U Thant, Secretary-General of the United Nations, photographed by Lisl Steiner inside the U.N Building in New York on December 1, 1964

December 1, 1964 inside the great hall of the United Nations General Assembly, where its 19th session ( in which three new members — Malawi, Malta and Zambia — are going to be admitted as full members ) is about to begin.

In the rostrum, from left to right are sitting: U Thant (General-Secretary of the United Nations since November 30, 1961), Carlos Sosa-Rodríguez (President of the previous 18th Session of the General Assembly of United Nations, who will open the session) and C.V.Narasimhan (Chief of Cabinet of United Nations since 1961 and Vice General-Secretary of the organization).

The presidential table is already surrounded by professional photographers and movie camera operators huddling to get pictures of the sitting three men and the U.N ambassadors from different countries.

Alfred Eisenstaedt has already placed himself in the best feasible position to get pictures of U Thant (Secretary-General of the United Nations) who is looking at him smiling, while the author of ninety covers in Life illustrated magazine stays put and keeps a lookout for him, with two cameras hanging at mid height under his waist: a Leica M3E-1 (which was presented to him by Ernst Leitz III in 1960 and first prototype of the later Leica MP) coupled to a 8 elements in 6 groups Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 1st Version and a Leica M3 connected to a 5 elements in 3 groups and 12 blade diaphragm Elmarit-M 90 mm f/2.8 original chromed version, designed by Walter Mandler at the Ernst Leitz Midland, Ontario, Canada factory.

Lisl Steiner, a photojournalist working for Keystone Press Agency, Life, Time Inc and O Cruzeiro is on far right of the image, turning the toothed focusing wheel of her black Nippon Kogaku S3 rangefinder camera with a Nikkor-P.C 8,5 cm f/2 (the reference-class lens in its focal length and luminosity at the time, delivering great image quality and which such as proved eleven years before during the Korean War by world-class photojournalists like David Douglas Duncan, Miki Jun, Horace Bristol, Carl Mydans, Margaret Bourke-White, Hank Walker and others, outperformed the excellent Carl Zeiss Jena 5 cm f/1.5 lens designed by Ludwig Bertele very slightly as to resolving power and clearly regarding contrast and sharpness, as well as boasting a top-notch simple coating, getting a superb printed quality in the photomechanics of the best illustrated publications from the original black and white negatives) just before laterally photographing U Thant, Secretary-General of the United Nations, who is sitting at a distance of roughly five meters from her, having chosen a horizontal framing in which both the face and shoulders of the Burmese dignitary appears inside the 24 x 36 mm Kodak Tri-X 400 b & w film.

The Austrian-American photographer is utterly focused on what she is doing during an instant before the photographic act, and the absence of a swivelling mirror in her Nikon S3 rangefinder camera enables her not to need any flash, being able to succesfully shoot handheld under available light and with no trepidation whatsoever, using the highly versatile Kodak Tri-X 400 black and white 24 x 36 mm format film.

On the other hand, the display of professional photographic and cinematographic cameras is truly impressive:

The camera operator being standing on far left of the image is filming with an Arriflex 16 ST from 1952, the first professional 16 mm cinematographic camera with a reflex viewing system and one of the best and most successful movie cameras ever made by the Munich based German firm.

A real workhorse featuring a 3-lens turret, it became the cinema industry standard for movie makers with 16 mm film throughout fifties and sixties.

The camera is fitted to a shoulder steady support to fully enhance the shooting stability,

while the other movie camera operator, placed very near him, is using a spring-wound Bell & Howell 70DR 16 mm motion picture camera with a 3-lens turret to allow for instant lens change and matching viewfinders, in addition to a speed selector between 8 and 64 frames per second.

On his turn, the most nearby photographer to Lisl Steiner has two Leica IIIF screwmount rangefinder cameras: one of them is coupled to a 50 mm f/2 Rigid Version 2 with which he is getting pictures, whereas the other one is linked to an 8 elements in 6 groups Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 1st Version.

The photographer located in the middle of the image (being standing just behind Carlos Sosa-Rodríguez, is using three cameras: a Nikon F with FTN finder (with which he is photographing) , a standard Nikon F with a Nikkor-P.C 105 mm f/2.5 hanging at the height of his chest, and just on its left (as seen in the image) there is a third camera: an M37 mount Asahiflex IIb Tower 24 ( manufactured betwen 1954 and 1956 ) coupled to an Asahi Kogaku 58 mm f/2.4 lens and with its waist level viewfinder folded.

The photographer wearing glasses and being just behind U Thant is using a Nikon F with Nikkor-S 55 mm f/1.2 lens.

And the photographer on far left of the image is using a Leica IIf LTM39 mount rangefinder camera with Leitz Summaron 28 mm f/5.6 in LTM39 mount and an external Leitz SLOOZ 28 mm finder.

