Christian,
it was easy to work with this camera. In good weather you take the choice with higher numbers (shutter speed and aperture) and in dull light your choice must be the smaller numbers for speed and aperture. Plus the distance.
Easy to remember. The 17 DIN Agfa could handle the contrasts and buffered the slightly over/unterexposing.
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As I mentioned, several years later the Minolta SRt was the start to a more controlled and ‚serious’ photography. But what to photograph? The world was full of objects to be photographed.
Parallel to these thoughts a small b/w darkroom was established.
But the most important influence for me was that TIME-LIFE introduced their silver books about photography.
The offer was easy: In a given time frame individual books about cameras, light, darkroom, photographs, history of photography had been sent by post to my home month by month.
18 Time Life Library of Photography VTG Lot 1970's HC - eBay (item 150496200363 end time Oct-20-10 09:41:38 PDT)
There was time enough to study each individual book and theme until the next arrived.
The book about photographers thrilled me the most. Photographs from H.C. Bresson, Dorothea Lange, Robert Capa and others like Imogen Cunningham really burnt into my visual memory.
From all of them Henry Cartier Bresson influenced me the most.
His nailing THE moment, the story telling content – he became my hero in terms of photography.
At that time the world wasn’t easy. The war in Vietnam was going on and we could see the atrocities of war photographed by so many reporters, a lot of them killed in their job.
When I remember those times it’s clear that four photographs influenced me very strong:
Bresson: The boy with two vine bottles around the corner
Robert Capa Spain The moment of death in the civil war
D. Lange Mother with children on the road
E. Adams Execution of a vietcong on the street and
Nick Ut Vietnam The crying girl Kim Phuc after a Napalm attack.
On the other hand it was clear that photography for me was only a hobby beside my job as a junior-product manager of a french tire manufacturer.
Around 1970, the Minolta with the wobbling lens was replaced by the famous NikonF. A camera heavily shown in the TIME-LIFE books.
It costs a fortune and for some weeks I had no lens for it. But it was love at first sight. My third eye. The 'Ritsch-Ratsch' of the lightmeter coupling from the Photomic...ahhh, music in my ears......
I was loaded like a spring to make photographs like my heroes and than shortly after the arrival of the F on my way to the job it happened:
locked away | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
This man I could see every warm day in his chair sitting and watching the traffic. It was clear that this photograph had to be done by me without any hesitation. It took only 10 seconds to hold the car, frame and photograph. He didn’t like it but after I gave him a print we had nice conversations with coffee and cake. I realized that unknown persons are more familiar than expected and no fear existed from my side to come closer as usual.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36573929@N00/403279113/
BANG!
From this moment it was clear for me what to photograph.
People, faces and situations on the streets. The name ‚streetphotography didn’t exist in Germany.
At that time I was very shy but with my Nikon pressed to my face and a special smile before the release no one could really resist........;.-)
. | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
ok – one exception in more than 40 years......;-)
Visits in Amsterdam had been done frequently, the NikonF was loaded mostly with Ilford HP4 and FP4.
Walking for hours and scanning the near surrounding was easy and Amsterdam at that time, full of hippies and kraakers (young people occupying old abandoned houses), was a paradise for me.
klick | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
The ‚decisive moments’ just came without any efforts or waiting. Until today it’s a mystery for me what happened at that time:
Sleepy Hollow | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Don’t get me wrong – leaving the door with the pressure to shoot, this didn’t exist. It was more of having a nice walk, let’s SEE what may happen – the Nikon was waiting and not pushing.....but than.....something was special – bang!
Coming back to your question about the special experience it’s clear that this old gentleman was the trigger.
Contacting strange people somewhere was easy and it helped to be young and without any serious thoughts about money, health, etc. To be ‚soft’ in terms of sensitivity for visual impressions plus the picture database stored inside, it helped a lot to SEE things. Mastering the camera was important too but not so challenging having worked with the Time-Life books........
On the other hand I was guided by a deep respect for these peoples. They shared sometimes only seconds with me, often we had a nice conversation and during a trip to Ireland I bought a Polaroid Swinger to be able to provide pics to the people.
It's clear that it helped to photograph in the beginning more static objects like old doors, bicycles, stones, rusty cables etc.. The cam became my third eye, every adjustment I could do with close eyes, even loading the film was fast despite the fully removable backplate from the Nikon.
Another important point was the absence of a huge selection of lenses. Only a 50mm Nikkor and a cheap 28mm Soligor came into my special pouch of leather hanging from the belt.
My F & me | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
The Soligor became my favourite lens. It was the Swiss knife for portraits, sceneries etc.
But all this ended more or less at the end of 1973 when I tried to stand up on a Windsurfer in a harbour in Vinkeveen, Netherlands.
The hobby photography ended 1974 when I started the hobby windsurfing and Hobie sailing in the Netherlands.......
