Magnum photo at the Esther Woerdehoff Galery

Wendsday I was invited by Esther Woerdehoff to the vernissage of the exhibition Magnum 60 pictures, 60 years. I is a really nice exhibition, only available in Paris but until January 2008. It could gives you a motivation to go in Paris.

I do not publish pictures here because they are far more beautiful in reality. You can have a look at the web site gallery in order to have an approximative idea.

I have been in Arles last summer where another exhibition about Magnum held. The choice between the two are sometimes similar, sometimes different. At Arles we have the most iconic picture of Magnum. There is also quotation, legends and books around the photography. Here, Esther Woerdehoff made a more personal choice of pictures simply attached on 3 white walls.

The intimate ambiance created allows a closer relation with the pictures. The visitor is not overwhelmed by the stature of the photography. He can look at the picture in the same way we look the great renaissance master works : with the profound sentiment that something of the humanity has been caught and is given back to the men kind.

Home Desktop?

My wife is working in the HR department which is thinking about a project of remote working / working at home project. The discussion she had with her colleague was very interesting.

Here a few of they believes :

• Collaborators will not be able to manage family and work
• I have have to move the computer at home to work remotely.
• Working at home has no costs.
• The productivity will decrease
• and a few other ideas of the same kind

The main point is that the management is absolutely not prepared to work with no collaborator in sight. The hierarchical structure will be completely reshaped. A second point can also be raised. The workforce is not used to the tools that this new way of business.

Two main forces are facing each other.

• On one hand the management team in place who see the move but do not know how to take advantage of it
• On the other hand the new generation of worker which are used to the new tools but they have to discover the business reality

I hope these two party take the best of each other to shape the future.

M8

Last weekend, I go the chance to have a Leica M8 in hands. This camera is really nice (if one can forgot the price). I made cool shots of the fields in "Bourgogne".

I have a R8 and I am very happy with it, but it is too heavy and I wonder how to decrease the weight, without decrease the quality. I want also to have a digital camera. The digital modul was not any more an option since Leica discontinued the product at the beginning of this year. Then I try the little D-lux 3. Very cool, it is only too slow to capture my bouncing 3 years old daughter.

I uploaded some picture in flickr. I found the camera simple and efficient. Not crowed with a lot of fancy features, but smart and fast. The main difficulty for me was to adapt to the rangefinder (the R8 is an SLR). I had bad memories with the M6 range finder. It was nearly impossible to quickly focus something. The M8 is very clear and bright. I seems to have been improved. The only issue I noticed was the focussing of picture when you have a lot of tiny things thats looks almost the same in your finder (typical example of field of grass).

I think I will wait for the next release, because I am not in a hurry now.



[UPDATE] I found with the M9 Flickr group a little Austrian article upon the next Leica M release published during the summer. It reinforce my wait and see option. Here is the quote (in german, but go into a webtranslator service to have it in whatever language you wish)

ECHO: Es soll angeblich demnächst eine Leica M9 kommen?
Kaufmann: Da greifen Sie einer Mitteilung vor, die wir noch gar nicht gemacht haben. Wenn man weiterzählt, wäre das natürlich die logische Folge. Als offizielles Statement kann ich dazu nichts sagen. Stellen Sie es sich aber so vor: Wenn Sie Leica-Entwickler wären und Sie fänden einen Weg – ich verwende Konjunktiv – einen Vollformatsensor unterzubringen, dass der Cropfaktor wegfällt, dann würden Sie es doch tun, oder?