced their latest flagship smartphones: the P10 and P10 plus with the Leica Dual Camera 2.0.
Minor differences in design compared to the predecessor model: the fingerprint sensor is now embedded in the home button on the front panel; the rear panel is bare, the corners have become more rounded
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Less than a year after the launch of the P9, which marked the first cooperation between Leica Camera and Huawei, the successor models P10 and P10 plus have now been unveiled in Barcelona by Richard Yu, CEO of the Huawei Consumer Business Group. The presentation naturally involved great accolades celebrating the engineering partnership with Leica – a venture whose core values revolve around not just technology, but also the art and emotion of photography. Throughout their tradition-steeped history as camera manufacturers, Leica have long recognised the power of evocative imagery in product marketing, and can look back over decades of iconic images created by top-level professional photographers. Huawei have taken a similar path in promoting their new flagship smartphone models with Leica cameras. An exhibition in Barcelona, co-organised by Huawei, Leica and Saatchi & Saatchi, showcased images shot with the Huawei P10 by Leica photographers such as Jacob Aue Sobol, Stéphane Lavoué and Manfred Baumann – illustrating the truly impressive results that can now be achieved with a smartphone camera. The technological advancements introduced at the launch presentation were not quite as earth-shattering. Like any corporation, Huawei must submit to the rules of market competition and adhere to a policy of incremental evolution – especially in the case of products with typically short upgrade cycles. So while the new P10 models are invar-
iably faster than their predecessors, with higherresolution displays and enhanced software, substantial innovations seem few and far between.
The larger P10 plus model offers a higher, 2K display resolution as well as autofocus for the frontfacing camera, along with faster, f/1.8 Summilux lenses in the main rear-panel camera
A smal l er ve rs ion of the Mat e 9. In contrast to
the P9, the P10 is equipped with the same second-generation Leica dual camera used in the Mate 9, the Huawei phablet first introduced in December 2016 (LFI 1/2017). The dual camera, which comprises two Summarit-H 27mm f/2.2 Asph lenses, consists of one 12-megapixel camera with RGB sensor, and one 20-megapixel camera with monochrome sensor. The RGB camera captures both JPEGs and DNGs, while the black and white images taken by the monochrome camera are recorded in JPEG format only. As with its P9 predecessor, the P10 does not produce monochrome DNG files. However, the monochrome sensor now serves as the P10’s main sensor due to its increased resolution. All primary features such as Pro mode and the two-tone flash have been retained.
The P10 plus is 8 mm higher, 5 mm wider and 20 g heavier than its sibling – but this brings advantages such as a 5.5-inch display
Su m m i lux r e p lac e s Su m m a r i t. The larger-sized
of the two new models, the P10 plus, does in fact offer a genuine optical innovation: both of its cameras feature lenses with an aperture of f/1.8, consequently named Summilux-H, designed to offer improved imaging results in low-light situations. Another new addition is the optical image stabilisation (OIS) for the RGB sensor – a potentially useful aid in Available Light photography. The Hybrid Autofocus has been enhanced to offer greater speed, and now comprises phase detection,
contrast, laser and depth autofocus. Software improvements include that the Wide Aperture function, which allows users to emulate the bokeh of Leica lenses, is now also available in Monochrome shooting mode. Both P10 models further offer a new Hybrid Zoom function with twotimes magnification, ensuring a loss-free rendition of 12-megapixel JPEG files. A rt i st i c Port rai t i n L e i ca I m ag e St y le . This
is the full name of a newlyintroduced function, listed in the main menu →
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Gallery Over 20 000 photographers have presented their view of the world in 300 000 pictures posted in the LFI Gallery. Why not join them by registering for free, uploading your pictures and sharing them with others. lfi. gallery
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simply as Portrait mode. This new addition includes 3-D facial detection – a technology which forms the basis of Huawei’s dynamic illumination and portrait enhancement features. Different face shapes and skin tones are analysed and evaluated, with the aim of achieving what the manufacturers describe as ‘individually configured and natural looking’ portraits. The feature, which partly replaces the Beauty mode of the previous models, also includes a number of make-up effects. Yet another novelty is that selfies can now also be taken in Monochrome shooting mode. These software innovations are supported by a new front-facing camera: in addition to the Leica dual camera on the rear, both P10 models feature an 8-megapixel front-panel camera which has also been developed by Leica – though its bright, f/1.9aperture lens remains without a name. On the P10, the front-facing camera is limited to fixed focus, while on the P10 plus it has been equipped with autofocus. In addition, it is designed to automatically zoom out in order to adjust the frame when detecting an imminent group selfie – thereby enabling the photographer to take group shots without a selfie stick. Ot h e r F eat u r e s. As illus-
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trated above, the P10 smartphone models encompass many of the technological attributes found in Huawei’s Mate 9 phablet. These also include the Kirin-960 octa-core processor (with 4GB RAM in the P10,
and 6GB in the P10 plus) produced by the Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon. While the P10 has a 5.1-inch display with full-HD resolution (1080 × 1920 pixels), the P10 plus with its 5.5- inch display even offers a 2K resolution. Both screens are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. For the P10’s image management solution, Huawei have entered into yet another collaboration – in this instance
Whil e today’s s m a rt p hon e s a r e n ow a b le to ac hiev e r emarka b l e p hoto g ra p hic r e sults, n ot hin g c an im itat e t he tact il e ex p er ience of a c a m era.
