saul leiter-master of the indecisive moments

i accidentally found Saul Leiter’s interview featured at photographers speak , which the author profiled Mr.Leiter’s work in the April 2009 issue of COLOR magazine.

the gist of the interview – i enjoyed the article. i am inspired. i admire Mr.Leiter’s humility and straight forwardness. im not trying to generalise, most of the accomplished photographers i met in person behaved similarly  (more or less, each have their own quirks) – very humble and straightforward. contrary to popular beliefs, none talk solely about light nor gears. in my personal opinion, i have this impression that demi-photo GODs exclusively talks about light and gears all day :X but hey, thats perfectly OK. just don’t shove it down my throat.

what does this interview means to a hobbyist photographer? regardless of genre (Mr.Leiter is a street photographer) – the takeaway of the interview are the little snippets of Mr.Leiter’s thought process. i honestly believe, one could learn photographic techniques (easily) but on the other hand, individual’s thought process (in this case, photographically) have to be nurture. there is no shortcut for it.

one of my fave answer from this interview :-

Why did you decide to do street photography in color, when the overwhelming majority of photographers preferred black and white?
I never felt the need to do what everyone else did. And I wasn’t troubled by the fact that other people were doing other things.

awesome.

(Saul Leiter’s  work is represented by the Howard Greenberg Gallery)