Category Archives: Photography

Leni Riefenstahl

Hall of Shame, Movies, Photographers

To know her work is to understand.

Few would dispute that the greatest movie about the Olympics is Olympia, Leni Riefenstahl’s 1936 masterpiece chronicling the Aryan master race in the 1936 Olympics. It shows perfect specimens of the nordic man-god ideal variously chucking the discus, running like a gazelle (albeit slower than the schwartzer untermensch Jesse Owens), and generally being, well, white and superior. Sure it’s dated (whitey is unlikely to win much of anything in the modern sham known as the Olympic Games) but the photography is superb.

The movie follows on from one far greater, perhaps the most evil film ever made, Triumph of the Will. Watch it with an open mind and you, too, will be swept up in the cleverly managed tension which builds throughout the movie until her slightly less than Aryan leader finally makes his appearance for the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. The style is one of a succession of still images rather than that of a movie. Between Riefenstahl’s adulation of this bad man and the Propaganda Ministry’s financing, she produced the greatest fake documentary yet made. I was forcibly struck by just how plagiarized her work has become in watching the old version of Spartacus with Kirk Douglas and just about any of the tedious Star Wars epics from Geroge Lucas (a man who has never met an actor he can direct). Look at any of the crowd scenes of the armies of bad guys from either director and you have a shameless rip off of the best/worst in Riefenstahl’s propaganda masterpiece. Look at the post war The Third Man and you have all her camera angles writ large by director Carol Reed. She left an indelible mark on the documentary genre.


Hitler’s favorite film maker supervises filming

Sure.

She was just following orders.


A big lens and no moral compass, Riefenstahl participates enthusiastically in the 1934 Nuremberg Nazi party rally.

They should have whacked her at Nuremberg – where could have been more appropriate? – along with all the others in 1946, and have saved the world another 50 plus years of her denials and apologia. Her total absence of shame rightly confines her to this journal’s Hall of Shame.

Update August 30, 2024:

This Guardian review of a new documentary about this evil woman confirms what I wrote back in 2008, above. They should have whacked her at Nuremberg.

Manhattan on Manhattan

Photography

If you enjoy fine architecture and beautiful photography, you can enjoy one stop shopping in Woody Allen’s superb movie, Manhattan, thanks to the efforts of America’s greatest film maker and his cinematographer Gordon Willis. George Gershwin’s music rounds out this masterpiece. Here are some stills:

For once, monochrome – a usually pretentious and tired medium used as an excuse for mediocrity – works well here.

And, when you are done, contemplate Things That Really Matter, while on the couch:

My list for photographers?

  • HCB’s man jumping over the puddle
  • Anything by Norman Parkinson
  • Guy Bourdin’s outrageous fantasies
  • This month’s issue of Harper’s
  • Hoyningen-Heune’s stark compositions
  • Doisneau’s romantic Paris

Lightroom 2

Lightroom

A feature comparison.

With the release of Lightroom 2, Adobe has published a useful feature comparison to Version 1 – click here.

I’m not upgrading right now, respecting my ‘Never Buy Version 1.0 of anything’ rule. Further, as I do not do a lot of image processing, the enhanced controls in v2 don’t do that much for me. 64 bit support? Meaningless to me from a practical perspective.

As for Lightroom 1.4.1, which is what I currently use, I couldn’t be happier. It’s fast, doesn’t lose images and printing is a dream. I’m beginning to wonder whether Aperture will be orphaned soon – a small user base (Mac only), a bog slow application unless you spend $$$ on hardware and very buggy implementation will not see me back with that flawed product.

Photography podcasts

Photography

Choices are growing.

There are more and more photography related podcasts, all free, available in the iTunes store, for viewing on your computer, iPod or TV. I watch these on our TV using an AppleTV to download them. Some are in ‘enhanced’ mode, meaning you can see pictures as the sound track runs.

Simply go to iTunes->Podcasts and search for Photography as shown above. Quality is all over the place, but it’s easy to filter down to what you like after hearing an episode or two.

There are also more Photoshop podcasts than you can shake a stick at:

There is now so much material out there that whether you are seeking to learn a new application or simply looking for creative ideas, there is no shortage of choices.You can download a free copy of iTunes for either Macs or PCs from Apple.

Canon sensors and the 5D

Canon 5D

Old but still topical.

I came across these two on my hard drive – both white papers were released by Canon about the time of the 5D’s debut and still make fascinating reading.

Download either PDF by clicking the pictures below.

Both are fairly lengthy, with the first having an especially interesting discussion of the development of CCD and CMOS sensors, clearly explaining the differences.

Why publish this now when the 5D is about to be updated and obsoleted? Because if you can live with the modest maximum framing rate and the absence of dust removal, I believe the 5D lightly used market will be flooded with cameras from upgraders and will, as a result, offer an enticing opportunity to enter the world of full frame imaging at a very attractive price. If your print size is limited to 24″ x 30″, you cannot go wrong with this body and sensor – just don’t use Canon’s truly execrable cheap zooms on it. A good sensor deserves the best glass – primes if you can swing it as no zoom compares to a like prime for definition and overall performance. Plus most of Canon’s primes are far cheaper than their L zooms and are generally superb – I use the 20mm (not so superb), the 15mm fish eye, the 50mm f/1.4, the 85mm f/1.8 and the 100mm macro. The last four are as good as anything I have used at any price and run $300-400 new, with lots of used bargains out there.