with action camera manufacturers GoPro. This has resulted in the P10’s Highlights feature, which sorts through the photo gallery, and automatically creates slide shows based on its recognition of faces, places and events. With their latest flagship models, Huawei continue to place a strong emphasis on camera technology. Yet while the technical specifications of the P10 and P10 plus remain at a very high level, they have been somewhat eclipsed by more indeterminate criteria such as exterior design and the pursuit of immaculate self-representation. david rojkowski
b e s t o f LFI . G a l l e r y
p l ayg r o u n d A funfair comes every year to the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris – it is the perfect place for a street photographer. It is not only the hearts of children that beat higher there: “I had just bought my first Leica a few days beforehand and was doing 28mm photography for the first time – an important step in my development.” Lu Wenpeng Leica Q, Summilux 28mm f/1.7 Asph
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l ig h t box
alice in wo n d e r la n d “This picture was taken in a maze in Hong Kong where we were celebrating a birthday party. The girl was trying to get through a hole in the hedge. The scene reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, the story about how Alice curiously explores a world unknown to her till then.” Dick Tang Leica M240 with Summicron-M 35mm f/2 Asph
Add i c t i o n s “I had discovered a wedding party in a park in Paris. A boy and his father were walking towards me and I spontaneously decided to photograph them from the height of the child. Consequently, they both remained anonymous, and we only see what they considered important: drinking coffee and eating this candy floss.” Philippe Blayo Leica M9 with Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 Asph
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I l l u m i n at e d “I was walking towards Edinburgh Castle when light broke through the heavy cloud cover, illuminating this pedestrian. It was a special image that stuck in my mind. Divine intervention – also the title that I gave to this photo – is what happens when we see who we really are: we live in the shadows of that which we create.” Andrew Metcalfe Leica M9 with Zeiss Biogon 28mm f/2.8 Asph
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d o gg y “In May 2011 I travelled to Kaliningrad and photographed a military parade on the occasion of the Day of Victory. I had already been there the year before, but this time my attention was drawn to the spectators. I like this picture a lot – also because it reminds me of my favourite photographer, Elliot Erwitt.” Pawel Figurski Leica M9 with Summicron-M 35mm f/2 Asph
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s h a d ow p l ay “We moved to the Caribbean from The Netherlands. My wife and my daughter ride and were interested in the local horse scene involving a breed known as Paso Fino. At the events a dress code of black and white applies. The portrait shows a rider in Curaçao.” Hans van Leeuwen Leica M Monochrom with Apo-Summicron-M 75mm f/1.2 Asph
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hope “I had taken part in a workshop with Thomas Dworzak in Rio de Janeiro. Afterwards I went to Niterói. As I was standing in front of the museum, I saw my path through the world of photography like an image in front of my eyes. The access ramp was the beginning, and the roof of the building the destination I hope to reach.” Mioara Chiparus Leica M240 with Elmarit-M 21mm f/2.8
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p h oto – b o o ks – e x h i b i t i o n s – f e s t i va l s – Awa r ds –
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presents Larry Sultan – Here and Home from 15 April until 23 July. Photo: Woman in Curlers, from the series The Valley, 2002
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L a r ry S u lta n Sa n F r a n c i s c o M u s e u m of Modern Art
Photos: collection of the artist © Luciano Rigolini; © Estate of Larry Sultan, courtesy the Estate of Larry Sultan; Promised Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation to The MET, New York, © The Irving Penn Foundation; © Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Courtesy of Flowers Gallery London and New York; © Helmut Newton Estate
The retrospective Here and Home explores the concept of family and belonging in more than 200 of the late American photographer’s works. There is a sense of fantasy and perhaps even yearning in these often personal images documenting life and domesticity in a suburban idyll.
