would cartier-bresson have been a photoblogger?

candid camera: the cult of leica. brilliantly written piece by new yorker film critic anthony lane on the enduring allure of the leica. snip:

Lee Friedlander, photographing a child in New York, in 1963, thought nothing of bringing the camera down to the boy’s eye level, and thus semi-decapitating the grownups who stood beside him. (All kids dream of that sometime.) Men and women were reflected in storefront windows, or obscured by street signs; many of the photographs shimmered on the brink of a mistake. “With a camera like that,” Friedlander has said of the Leica, “you don’t believe that you’re in the masterpiece business. It’s enough to be able to peck at the world.” One shot of his, from 1969, traps an entire landscape of feeling—a boundless American sky, salted with high clouds, plus Friedlander’s wife, Maria, with her lightly smiling face—inside the cab of a single truck, layering what we see through the side window with what is reflected in it. I know of long novels that tell you less.

spontaneity/experimentation and not worrying about mistakes is what got me hooked on photoblogging. i was (unknowingly) trying to emulate the work of the photographers like cartier-bresson, friedlander and eggleston as well as some of the early nyc photobloggers like red, quarlo, and fred. where the leica is compact and unobtrusive, digital cameras (with practice and to accomodate shutter lag) share the same attributes with the added benefit of the immediate feedback and the “delete” button. the only missing piece is the sharp glass.

i miss that spontaneity; too often i find myself saying “i have taken that shot” or “i’ve seen that picture already”, or “light’s too low”.

relatedly: nyc photobloggers 10 is on this wednesday (9/26) at the soho apple store. yours truly is a previous presenter.