Throughout sixties, seventies and eighties, vast majority of professional photographers often used two cameras (one for black and white film and a second one for colour emulsion) and even a third one (for colour slides) coupled to lenses featuring different focal lengths and maximum apertures, which is highly apparent in the image, in the same way as the noticeable significance bestowed upon churning out a slew of meaningful and historical images about the sessions and events inside the New York United Nations building designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemayer.

José Manuel Serrano Esparza

Lisl Steiner in Bratislava: Opening Day of " Portraits from Paradise " Picture Exhibition at the Austrian Cultural Forum

Text and Photos : José Manuel Serrano Esparza

The premiere event of Lisl Steiner´s " Portraits from Paradise " Picture Exhibition featuring 20th Century black & white historical and defining images took place at the Austrian Cultural Forum located at Hodzovo Namestie 1/A in Bratislava (Slovakia) on November 3, 2017 at 17:00 h, and will be held until December 5, 2017.

Lisl Steiner in Bratislava (Slovakia). Throughout a career spanning 68 years as a professional photographer, this brave woman was a witness of many major worldwide developments of 20th Century, having got pictures of the relevant men and women who were their main driving forces, so her collection of images is currently a full-fledged trove for any enthusiast of Photojournalism History.

From left to right, three of the forty highly representative pictures made by Lisl Steiner:

- Senator Robert Kennedy inside the Carlyle Hotel in New York with some Irish children. 1967

- Times Square (New York). Woman mourning the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

- Times Square (New York) on November 22, 1963, a few hours after being known that JFK had been slain in Dallas (Texas), which prompted the launching of a number of special editions by the most significant newspapers and illustrated magazines of the time. 

This gorgeous exhibition encompassing a painstakingly chosen assortment of 40 black and white images made by the Austrian-American photographer, photojournalist and documentary film maker between 1950 and early nineties of 20th Century had already raised high expectation since its very announcement some weeks before.

As a matter of fact, though the opening of the exhibition was slated to begin at 17:00 h in the afternoon, there were visitors from roughly 15:00 h watching Lisl Steiner´s vast array of pictures making it up.

Katarína Lesná (Public Relations and Marketing Officer of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Bratislava) and Wilhelm Pfeistlinger (Head of the Austrian Cultural Forum Bratislava) watching one of the photographs of Lisl Steiner´s " Portraits from Paradise " exhibition beside the Austrian-American acclaimed photojournalist.

Lisl Steiner delivering the welcoming speech to the abundant audience inside the Astoria Palace Rakúske Kultúrne Forum (Austrian Cultural Forum) at Hodzovo Namestie 1/A in Bratislava (Slovakia). Next to her is Branislav Stepanek, Curator of Lisl Steiner´s " Portraits from Paradise " Picture Exhibition.

And it truly came up to scratch.

Nobody was let down throughout this unforgettable opening day which became not only an exceedingly beckoning experience for lovers of black and white classical photography belonging to the halcyon days of the medium, but also a venue in which emotions skyrocketed when the more than 300 attendees ( a remarkable figure for an event like this held inside a relatively small location on a Friday evening) who crammed the facilities were quickly entranced by the fascinating personality, humbleness, experience, unique sense of humour and courage of this 90 year old woman who proved her mettle once and again during the second half of 20th century photographing many of the most important and powerful figures of politics, arts and sports shaping the world in that time, but simultaneously never letting success go to her head, in spite of having worked for many decades as a photojournalist for a number of internationally prestigious magazines, newspapers, and picture agencies like Life, The New York Times, Newsweek, Keystone Press Agency, Time, O Cruzeiro and others, as well as having published her portfolios in such top-notch illustrated publications like Leica World, Black + White Photography, LFI, etc.

Moreover, there was a substantial presence of recognized professional photographers, documentary filmmakers and personalities of the photograpy scope like Clemens Kneringer, Vivian Winther, Markus Oberndorfer, Ágnes Bihari, Meinrad Hofer, Robert Baldridge, Alexander Peter Schummel and others, in addition to the attendance of Helfried Carl (Austrian Ambassador to Slovakia).

The Curator and Project Manager Branislav Stepanek with Lisl Steiner, who came from New York (United States) to be present at the event.

Marcela Mokranova (officer at the Austrian Cultural Forum Bratislava) and Wilhelm Pfeistinger (Head of the Austrian Cultural Forum Bratislava) presenting Lisl Steiner to the scores of visitors having a penchant for true top-notch black and white photography on paper.

Wilhelm Pfeistinger (Head of the Austrian Cultural Forum Bratislava) during his introductory speech presenting Lisl Steiner.

Marcela Mokranova (officer at the Austrian Cultural Forum Bratislava) during her introductory speech presenting Lisl Steiner.

Lisl Steiner strolling while watching some of her pictures a few minutes before the opening of " Portraits from Paradise " exhibition at the facilities of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Bratislava (Slovakia).

Lisl Steiner walks past a picture of United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger she made within the U.N building in New York in 1975.