Au to p h oto
15 April — 23 July 2017; Photo: Larry Sultan, My Mother Posing for Me, from Pictures From Home, 1984
F o n dat i o n Ca r t i e r , Pa r i s
On the open road: The car has become an inherent part of our culture, eliciting a vast range of associations – from mystery tours in sleek sports models to old bangers breaking down on country lanes. The Fondation Cartier in Paris dedicates an exhibition to the automobile – this implicit symbol of departing and arriving, freedom and movement – which highlights the relationship between photography and cars. The show comprises 400 works by 80 artists from all around the world – among them Luciano Rigolini, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Lee Friedlander, Rosângela Renno, William Eggleston and Yasuhiro Ishimoto. The museum’s aim is to “illustrate how the car has provided photographers with a new subject, new point of view and new way of exploring the world”. In addition to the classic depictions of car models, attention is also paid to the background setting and the relationship between drivers and the object of their desire. The images range from the geometric designs of roadway networks to reflections captured in a rear view mirror. The introduction of cars has not only reshaped our landscapes and expanded our geographic horizons, but has also radically altered our perception of space, distance and time. Autophoto explores this development both in the form of photographic images and a number of historical objects from the automobile industry. An accompanying catalogue featuring 350 images along with several essays offers a fascinating overview of the automobile’s evolution. 20 April — 24 September 2017, Photo: Luciano Rigolini, Tribute to Giorgio de Chirico, 2017, Appropriation (unknown photographer, 1958)
I rv i n g P e n n T h e M e t, N e w y o r k
Penn, who dedicated 70 years of his life to photography, would have turned 100 this year. Centennial encompasses more than 200 photographs, ranging from iconic fashion studies and female nudes to portraits of urban labourers as well as artists such as Truman Capote and Pablo Picasso. 24 April — 30 July 2017 Photo: Irving Penn, Pablo Picasso at La Californie, Cannes, 1957
Scarlett Hooft G raa f l a n d F l o w e r s g a l l e r Y, L o n d o n
For Discovery, the Dutch photographer visited some of the world’s most remote places – from the Bolivian salt desert to the Canadian Arctic. With sculpture and performance installations, she shows the connection between cultures and the natural environment. 29 March — 29 April 2017 Photo: Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Burka Balloons, 2014
HELMUT NE W TON L e M u s é e d e l a P h o t o g r ap h i e Charles Nègre, Nice
Icons presents some of the most unmistakable works created by the German-Australian fashion photographer. His prolific output and his distinctive visual style have made Newton a legend of photography, whose images of strong women are a symbiosis of eroticism and violence, wrapped up in sensuality. Until 28 May 2017; Photo: Helmut Newton, Amica, Milan 1982
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Ko lg a Tb i l i s i P h o t o f e s t i va l i n t h e c ap i ta l o f G e o r g i a
On 5 May, the Kolga Photo Festival opens in Tbilisi, Georgia. The week-long event presents a wide spectrum of contemporary photography, with exhibitions curated by the festival’s artistic director Beso Khaindrava and Cologne-based gallerist Tina Schelhorn. The programme
Pa r i s f o c u s e s o n p h oto g r a p h y M o i s d e l a P h o t o d u G r a n d Pa r i s , A p r i l 2 0 1 7
‘Intense Weekends’ during which visitors are able to converse with photographers and gallerists – the festival programme offers an extensive overview of the current themes in contemporary photography. Hébel, who is also the former director of Les Rencontres d’Arles, has grouped these themes into the genres of Portrait, Landscape and Street Photography, as well as Personal Studies. These include images by famous photographers such as Josef Koudelka, Sebastião Salgado and Walker Evans, along with works by emerging young talents or lesser-known artists. Hébel describes the Mois de la Photo du Grand Paris 2017 as an opportunity to “simultaneously explore photography and the Greater Paris region”. www.moisdelaphotodugrandparis.com
From the top: Gilles Elie-Dit-Cosaque: Ma grena’ #1; Guillaume Martial: Le mur, from the series Folding, 2016; Aïda Muluneh: Local Understanding, 2016; Akatre: D’après Jean Echenoz, 2016 (right); Josef Koudelka: Le Parc de Sceaux, France 1987
