Ernst Haas On Set

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 Post subject: Ernst Haas On Set
Unread postPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 2:18 pm 
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In the early 1980s I started working as a lawyer for Southern California Edison Company. Sensing that the utility would be the place I would make my career, I dove into work with determination. I was fortunate in having been hired by a senior attorney who became my mentor, and to whom I owe a great deal.

At the same time I acquired my own Leica rangefinder: a Leica M4-P with a 50mm Summicron-M lens. I kept it in my briefcase, so it was always at hand in the office, in the field, and even in hearings. I joined what was then known as the Leica Historical Society of America, and began attending their local meetings. Around 1985, I received an announcement that Magnum photographer Ernst Haas (a well-known Leica user) would be giving a workshop. This was an opportunity I had been looking for: the chance to learn from a professional photographer whose work I admired, and whose vision resonated deeply with me.

I was all set to propel my photography to the next level with a massive dose of Haas-inspiration, when my work mentor intimated that leaving work during those particular days would leave an important case unattended at a potentially critical time. Whether this was an accurate assessment or making a mountain out of a molehill was not important. What was important (at least in my mind, at the time) was showing that there was no question about either my professionalism, loyalty, or dedication.

I stayed in the office, and did not attend the Haas workshop. I told myself that there would be another opportunity, when it would be "more convenient" for me to attend.

Ernst Haas died in 1986. He was gone, and so was the chance to study with him.

I learned a great deal from my work mentor: many things to do, and some things not to do. In this case I learned not to postpone any opportunity to learn from a master whose work moves me. The opportunities are rare, and they are fine, and they are to be treasured.

I was thrilled when I learned that in 2014 Steidl would be publishing Ernst Haas On Set, a compilation of his color and black and white photographs on motion picture sets and locations from 1949's The Third Man to 1981's Quest for Fire. I preordered the book on Amazon (no delay, no postponement, no excuses) and in due course it arrived. Wonderful design and printing, with great scans and separations by Getty Images and Steidl's darkroom enabling me to relish the photographer's sensitive mastery of color, of movement, and of light and shadow. It can be argued that simply by photographing on set, the photographer is likely to produce great pictures: after all, they are shooting made-up and costumed actors, under dramatic lights and in exciting surroundings. The truth is much more prosaic, and it takes sensitivity, timing, and an artist's vision to make of those elements something beyond a mere duplication of a frame from the motion picture, or worse: a pastiche. For a lesson in just how unique and telling and probing on set photography can really be, I cannot do better than to recommend Ernst Haas On Set, Steidl, 2014, hardcover, available on Amazon.


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 Post subject: Re: Ernst Haas On Set
Unread postPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 3:51 pm 
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Quite an excellent review with a very nice personal touch. I'm very sorry you missed out on this opportunity to train with this master photographer, but your appreciation of his work is quite evident. So you more than most would probably also get a great deal out of these unique photographs. But it looks like a marvelous collection & I will keep it in mind. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.


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 Post subject: Re: Ernst Haas On Set
Unread postPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 4:34 pm 
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Thanks for the kind words, Jed. By the way, the cover photograph looks like the typical publicity still. Don't let that fool you...the photographs inside the book are much more expressive of Haas's personal vision. I should also mention that people who know Haas only through his classic 1971 bestseller The Creation will find that Haas was as superb with candid portraiture and reportage as he was with the landscape, nature and wildlife genres. He was a marvelously versatile artist.


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 Post subject: Re: Ernst Haas On Set
Unread postPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 7:13 pm 
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He certainly sounds like quite an incredible human as well as artist. Any relation to the Walter Haas family that have historically run Levi Strauss up in the Bay Area, & also owned the Oakland A's?


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 Post subject: Re: Ernst Haas On Set
Unread postPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 7:32 pm 
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I don't think so. Ernst Haas was born in 1921 in Vienna, Austria. His father was a high-level civil servant. He studied art in Vienna up to World War II. He started photographing in 1946 and by 1950 had been with Magnum in Paris for several years and emigrated to the United States. Although his Magnum assignments took him all over the world, New York City remained his home.


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 Post subject: Re: Ernst Haas On Set
Unread postPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 7:46 pm 
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Yes, it doesn't sound it, but there possibly could be some distant connection. The Walter Haas family emigrated from Bavaria, becoming a very prominent Jewish family in the Bay Area. The business school at UC Berkeley where I attended college is the Haas School of Business.


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