Leica Photblogger Article on Photojournalist Horst Faas

Penfan2010

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Ed
Interesting article from Photoblogger, commemorating the one year death anniversary of German photojournalist Horst Faas. One excerpt, from an NPR interview:

Interestingly, Faas is credited as being one of the first photographers in Vietnam to use a Leica, which enabled the photographer to look forward instead of down. In 1997, he discussed some of the technical aspects of his work with Terry Gross of National Public Radio:

“Well, I wasn’t the first one to use Leica. Larry Burrows, had considerably more Leicas than I had because at the time AP was still working with large-format cameras and I carried one or two of my own Leicas in there. Well, a Leica camera is a camera we can keep both eyes open. You can look for the free eye that doesn’t look to the viewfinder and in all directions. It’s like backwards – and sometimes, you can look for the viewfinder and see your picture. So it may be sports photography or maybe war photography, the Leica camera, at the time, appeared to me like a camera that made it possible that you were at all times aware of things happening around you.

The other wonderful things, the Leica was that you could actually take it apart like a rifle, clean it out, dry it out, put it together again with a set of little screwdrivers and it will work again – something that is impossible with today’s electronic chip cameras.”


link below:

This Week in Photography History: The Death of Horst Faas
 
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