                                                 André Kertész inside the International Center of Photography in New York. 1980

Lisl Steiner talking to Helfried Carl (Austrian Ambassador to Slovakia) while there´s being a bursting into applause after having unravelled some of her photographs to a group of relishing visitors.

Three further pictures made by Lisl Steiner. From left to right:

- Norman Mailer and his mother at Miami Airport. 1968

- The terrible image of Julia Friedmann, " Mother Goose ", Robert Capa´s mother, visiting his son´s grave for the last time at Amawalk Cemetery (New York). 1961.

Julia Friedmann, the all passion and huge working capacity woman, who cooked by the piece —specially Krautfleckerln in Hungarian Káposztás tésztastyle — from 1937 in the brownstone of West-eighty ninth Street of New York, where she lived with Cornell Capa (who worked as a printer at the laboratory of Pix Agency, founded in Manhattan in 1936 by Leon Daniel, Celia Kutschuk, Alfred Eisenstaedt and George Karger and would quickly become a Life magazine darkroom expert, and after working in the photo intelligence unit of the U.S Air Force during the Second World War, turned into a Life staff photographer in 1946) and his wife Edie, preparing meals not only for them but also for many future great pros then still fledging photographers beginning their careers like Ralph Morse (who went to see Mother Goose, Cornell and Edie after finishing his photography classes in the City College of New York) , Eileen Darby (who worked in Pix laboratory in the same way as Cornell Capa and subsequently founded her own agency Graphic House in 1941)), Yale Joel, Phil Schultz and others (including Ruth Orkin from 1943), is now perceives the proximity of death and sits by the grave of her son Robert Capa, doing it in such a way that she can´t see the inscription with his name on the stone slab, because she can´t stand the sorrow.

Julianna Henrietta Berkovits is 73 years old. She is visibly aged and very worn out by suffering. The great health, strength and stamina she always featured have significantly waned, and the warmhearted and beloved Mother Goose is almost without energy to go on living. The death of his beloved son Robert Capa seven years before shattered her.

She is immersed in her own thoughts, with an almost lifeless gaze, and it is at this moment when Lisl Steiner, the woman who has accompanied her to the Amawalk cemetery, gets her last picture.

A few seconds later, a terrible and heart-rending scene happens when suddenly Robert Capa´s mother bursts into tears and throws herself on the grave of his son, yelling: Bob, Bob, Why are you here? !

- B.B King sitting in bed. 1968

Scads of visitors paid heed to Lisl Steiner´s explanations about her photographs. The American-Austrian photographer does remember with awesome accuracy every detail of the appearing people, year and moment in which she got each picture.

Three more well-known images made by Lisl Steiner.

From left to right:

- Duke Ellington during his concert at the Madison Square Garden of New York in 1960.

- Carmen Amaya, Goddess of Flamenco Dance, during her legendary performance in the Village Gate Club of New York (located at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village) in 1962, one year before her death.

Lisl Steiner got this great picture shooting from a very near distance to the stage, and remembers the breathtaking speed, accuracy and coordination of movements, along with the tremendous strength and fury she displayed (to such an extent she was defined as ´A Human Vesuvius´ by Walter Terry, dance expert of the New York Herald Tribune), it all combined with phases in which she resembled a hummingbird when moving her arms.

The queen of tablaos achieved among others huge international successes like her also mythical performances at the Carnegie Hall of New York in 1941 (being invited by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to a party in the White House a few days later), the London Princess Theatre in 1948 and at the Westminster Theatre of London in 1959.

Shortly after her first appearances in New York in 1941 hired by the Newcomber Manhattan Night Club (where she attained a colossal success throughout three months, with sold out flamenco shows every day, raising the audiences from their seats and earning 82,000 dollars a week with her Flamenco Troupe of Gypsy Dancers and Musicians) she had already been featured by Life magazine with a great reportage on her inside its number of March 10, 1941 with wonderful pictures made by Gjon Mili, who also captured masterfully the unutterable tremendous passion and fire displayed by Carmen Amaya, a woman who could dance flamenco inside her mother´s womb before being born on November 2nd, 1913.

- Pete Seeger singing with children. 1968

On construing her images oozing meaningful captured instants and depiction of very special atmospheres of those times to the attendees to this unforgettable exhibition, the American-Austrian photographer placed them in context, making them think about the pictures and the fleeting split seconds turned into everlasting defining moments with her Leica rangefinder cameras.

                                                                                                           Oscar Niemayer in Brasilia. 1957

Girl in an asylum for insane patients in Buenos Aires (Argentina). 1956. During fifties, Lisl Steiner was one of the pioneering photojournalists making picture essays with 24 x 36 mm format cameras inside mental hospitals, along with Alfred Eisenstaedt´s reportage within the Pilgrim State Psychiatric Hospital in Long Island (New York) in 1938 for Life, Esther Bubley´s photo essay on mental illnesses for Ladies Home Journal in 1949, Eve Arnold´s work in loony bins of Haiti in 1954 and Eugene Smith´s Madness Project also in Haiti in 1958 and 1959.