David Magnusson: Jamie & David Clampitt, Shreveport, Louisiana from the series Purity, USA
further includes events such as portfolio viewings, discussion rounds and workshops, with the aim of providing platforms for photographers to network and mutually inspire new ideas. Also part of the festival is the Kolga Award, with prizes to the value of 6000 dollars being given out in the categories of Documentary Series, Reportage, Conceptual Photo Project and Best Shot; the winner of the Huawei Mobile Photo category stands to receive a Huwaei P10 (see page 90). Last but not least the Kolga Newcomer Photo Award is open to photographers under 25 (cash prize of 500 euros). www.kolga.ge
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Photos: Guillaume Martial, courtesy Galerie Esther Woerdehoff; Akatre, courtesy Photo-Roman/Havas Gallery; Josef Koudelka/Magnum Photos; © Centre Pompidou/Dist. RMN-GP
In April, the Paris metropolitan area will be dedicated to photography. François Hébel, new artistic director of the Mois de la Photo du Grand Paris, has expanded the festival’s reach to the entire Greater Paris region. This marks a historical juncture for the festival, which was established by Henry Chapier and Jean-Luc Monterosso in 1985. For the first time, event locations will span from Clichy-sous-Bois east of the peripherique all the way to Poissy, and from Versailles to Châtenay-Malabry in the south. With a total of 96 exhibitions along with numerous fringe happenings – such as the
— S MAGAZINE — Leica Galleries germany
polAnd
Wetzlar
wa r s aw
Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2016
Paweł Żak
Am Leitz-Park 5, 35578 Wetzlar 6 April — 11 June 2017 Frankfurt
Mysia 3, 00-496 Warsaw 31 March — 26 May 2017 Portugal
Jürgen Schadeberg
Porto
Großer Hirschgraben 15, 60311 Frankfurt am Main Mid April — July 2017
Gérard Castello-Lopez: Photography 1966–2006
Nuremberg
Rua de Sá da Bandeira, 48/52, 4000427 Porto, 8 April — 18 June 2017
Hermann Netz: Zen-Impressionen
Turkey
Obere Wörthstr. 8, 90403 Nuremberg 5 May — 1 July 2017
i s ta n b u l
Z i n gs t
Thomas Hoepker: Sudden Glory
Per-Anders Pettersson: African Catwalk
Bomontiada – Merkez, A, Birahane Sk. No:1, 34381 Şişli/İstanbul 24 March — 3 June 2017
Am Bahnhof 1, 18374 Zingst 17 February — 10 May 2017
US A
Austria
Los Angeles
Salzburg
Willy Rizo: Coco Chanel & Vogue Covers 7 April — 17 June 2017 Gaisbergstr. 12, 5020 Salzburg S c h l o ss A r e n b e r g
Peter Hellekalek Arenbergstr. 10, 5020 Salzburg 7 May — 16 July 2017 Vienna
Current exhibition unknown at time of publication Walfischgasse 1, 1010 Vienna I ta lY
Milan
Bruce Gilden: GO 8783 Beverly Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA 90048, 4 April — 5 May 2017 Boston
Mathieu Bitton: Darker Than Blue 74 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116, 9 March — 30 April 2017 Brazil
S ão Pau l o
David Burnett: Man Without Gravity Rua Maranhão, 600 Higienópolis, 01240–000 São Paulo 14 February — 15 April 2017
Toni Thorimbert: B-Side
J apa n
Via Mengoni, 4, 20121 Milan 23 March — 13 May 2017
To kyo
czech Republic
Prague
Jaroslav Prokop: Portrait of a Music Festival (Pezinok 1976) Školská 28, 110 00 Prague 1 7 April — 18 June 207
Elliott Erwitt and Werner Bischof: Platinum Print exhibition 6-4-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 3 March — 4 June 2017 Kyoto
Anju: The Invisible Kyoto 570–120 Gionmachi Minamigawa, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto 11 March — 8 June 2017
ELLEN VON UNWERTH —
www.s-magazine.photography
Giulio Rimondi I ta l i a n a
PETER VAN AG TMAEL BUZZING AT THE SILL
This photo book represents Peter van Agtmael’s quest to better understand his own country. After a decade of covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the New York based Magnum photographer (born 1981) has dedicated his latest publication to capturing life in the US. The featured images were taken in more than twenty North American states over the course of the past eight years. Most of them depict incidental scenes of people and places he encountered on his journeys, though the book is also interspersed with pictures of his family. Presented mostly as full doublepage spreads, the photographs initially contain no information as to where or when they were taken. However, a separate booklet attached at the end of the publication puts them into context. The