Debunking myths.

When Ted Turner set to colorizing sacred Hollywood movie classics, the experts rose up in arms. They conveniently overlooked two facts. First, those movies were made in monochrome for the simple reason that color film was either unavailable or too expensive. Second, people loved them in color. I recall watching many and have yet to think of one which was not better in color, though I do confess that maybe Carol Reed’s The Third Man might not gain from the exercise. No indication that Texas Ted got around to that one.

Let’s see, what was the last successful box office take for a black and white movie? Oh! yes, that would be Woody Allen’s Manhattan made in, ummm, 1979 …. yeah, black and white is really going to roll in the dollars.

So it’s with considerable joy that I came across the work of Swedish colorist Sanna Dullaway who has had the gall to colorize untouchable icons, not least Dorothea Lange’s migrant Nipomo mother:

The colorized picture is better in every way than the original.

Even that cultural icon, a picture which transcends its original photojournalism genre, becoming one of the great anti-war images of all time, is not spared her paintbox:

Again, the colored version is superior, heightening the sheer banality of the surroundings while the horrendous murder takes place, making the act that much worse.

My fond wish is that Ms. Dullaway sets her paints to work on the over processed oeuvre of that most overrated of American photographers, Ansel Adams. Now a pretty colored version of his crappy Yosemite snaps would finally grace the real estate it deserves. The top of a tin of chocolate cookies.

You can see more of her work here.

Harold Mac knew it.

The state of the art around Harold Mac’s time.

A British Prime Minister and the wealthy scion of a famous publishing company once told the British that “they have never had it so good” . That was Harold Macmillan in 1957. This applies equally to photographers today. And while Harold Mac was addressing one of those rare periods of prosperity that England only enjoyed once since (unless you were a bankster), for photographers it continues to get better, and at an accelerating pace.

Sure, we can grumble that full frame DSLRs are behemoths which deny the original full frame concept introduced by the Leica almost a century ago. And why don’t most cameras have proper viewfinders? But if you are prepared to give up a little flexibility, and make a compromise or two, the raft of expected features today is breathtaking. Consider:

• Collapsible lenses
• Pocketability
• A few ounces at most
• Hundreds or thousands of images stored on a postage stamp-sized card
• Miniscule batteries
• Auto focus
• Auto exposure
• Face recognition
• Built in flash
• Auto red eye elimination
• Auto White Balance
• ISO1000 and up
• Motor drives
• Movie capability
• Wifi or 3G transmission of images from the camera
• Near total silence
• LCD screens, often swivelling
• Wireless remotes
• Automatic dust removal
• Anti-shake
• GPS
• Panorama capability
• Time lapse
• Phone calls from cell cameras
• Vast range zoom lenses
• Broad processing capabilities at the touch of a keyboard and mouse
• Projection quality on just about any LCD screen size you can think of
• High dynamic range
• Throwaway cheap – compare the fraction of disposable income taken versus 50 years ago
• Instant results
• No film
• No futzing with chemicals
• Waterproof
• Available in pink

Of that long list, the 1925 Leica offered but the first three …. and the Leica or Nikon of Harold Mac’s time offered no more, though either now weighed twice as much!

These thoughts ran through my mind after seeing the David Bailey movie I wrote of the other day. Every time he raises that Pentax to his eye I think of the horrendous amount of back-end work needed to realize the artist’s vision. And that assumes he focused and exposed the image correctly in the first place.

Technology obsoletes labor and expertise. For many economies that’s not a good thing but for all photographers it’s a dream come true. So what if “anyone can take a picture”? Kodak said “You take the picture, we do the rest” over a century ago. Kodak is gone but that jingle is finally true. The “we” is largely microprocessors/telcos/computers/cell phones, and the amount YOU have to do has never been less. All you need is a forefinger and an eye. The latter is in as scarce supply today as it has ever been. But the technical obstacles to the realization of vision have never been lower.

The state of the art today. Weight? <5 ounces.

Bailey would have killed for that little Sony in 1962 as much as Cartier-Bresson would have in 1932. And Roger Fenton would have killed for either the Sony or that Leica of yore:

Roger Fenton’s gear wagon, Crimean War, 1855. Weight? 500 pounds + horse to feed and water.

And you thought your kit bag was large?

America’s greatest film maker.

If you don’t already know that Woody Allen is America’s greatest film maker, then it’s high time you took your Spielberg schmaltz-blinkered saccharine brain and aired it out a bit. Allen seems to have moved much of his film making to Europe in recent years (hardly surprising after all those years in a nation which denigrates intellect as ‘elitism’ and puts down our best and brightest as ‘geeks’ and ‘nerds’) with such movies as Everyone Says I Love You, the finest musical (with ‘Chicago’) of recent years, Match Point, (a fine society murder-thriller), Vicki, Christina, Barcelons (the story of a muse, an electric Penélope Cruz) and, most recently, Midnight in Paris, a charming piece of nostalgia and whimsy rivaled only by his own Manhattan.

Allen has long commanded access to the very best actors – who wouldn’t want to act for the American master? – and the cast of Midnight in Paris is as good as it gets. His recreation of Gertrude Stein‘s salon of writers and painters of the 1920s is perfection itself. There is no better way of illustrating this by comparing the photographs of a leading American member of that group, the surrealist photographer Man Ray, with Allen’s realizations in the movie. Man Ray and the great Lee Miller were lovers at the time.

Hemingway by Man Ray and by Woody Allen

Dali by Man Ray and by Woody Allen.

The actors in the Allen movie, shown above, are Corey Stoll and Adrien Brody, respectively.

You don’t have to love Paris to love the movie, but if you are a Francophobe it beats me why you are reading my blog.

It’s not enough to be an original thinker with a fertile mind. Those alone are not prescriptions for success. A solid work ethic is the glue that binds, and you can read all about Allen’s here.

For Allen’s take on Manhattan’s architecture, click here.