Already then, the  " I know that inside the sylum you didn´t live, you survived " staple keynote set forth by Alex Majoli thirty-eight years later in 1994 while fulfilling his Leros island reportage, prevailed.

The 90 year old photographer was very active inside the Austrian Cultural Forum gallery during the whole opening day of her " Portraits from Paradise " exhibition, answering every question asked by the plenty of lovers of black and white photography who steadily huddled beside her and revelled in the manifold anecdotes, experiences and stories related with the pictures that Lisl Steiner told them with lavish description.

Aside from her photographic essays and portraits regarding important personalities of politics, arts and sport sphere along with the events in which they performed the main roles, Lisl Steiner also excelled at the genre of social, ethnographic and documentary reportage, as proved by these three pictures in which he managed to go unnoticed while creating the images:

- Yanomami tribe boy smoking in the Amazonian jungle. Manaos (Brazil). 1960

- Hasidic Jew boy in Brooklyn, New York. 1964

- Boy in sportswear with football boots. New York, 1973.

Eleven years old Fidelito, Fidel Castro´s son, inside a classroom at the Havana Military School. 1961.

The photojournalist made a wise use of the Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 DR lens attached to her Leica M3 rangefinder camera to get the picture from a near distance, getting advantage of the true short tele nature of the standard highly luminous lens to create a commendable image in which she has managed to go unnoticed, in spite of the great proximity to the subject, who has been photographed engrossed in his thoughts and with very natural proportions lacking distortion.

This is a remarkable image also revealing that Fidelito — in the same way as his father — is a left-handed person, and very significant in terms of the meaningful instant captured, because it is a quite frontal shot in which the lens is aiming at the boy in an almost utterly perpendicular way, with a second classmate in the background rendered slightly out of focus to highlight the Cuban leader´s offspring.

It´s a very similar shooting angle to the one existing in the photograph of a Japanese boy (with a girl on his right) within a Kyoto school classroom writing with a pencil on a paper sheet while looking at the blackboard (out of image) made by Werner Bischof ten years before with his 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 (6 x 6 cm) Rolleiflex Automax X Model K4/50 TLR medium format camera and its Zeiss Tessar 75 mm f/3.5 lens.

Inevitably, a question arises: Why Lisl Steiner´s pictures bring about such unutterable high levels of collective enthusiasm and interest, often dumbfounding the observers and getting them hearkened to her explanations ?

That´s not an easy question to answer, but there are a number of key factors making possible to properly grasp the weightiness of these images:

a) They are photographs in which the technical excellence of the images in terms of sharpness, contrast, direction and quality of light, etc, play second fiddle, the main goal being to capture exceedingly meaningful instants conveying messages, special moods and atmospheres of the moments or unveiling the main personality traits of the photographed human beings.

On the other hand, these were times in which most photographers calculated the proper exposure through estimation, without any light meter.

b) To get the picture is by far the most important thing, to such an extent that being at the adequate place at the suitable instant becomes the cornerstone of a kind of photography in which the maximum feasible proximity to the subject is also fundamental, along with the ability of the photojournalist to spawn a rapport with the photographed people.

c) To constantly strive after going unnoticed, since discretion is essential to be able to create this type of pictures getting the subjects unaware, with respect and without disturbing them any way.

It is the dream of every full-fledged photojournalist: to become invisible just at the moment in which he or she is getting a good picture.

And this concept is powerfully reinforced by the whispering almost imperceptible noise of the rubberized cloth shutter release curtains of Leica M rangefinder cameras, together with the brightline frames for different focal lenses projected through metallic masks enabling to see what is happening outside their limits in the moment of getting the pictures.

d) Lisl Steiner made a very high percentage of her photographs with 24 x 36 mm format analog Leica rangefinder cameras (Leica M2, Leica M3, Leica M5, Leica M6 and Leica M7) lacking swivelling mirror, enabling the photographer to shoot handheld with available light at much slower shutter speeds (sometimes even at 1/8 s and 1/4 s without almost any trepidation) than with a single lens reflex camera, with the added bonus of an incredibly short shutter lag (ranging between 10 ms and 12 ms for the M2, M3 and M6, the models most used by the Austro-American photographer and far better in this regard than the cream of the crop of current professional full frame dslr cameras like the Nikon D850, Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Canon EOS 5DS, Pentax K-1 and Sony A7RII) resulting in an almost non existent delay between the pressing of the shutter release button and the creation of the image.

e) Lisl Steiner´s images on paper exude the mythical Leica hallmark aesthetic appearance of the photojournalism heyday: in many of them the focus is not absolutely 100% accurate, grain is visible but it doesn´t matter at all, particularly as to the all-around performer Kodak Tri-X 400 (the main black and white film used by Lisl Steiner), a chemical emulsion whose impressive versatility, great exposure latitude and oustanding acutance makes possible to the observers, many decades after the images were created, to enjoy wonderful levels of sharpness visual perception.

