The Art Critic. Washington Square, New York City 1947.
Photography is about photographs.
In the preamble to this blog I
said that I would talk about the tools, techniques, and philosophy of
photography. Today, we're going to talk about tools and techniques, and a bit
about the philosophy behind them.
Fritz Henle had a lot to say about
the tools and techniques of photography— after all, he was well known as an
advocate of a particular kind of tool, and wrote a number of books about how
best to use it. But it all was in service to one particular goal: making
photographs. He was a master of photographic technique, but he knew to use it,
then forget about it. He had a "personal crusade. . . against deadly
seriousness in technical matters, which kills the pleasure of
photography." His pictures are about content, not technique, but the technique always reinforces the content. The purpose
of technique is to enable the photographer to present the subject in accordance
with his vision.
“. . . seeing pictures is always
tied up with technique. I feel it is important to decide things like sharpness
or unsharpness and not let them happen accidentally. It is equally important to
command the techniques that get the effects you want.”
Madame Niska, Fortune Teller. Paris, 1938.
Unlike digital cameras, which
encourage you to blast away in hope of finding something worth keeping
when you sort through your files, “The twin-lens encourages you, almost forces
you, to think while shooting. . . There is no better eye-training than
practicing to see pictures within that little square frame.”
Most photographers would find
themselves feeling unbearably limited if confined to one type of camera, with
only one lens of one focal length. Yet, that is the way Henle worked, and he
covered an astonishing range of subject matter with astonishing results.
However, when the subject or
circumstances demanded it, Henle was quite capable of using other tools. For
instance, the Brooks-Plaubel Veriwide, about which he said "I have done a
lot of work with the . . . Veriwide camera, an instrument that is guaranteed to
stretch anyone's vision into wide horizontals."
Stonehenge, with the Brooks-Plaubel Veriwide camera.
His photograph of Stonehenge, made with that camera, is the best I have
every seen, perfectly capturing the mood and mystery of the ancient stones.
In 1966, when Rollei introduced
their new 6x6cm (the same format as the Rollei TLR) single-lens reflex, the SL66, Henle began using it for much of his
work, and began to work much more in color. He made many beautiful photographs
with it, however in my opinion the years from the early 1930s, when he first
began using the twin-lens reflex, through the mid-60s were the best, most productive
years of his career, the years when he made most of his classic photographs.
Now that digital cameras make it
easy for even the rankest amateur to produce sharp, well-exposed pictures by
the hundreds and thousands, how is that so many of the greatest photographs in
the history of the medium were made with cameras that we would consider
primitive and discouragingly difficult to use? Could it be that those tools
required their users to think about what they wanted to say with their
photographs and to choose their techniques wisely to that end?
Pablo Casals, 1972
Perhaps we could learn something
from Picasso, who said “Forcing yourself to use restricted means is the sort of
restraint that liberates invention. It obliges you to make a kind of progress
that you can’t even imagine in advance.” And from Orson Welles, who said “The
enemy of art is the absence of limitations.”
Henle accepted the limitations he was given and
used them to make his art.
Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/
Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia
are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal
address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943
Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how
you would like your book inscribed.
Photographs copyright 2025 Estate of Fritz Henle. Text copyright 2025 David
B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless
life gets in the way.
Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.
Tags: photography great photographers Fritz Henle Rolleiflex camera twin-lens reflex camera twin-lens reflex photography Rolleiflex photography Rollei TLR Rolleiflex SL66 Stonehenge Pablo Casals Brooks-Plaubel Veriwide camera
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