Shel Belinkoff wrote:
> A black border is not necessarily an indication of a full-frame, or
> uncropped, print. Borders can be printed in, and they often are. I
> have read that HC-B has done just that in some instances, but I've
> never seen documentation of that.
>
> --
> Shel Belinkoff
The French magazine "Photo" devoted it's May 1998 issue (#349) to HCB.
Page 77 shows a print of "Derriere la gare Saint-Lazare, Paris, France
1932". It has black borders around it. It shows the sprocket holes on
the left of the print.
Page 106 shows the original negative. It was cropped. And the sprocket
holes (they were only on one side of the neg - is that the way 35mm used
to be?) are clearly on the other side of the neg.
So, it looks like the print has a "fake" border and sprocket holes, to
make it look like it wasn't cropped. If anyone has any other
explanations, I'd be happy to hear them.
And I'm an HBC fan, big time. I would have rather not seen that, but I
did.
In an interview in that same magazine, his long-time developer, Pierre
Gassmann, of Magnum, said that he rarely took more than 2 or 3 shots of
the same scene, often only taking one. On the subject of cropping
Gassmann said, "D'ailleirs la legende qui veut qu'il refusiait tout
recadrage est simplement nee du fait que c'etait tres rarement
necessaire."
I'm not very good with French, but I think that translates as: "So the
legend that he refused all cropping was simply borne of the fact that it
was rarely necessary". Which kind of implies that it was done, if only
rarely.
So, it looks like he may have cropped. To me that doesn't diminish him
as a photog. It just means that he's either being less than honest, or
at 90 years old, might have embellished his own legend in his mind.
regards,
frank
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