f) The non aspherical Leica M lenses used by Lisl Steiner (Summicron DR 50 mm f/2, Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Version 3, Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 First Version SAWOM, Super Angulon-M 21 mm f/3.4 and Tele-Elmarit-M 90 mm f/2.8 with scalloped focusing ring) don´t deliver stratopsheric levels of resolution and contrast typical in the modern aspherical Leica M lenses, but boasted awesome mechanical construction as well as rendering second to none image quality in their time and above all great character and distinctive image appearance, particularly Walter Mandler´s 35 mm wideangle and 90 mm compact tele lens designs conceived in Midland, Ontario (Canada) and optimized for photojournalism as well as yielding superb bokeh in the out of focus areas, often attained through the intentional preservation of some specific optical aberrations.

g) The accuracy of the timing when pressing the shutter release button of the camera is a further pivotal factor to get good photojournalistic pictures, and it is pretty apparent in many of Lisl Steiner´s images, captured with a shooting quickness and precision conceptually linked to Dennis Stock´s tenet " The photographic decision, like the jazz decision, must be instantaneous ".

From left to right:

- Shoeshine boys in Copacabana beach, Rio do Janeiro (Brazil). 1957. They had no childhood and Lisl was with their mothers, who lived in favelas and were prostitutes. Image belonging to her Children of the Americas Project.   

- Girl in the dining wagon of a train. Brazil. 1968. This is the second picture of this girl made by Lisl Steiner going unnoticed from a very near distance with her Leica M2 and a Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 First Version Sawom. In the second one, the girl was photographed with the five fingers of her right hand stretched and three standing people in the background.

- Bathing Child in Pound Ridge (New York). 1970

Franz Beckenbauer signing an autograph on a ball to a young fan in the locker-room of Cosmos New York Soccer Club. 1977

Lisl Steiner is congratulated and supported by one of the attendees to the exhibition. In the background can be seen other two pictures made by her:

- The pianist Friedrich Gulda in Buenos Aires. 1949

- The British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham at the piano. 1963

Fidel Castro at his uncle´s home in Buenos Aires.

Picture made by Lisl Steiner on May 2, 1959. It is an exceedingly interesting double exposure in whose center can be seen Fidel Castro standing beside his uncle Gonzalo Castro Argil — brother of his father Angel María Bautista Castro Argil — just after having had lunch inside the house located at the Street Cabello 3589 where the 79 year old man has lived in Buenos Aires since 1913.

The day before, Fidel Castro had promised his uncle Gonzalo to have lunch at his home, on the condition of being offered a caldo gallego.

The Cuban revolutionary leader kept his word and went to this house located in the Palermo neighbourhood of the Argentinian capital to have lunch on Saturday May 2, 1959, after delivering his speech at the modern building of the Secretary of Commerce where he explained his planning of economical development for Latin America, focused on a financial boost of 30,000 million dollars in a ten years period.

Lisl Steiner had previously taken a picture of people standing outside this house, and subsequently went into it to cover the meeting of Fidel Castro with his uncle, but after taking out the Kodak Tri-X 400 black and white 35 mm film from her Leica rangefinder camera, she inadvertently put it inside it back again, so a double exposure happened and in the image there are people from the previous picture she got in front of the house and other people who had just had lunch inside Gonzalo Castro´s home.

Though this image was created unintentionally, exposing the same 35 mm film roll twice in this frame, it is a riveting picture.

Lisl Steiner´s " Portraits from Paradise " picture exhibition at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Bratislava (Slovakia) has proved that the photographer´s eye and sight along with his/her gleaned experience, intuition and emotional connection with the subjects are the most important aspects when it comes to getting good pictures.

Not in vain, her images belong to a golden era of photojournalism in which cameras didn´t feature autofocus or a host of technologically advanced electronic and automatic functions whatsoever.

But in spite of it, the photojournalists managed once and again to create a very high percentage of the best and most iconic images ever made in the whole History of Photography.

Suffice it to say that two years before his death, Alfred Eisenstaedt (one of the greatest photojournalists ever, who got 90 covers in Life magazine and was friend of Lisl Steiner, who photographed him a lot of times) made the Clinton family portraits at the Granary Gallery in West Tisbury on Martha´s Vineyard (Massachussets) in 1993 with a LTM39 Leica IIIa rangefinder camera lacking any electronic device and coupled to a manual focusing Leitz Summitar 5 cm f/2 Number, using only one 35 mm format roll film.

Whatever it may be, this event has gone far beyond the photographic realm, reaching a remarkable human dimension in which the gist has been the sincere appreciation and love given to Lisl Steiner by the great numbers of people who came to watch this unique image display epitomizing the reference-class haptic experience of black and white true photography on paper and thanked her effort to be present during this opening day.