sequence of images is interrupted only by the author’s short, diarylike entries and reflections. Van Agtmael was a history student at Yale during the September 11 attacks and subsequent invasion of Iraq; his sheltered life came to an end when he realised he needed to cover these wars. During his visits back to the US as a renowned war reporter, he became aware of how little he knew of the lives and social environments in his own country. The beauty of his visual language is all the more disconcerting in light of the realities of his unsettled homeland. Buzzing at the Sill asks deeply subjective questions about racial and cultural conflicts in contemporary America, and addresses topics of war, torture, nationalism, family and the concept of home. 160 pages, 72 colour images, 17 × 22.4 cm, Kehrer Publishing
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With the atmospheric, darkhued images taken on his journey across Italy, Rimondi (born 1984) presents a finely tuned, poetic homage to his homeland. Italy’s crisis goes far beyond economical challenges. With curiosity and empathy, the photographer has created a contemporary and refreshingly non-clichéd portrait of his country’s identity. 96 pages, 55 colour images, 18.1 × 24 cm, Kehrer Publishing
Thomas Hoepker Strange Encounters
The German Magnum photographer (born 1946) has searched through his archive with the theme of ‘comedy’ in mind. In his career, Hoepker has captured dramatic scenes of true gravity. Yet he has also always had a penchant for the absurd. Now he presents a collection of unstaged, spontaneously farcical moments of everyday life. Enjoy! 180 pages, 126 images, 24 × 32 cm, Peperoni Books
Emmanuel Georges America Rewind
Closed down, deserted, desolate: on his road trip across America, the French photographer (born 1965) visited the country’s former industrial capitals. The places he has captured with his analogue, large-format camera look bleak and strangely unfamiliar – forming a profound picture of the end of the American Dream. During three extensive trips in 2010, 2011 and 2014, Georges covered over 25 000 kms. From Detroit, once the proud capital of the automobile industry, to the former mining town of Butte in Montana, from Pennsylvania to Arkansas along the Rust Belt: the once thriving cities have become the embodiment of economic and social decline. Ruined houses, closed cinemas with faded advertising signs, supermarkets that have closed their doors forever – and not one person to be found within the empty cityscapes. Although he follows in the traditions of the New Color Photography of Stephen Shore and Joel Meyerowitz, Georges’s scenes are permeated by a much stronger sense of melancholy. 112 p., 78 colour images, 31.5 × 28 cm, English/French, Hatje Cantz
This book also exemplifies how a time of distance can allow for a deeper perception of our homeland. Born in Sicily, Mimi Mollica (born 1975) now lives in London. He is an insider by birth, yet has an outsider’s vantage point of observation. This enabled him to embark on this richly-nuanced project, showing the enduring effects of the Mafia on his home region. Working in black and white, the photographer has found a remarkable way of describing in touching images the fear and corruption-based system of the Cosa
Mimi Mollica Terra Nostra
Nostra, and to illustrate its visible impact on both the physical and social environment – such as the fact that the majority of the region’s shops are controlled by the Mafia. The project has been in the making for the past five years. With great subtlety, Mollica demonstrates the invisible yet deeply insidious presence of today’s Mafia,
whose reality is a far cry from the familiar Hollywood clichés. At first glance, his pictures of everyday life on the streets of Palermo are filled with vibrancy. Yet at the same time he skilfully manages to convey an underlying atmosphere of unease and fear. For Mollica, the island holds an overpowering feeling of claustrophobia, and a lack of freedom that seems to pervade every aspect of Sicilian life. 128 pages, 65 duo-tone images, 23 × 16.8 cm, Dewi Lewis Publishing
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“We believe in a d i v e r s i t y o f vo i c e s ” i n t e rv i e w
Elisa Lees Muñoz is Executive Director of the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) with the mission to empower women journalists with the training, opportunities, and support to become leaders in the news industry.