Ingrid Bermann Photographed by Lisl Steiner

Martin Luther King Funeral April 9, 1968 : Lisl Steiner in Action

John Fitzgerald Kennedy´s State Funeral in Washington D.C. 50th Anniversary. Photographic Coverage by Lisl Steiner on November 23, 24 and 25, 1963

3 aus Übersee ( 3 From Overseas ) : Presentation at Westlicht Vienna of the Documentary Film DVD by Thomas Hackl and Mina Pictures on Erich Lessing, Lisl Steiner and Wolf Suschitzky 

Lisl Steiner Photographs Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Chiao Kuan Hua and The Permanent Ambassador Huang Hua seated at the 26th General Assembly of the United Nations on November 15, 1971 in New York

                                    © Lisl Steiner / Keystone Press

November 15, 1971. The 26th General Assembly of the United Nations is being held in New York.

Twenty-five days have elapsed since October 25, 1971, date in which the United Nations voted to admit the People´s Republic of China (mainland China) with a place as one of the five permanent members of the U.N Security Council.

The U.N delegation of the People´s Republic of China has arrived at the JFK airport four days before, on November 11, 1971, to take part in the 26th United Nations General Assembly and is made up by Huang Hua (Permanent Ambassador to the United Nations and formerly Ambassador to Canada), Chiao Kuan Hua (Deputy Foreign Minister), Ms Wang Hai Yong (President Mao Tse-Tung´s niece), Hsiung Hsiang Hui (who had studied at American universities during the 1940s and would be Chinese Ambassador to Mexico next year), Chen Chu (alert analyst of Soviet and Mid East affairs), Tang Ming-chao (who had lived in United States for sixteen years prior to Mao Tse-Tung´s takeover of the Chinese mainland in 1949) and Kao Liang (chief of intelligence and espionage missions).

All of them are now inside the huge U.N building in Manhattan, New York City, seated in the General Assembly Hall.

The photographer Lisl Steiner (working for Keystone Press Agency and one of the few photojournalists accredited for this event along with Alfred Eisenstaedt, Brian Alpert, Jean-Paul Laffont, Mel Finkelstein, John Rooney, Paul Slade and others) is near the Chinese delegates.

                                   © José Manuel Serrano Esparza

She has got a Leica M2 with 12002 SBKOO 21 mm metal brightline finder with standard shoe on it and an 8 elements in four groups Leitz Wetzlar Super-Angulon 21 mm f/3.4 lens (symmetrically designed by Schneider-Kreuznach under Leica specifications)

                                  © José Manuel Serrano Esparza

with 12501 model clip-on hood,

                                  © José Manuel Serrano Esparza

a 24 x 36 mm format mirrorless with rangefinder camera given away to her in mid sixties by the New York Herald Tribune photographer and Pulitzer Prize 1949 Nat Fein and Kodak Tri-X 400 black and white film.

The expectation is huge and all of the photographers and cameramen have been approaching to the metallic bar in which the name China is written to photograph or film the delegates of this country located just behind it, so space has been crammed for some minutes with photojournalists using Nikon, Leica and Asahi Pentax cameras handheld, others with flashes and some movie camera operators using 16 mm Bell & Howell Filmo 70DR with three lens turret cameras.

Lisl Steiner has been paying heed to choose the best moment to shoot and it arrives when she manages to find herself a good position in front of Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Chiao Kuan Hua and the Chinese Permanent Ambassador to the U.N Huang Hua, very close to them, slightly on the right, and with two further members of the Chinese delegation visible behind Huang Hua: Ms Wang Hai Yong (President Mao Tse-Tung´s niece) over his right shoulder and Hsiung Hsiang Hui over his left one.

                                    © Lisl Steiner / Keystone Press

It is now when she presses the shutter release button of her Leica M2 mirrorless with rangefinder camera and captures both Chiao Kuan Hua (smiling) and Huang Hua (engrossed in his thoughts) unaware, going unnoticed in spite of the great proximity to them and taking advantage of the amazing levels of discretion provided by the whispering shutter release noise of her utterly mechanical photographic tool in synergy with an exceedingly short shutter lag of 15 milliseconds, far superior in this regard to the cream of the crop of digital professional cameras of different formats currently manufactured well within XXI Century.