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Photos: © Heidi Levine/The National/Sipa Press, © Lynsey Addario/Getty Images Reportage, all courtesy of the IWMF
Recently, with the support of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Elisa Lees Muñoz launched a $5 million reporting and security training initiative for women journalists in Africa and is currently leading the development of a new security mobile app, Reporta™, to promote safety for women journalists reporting in dangerous situations. Among many further activities, she was also involved in the establishment of the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award, which will this year be granted for the third time. LFI: Ms Lees Muñoz, your focus is on
press freedom and women’s rights. How do you think times have changed and are still changing in these terms? Elisa Lees Muñoz: Yes, our focus is press freedom and the status of women in the news media as well as supporting reporting from a gendered perspective. Unfortunately,
journalism is becoming increasingly dangerous and we have not seen much progress especially in the area of women in the news media. Much work remains to be done. LFI: What is your approach?
Since 1990 we are dedicated to supporting women journalists who are covering the news. We recognize their extraordinary work that is often conducted under extremely difficult circumstances.
Left: Lynsey Addario, Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award 2016 honorable mention: Zaatari refugee camp, Jordan, 29 August, 2014, taken from her series Syrian Refugees’ Young Brides; Above: Heidi Levine, winner of the first Award 2015: Shujayea in Gaza at dawn, 8 August, 2014, from her series War, Healing, and Resilience in Gaza
Lees Muñoz:
LFI: Can you illustrate what the IWMF is doing? Lees Muñoz: In 2016 alone, we organized 15 reporting trips to Africa and Latin America for 91 international reporting fellows who participated in our African Great Lakes and Adelante Reporting Initiatives. As a result, these journalists respectively published nearly 200 stories, 110 on Africa and 84 about Latin America. We also awarded 34 grants through our Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journal-
ists and Reporting Grants for Women’s Stories, funded by the Secular Society, which enabled the publication of more than 60 additional stories! We have changed the lives of some of these women and that is the most rewarding thing one can do. Let’s focus on one of your activities: the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award. What is your intention with it? Lees Muñoz: We named the award after the German photojournalist Anja Niedringhaus who was killed → LFI:
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LFI: That’s why there is a need for organisations like the IWMF. Please tell us about its history. Elisa Lees Muñoz: The IWMF was founded in 1990 by a group of women journalists in the US who felt that while they had become quite successful in their careers, they had encountered a glass ceiling that could only be shattered if they joined forces and worked together to support women in the news media. They also wanted to recognize their courageous colleagues around the globe who encountered many more barriers than they did in the pursuit of their work. I started working at the IWMF twelve years ago as the Director of Programs.
in Afghanistan in 2014, because she was totally dedicated to showing the consequences of war. The goal of those awards is to recognize extraordinary women journalists, to bring attention to them and to their important work, also if they do not already have it, international recognition sometimes offers a mantle of safety when they return home. We encourage women to nominate themselves. It’s like women are allergic to self promotion. To become known, you need to be completely shameless about it! Still a phenomenon in society, obviously. How would you explain it? Lees Muñoz: Yes, it’s the culture, we live in a patriarchal system. It’s called glass ceiling phenomenon. At Columbia Journalism School for example, at least 80 percent of the students are women. But when they finish their studies, this does not translate into the work force. Mostly you see men at the top of the work force. Even women photo editors hire mostly men! The entire business has to do with putting yourself in the forefront. LFI:
Top: Adriane Ohanesian, winner of the second annual Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Journalism Award 2016: Central Darfur, Sudan, 27 February, 2015, from her series The Forgotten Mountains; above: Adriane Ohanesian in Darfur. The photographer won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 as part of a team at the New York Times and has covered the Syrian crisis for the past four years
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We wish you success and thank you for your time.