   
46 years later. Lisl Steiner inside her room at the Hotel Kaiserin Elisabeth in Vienna (Austria) holding a 30 x 40 cm enlargement of the picture she made in 1971. © José Manuel Serrano Esparza                              

         
46 years later. Lisl Steiner at the lounge of Hotel Kaiserin Elisabeth in Vienna. The picture she got of Huang Hua and Chaio Kuan Hua is a major photojournalistic and historical document, since it depicts the beginning of China aperture to modernity particularly fostered by Zhou Enlai, who with great wisdom envisaged the future and sent a first-class Chinese delegation with two very brilliant men: Huang Hua (displaying a great mastery of English language, who had studied with American missionaries at Yanjing University in Beijing during thirties, featured a comprehensive culture, would have secret talks with Henry Kissinger in New York around the time of Richard Nixon´trip to China in 1972 and would negotiate with U.K Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher the transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997) and Chiao Kuan Hua (Chairman of the Chinese delegation, a skilfull politician who lead the Chinese delegations to the U.N until 1976). © José Manuel Serrano Esparza

46 years later. Lisl Steiner beside the large mirror within her room at Hotel Kaiserin Elisabeth in Vienna holding the 24 megapixel full frame Leica Q digital camera with Summilux 28 mm f/1.7 lens given away to her by Dr. Andreas Kaufmann, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Leica Camera AG. © José Manuel Serrano Esparza

JIMMY CARTER, PRÄSIDENT DER VEREINIGTEN STAATEN, VON LISL STEINER PHOTOGRAPHIERT

ENGLISH

Lisl Steiner im „Westlicht-Schauplatz für Fotografie“ in Wien (Österreich) am 19. November 2016 und an ihrem 89. Geburtstag schreitet sie neben der Aufnahme von Jimmy Carter, die sie neununddreissig Jahre zuvor gemacht hatte.

7. September 1977.  Nahezu acht Monate nach dem Amtseid ist Jimmy Carter, Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten, im Rose Garden des Weißen Hauses in Washington, DC, um vor der Presse am Tag der Unterschrift des neuen Panama-Kanal-Vertrages und des Neutralitätsvertrages zu sprechen und verspricht, die Kontrolle des Kanals den Panamanesen im Jahr 2000 zu überlassen.

Sol Linowitz und Charles L. Schulze (oberster Wirtschaftsberater von Jimmy Carter) haben dieses Abkommen mit dem Panama-Präsidenten Omar Torrijos unermüdlich über vielen Monate hinaus verhandelt.

Die Erwartung ist riesig, weil zu diesem Zeitpunkt 6 Prozent des Welthandels durch diese interozeanische Wasserstraße fließen.

Der Platz ist mit Fotojournalisten der verschiedensten Zeitungen, Zeitschriften und Bildagenturen, sowie mit Kameramännern aus einer Reihe von TV-Kanälen überfüllt.

Jimmy Carter steht neben dem eigens dafür aufgestellten Mikrophon und ist bereit, eine Rede zu halten.

Er ist für einen Moment in Gedanken versunken und versucht, sich auf die Worte und Themen zu konzentrieren, auf die er zurückgreifen wird.

Lisl Steiner, die als Fotojournalistin für das Magazin Life und fur die Keystone Press Agency arbeitet, ist etwa 4 Meter von Jimmy Carter entfernt.

Der Präsident ist von einigen Sicherheitskräften umgeben und sie wird  vielleicht keine neue Möglichkeiten haben, um ihn aus der Nähe zu fotografieren.

Lisl Steiner's Leica M5 mit oberer Platte (beinhaltet von links nach rechts den automatischen Rahmenzähler, den Verschlusszeit-Wählring mit dem gleichzeitigen Auslöser, den schnellen Transporthebel, den Zubehörschuh mit X-Blitzkontakt, die Filmflächenanzeige-Markierung, die ASA /DIN-Filmskala und das Beleuchtungsfenster für den internen Belichtungsmesser) und mit oberem Vorderbereich (beinhaltet auch von links nach rechts das kleine HF-Fenster unter den ersten drei Buchstaben des Wortes Leica, Zeilenrahmen und das 0,75-fache Vergrößerungs-VF-Fenster). Es war die erste Entfernungsmesserkamera mit TTL-Messung.

Sie hält eine Leica M5 Entfernungsmesserkamera mit Leuchtrahmensucher für 35, 50, 90 und 135 mm Linsen, geladen mit

Kodal Plus-X 125 ASA schwarzweiß-Film und angeschlossen an

Leitz Kanada Tele-Elmarit-M 90 mm f / 2.8 Seriennummer 2287014 mit gekerbtem Fokussierring von Lisl Steiner, um das Bild von Jimmy Carter mit einer Leica M5-Entfernungsmesserkamera zu erhalten. Diese überaus kurze und kompakte Telelinse wird von ihr auch viele Jahre später verwendet, und zwar ab Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts mit einer Leica M7 (teilweise im Bild zu sehen) ebenfalls mit VF 0,72-facher Vergrößerung .

Leitz Kanada Tele-Elmarit-M 90 mm f / 2,8 Linse (zwischen 1964 und 1974 hergestellt),  von Walter Mandler mit 5 Elementen in 5 Gruppen und mit einem Diaphragma von zehn Blendenflügeln und einem Fokus von 1 Meter entworfen.

Ihre fast zwanzigjährige Erfahrung als Fotojournalistin, als sie ihre Karriere Ende der fünfziger Jahre begann, gab ihr zu verstehen, daß dies der entscheidende Moment war.