LFI:
Interview: Carla Susanne Erdmann
Elisa Le e s Mu ñ oz was made Executive
Director of the IWMF in 2013. Lees Muñoz has over 20 years of experience in human rights, freedom of the press, and gender equality issues. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a Master’s degree in International Relations. Before joining the IWMF as Director of Programs, Lees Muñoz worked for the OSCE in the Balkans and monitored the human rights of scientists. An ja Nie drin gh aus Cou rage in Ph otojou rn alism Award: The annual
award was launched in 2015 to honour the life and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photographer Anja Niedringhaus (1965– 2014) who was killed while reporting from Afghanistan. The prize is $20 000.
Photos: © Adriane Ohanesian, courtesy of the IWMF (2), all courtesy of the IWMF
“ W e ’ d l i k e to b r i n g at t e n t i o n to wo m e n J o URNALI S T S a n d to t h e i r i m p o rta n t wo r k . ”
LFI: What is the IWMF’s main intention? To support women and their political photojournalism now and in the future, more than ever? Lees Muñoz: Yes, we do recognise there is a need to recognise women. We support women journalists pursuing a variety of projects and work in the news media. We believe in a diversity of voices in the news media. Our research shows that women are under-represented in nearly every part of the world and in every aspect of the news media. We believe that the media cannot be truly free without the equal voice of women.
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Leica Fotografie I n t e r n at i o n a l
per-Anders PettersSon my picture
A girl’s lively facial expression inspired the photographer to work on a long-term project about Soweto, the largest township in South Africa.
69th year | Issue 3. 2017
LFI PHOTOGR A PHIE GMBH Springeltwiete 4, 20095 Hamburg, Germany Phone: +49 / 40 / 2 26 21 12 80 Fax: +49 / 40 / 2 26 21 12 70 ISSN: 0937-3977 www.lfi-online.com, mail@lfi-online.com Editor-in-Chief Inas Fayed, Frank P. Lohstöter (V.i.S.d.P.) A rt Direction Brigitte Schaller EDITORIA L OFFICE Carla S. Erdmann, Michael J. Hußmann, Katrin Iwanczuk, Bernd Luxa, Edyta Pokrywka, David Rojkowski, Holger Sparr, Olaf Staaben, Simon Schwarzer, Olaf Stefanus, Katrin Ullmann Photo Editor Reportage Carol Körting layout Thorsten Kirchhoff Translation, Sub-Editing Robin Appleton, Hope Caton, Anna Sauper, Osanna Vaughn CONTRIBUTORS to this issue Sophie Darmaillacq-Gilden, Katja Hübner, Vincent Jolly, Ulrich Rüter M anagement Board Frank P. Lohstöter, Anja Ulm
Per-Anders Pettersson, from his Rainbow Transit series, Soweto 2005
Media SA LES A nd M arketing Kirstin Ahrndt-Buchholz, Samira Holtorf Phone: +49 / 40 / 2 26 21 12 72 Fax: +49 / 40 / 2 26 21 12 70 E-Mail: buchholz@lfi-online.de holtorf@lfi-online.de REPRODUcTION: Alphabeta, Hamburg Printer: Optimal Media GmbH, Röbel/Müritz PA PER: Igepa Profimatt
This image was shot in 2005 in Orlando, the west section of Soweto, while working on my Rainbow Transit project, where I documented democracy in South Africa. Soweto, the country’s largest township, was a big part of that: it has a rich history, but is also the place where I see hope and progress in South Africa. Many trends originate in Soweto where I spent a lot of time, on my own and on assignment for Germany’s Geo magazine. I usually spent the day walking around different neighbourhoods. I came across these kids playing on a trampoline. It’s actually a common sight in Soweto. It’s a small business, where a few cents are charged to use the trampoline for a few minutes. This girl’s expression has always inspired me. It gave me a positive and warm view of Soweto, and led to my decision of working more in depth there, on a long-term book project. Born in 1967, Per-Anders Pettersson, went to New York when he was twenty as a photographer for a Swedish newspaper. Numerous reportages, publications and exhibitions followed. The emphasis of his work is on South Africa, where he also now lives.
LFI 4 / 2 0 1 7 w i l l app e a r o n 1 9 May 2 0 1 7
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