                                    © Lisl Steiner/Keystone Pictures                                      

Sie wählt eine horizontale Fotoausrichtung, damit das Gesicht des US-Präsidenten  einen erheblichen Prozentsatz des Bildes ausfüllt und drückt den Auslöser ihrer Leica M5 Entfernungsmesserkamera, erfaßt Jimmy Carter bei einer Introspektion, mit einem perfekten Timing schießt sie mit f / 5.6, (345 g) des Tele-Elmarit-M 90 mm f / 2.8 und erreicht eine einfache und schnelle Optimierung des perfekten Fokuses, dann schießt sie von Hand und erhält eine hervorragende Bildqualität und  schärfere Bilder als die vorherigen 5 Elemente in 3 Gruppen Elmarit-M 90 mm f / 2,8 (hergestellt zwischen 1959 und 1974, sportlich ein Gewicht von 335 g, anfällig für bengalische Flamme, mit einem 12-Blatt-Membran und einem schlechten Bokeh).

Zuerst kann ein 90-mm-Objektiv schwer auf eine Entfernungsmesser-Kamera fokussieren und die Fokussierung muß sorgfältig durchgeführt werden, da das Rechteck die Rahmenlinien zeigt, die dieser Brennweite in einer 0,72-fachen Vergrößerung bei einer  Leica M5 entsprechen (in dem die 35 und 135 mm Rahmen als Paar erscheinen) und somit etwas klein ist.

Wenn man bedenkt, daß die effektive Basislänge bei der Zunahme der  Bildvergrößerung und der RF-Grundfläche länger wird, wäre es eine bessere Wahl gewesen, um den genauest machbaren Fokus zu erhalten, die Leica M3 mit seinem 0,92-fachen Vergrößerungssucher und einer RF-Basislänge von 68,5 mm (wirksame von 63 mm) zu verwenden.

Detail von Lisl Steiner's Leica M5-Frontbereich mit dem HF-Kleinfenster, dem Beleuchtungsfenster für Brillenträger und dem großen Fenster mit der 0,72-fachen Vergrößerung VF. Diese Kamera verfügt über eine ausgezeichnete TTL-Spotmessung Dank einer 8 mm kreisförmigen CDS-Zelle.

Aber die Leica M5 0.72x VF-Vergrößerung und ihre RF-Grundlänge von 68,5 mm (wirksam ab 49,32 mm) in Bezug auf die recht geringe Größe, das geringes Gewicht, die kurze Länge und den sehr langen Wurf des Tele-Elmarit-M 90 mm f /2.8, erweisen sich als eine wirksame Kombination für die Aufnahme per Hand und aus dem Handgelenk, um eine genaue Einstellung zu erreichen.

Darüber hinaus verfügt dieses Objektiv über ein beeindruckendes Gleichgewicht optischer Abweichungen, die meisterhaft konzipiert wurden, um gleichzeitig eine hervorragende Schärfe und ein großartiges glattes Bokeh mit schönen, weichen, runden Zerstreuungskreisen zu erzielen, wodurch ablenkende Hintergründe vermieden und die Hauptthemen im Fokus hervorgehoben werden. Dies spricht Bände für Mandlers Einblick bei der Gestaltung seiner Objektive, denn das Leica M Messsuchersystem zeichnet sich durch die Fokussierung von 28, 35 und 50 mm Objektiven aus, während bei Verwendung längerer Linsen (75 mm, 90 mm und 135 mm) oder kürzerer Linsen (24 mm und 21 mm) müssen vorzugsweise Kameras mit 0.85x / 0.92x VF Vergrößerungen bzw. 0.58x Vergrößerungen benutzt werden.

Auf jeden Fall sind das Auge des Fotografin, ihre Erfahrung und ihre Gabe, das Bild voruaszusehen, ihr Vorgefühl , die Bildeinwirkung, die ihr etwas sagen, um am geeigneten Ort im richtigen Moment so nahe wie möglich zu sein. Es sind Schlüsselfaktoren zu denen zwei weitere Grundlinien hinzukommen, die oft von Bruce Gilden erklärt wurden: Den Raum als Teil des Spiels kontrollieren und starke emotionale Inhalte erzielen.

Lisl Steiner sitzt in der Halle vom Kaiserin Elisabeth Hotel in Wien mit einem Exemplar  eines Fotopapiers (30 x 40 cm) vom Präsidenten der Vereinigten Staaten Jimmy Carter, den sie am 7. September 1977 im Rose Garden des Weißen Hauses in Washington D.C. fotografierte.

Goldene Medaille der Österreichischen Photographischen Gesellschaft (PhG), höchste Auszeichnung der Österreichischen Photographischen Gesellschaft, die im Jahr 2015 an Lisl Steiner verliehen wurde.

Text und Bilder gezeigt: José Manuel Serrano Esparza