Leica reinvented photography 105 years ago – now Huawei wants to do the same
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CNA Lifestyle
Leica reinvented photography 105 years ago – now Huawei wants to do the same
CNA Lifestyle visited Leica'due south HQ in Deutschland to discover how its collaboration with Huawei's P30 Series hopes to gratis photography the way handheld cameras showtime did in 1914.
Alfred Eisenstaedt's iconic picture of a sailor kissing a nurse in New York on V-J Day was famously shot on a Leica photographic camera. (Photograph: Alfred Eisenstaedt/YouTube)
29 Mar 2022 10:36AM (Updated: x Jul 2022 04:28PM)
If you lot're a photo buff, one place to add to your bucket list of places to visit would be Leica HQ, birthplace of what many purists consider to be the best cameras in the globe.
Located in Wetzlar near 60km from Frankfurt, Germany, this is where Ernst Leitz, the company that went on to become Leica Photographic camera AG, was founded. This €lx-million (S$91 meg) "new home" was unveiled in 2022 to mark the brand's centennial that year.
Designed by architecture house gruber + kleine-kraneburg, the ultra-modernistic complex, which sprawls beyond 27,000sqm over several buildings, is designed to pay homage to Leica's roots and provide rich insights into the fascinating world of photography, while too housing 750 staff who work in R&D, administration, customer care, and production for its most premium product lines.
Its visitor centre, which is open up to the public, translates the Leica story into a tangible experience for brand enthusiasts and photo buffs.
Changing THE Earth OF PHOTOGRAPHY FOREVER
Admission is free, and at that place'southward plenty to see such as openly visible production areas, displays of diverse Leica cameras, interactive showcases of camera industry, inspiring photographic exhibits, and the buildings' stunning architecture itself, which reflect design elements inspired by camera lenses, apertures, binoculars, and camera moving picture. A retail space, a restaurant and a cafe are also on site.
The guided bout (€iii.50 a person) opens up more vistas, such as access to the rooftop for panoramic views of the surroundings, deeper peeks inside the Leica manufacturing plant, and intimate commentary about Leica's history.
For Leica, it has always been about the Bauhaus principle of 'Form Follows Function', premium quality, the fine art of photography, and concentrating on the essential.
For example, during our visit, CNA Lifestyle learned that in 1914, Ernst Leitz staffer Oskar Barnack invented and built the outset still-film photographic camera for 35mm cinematics film with a negative format of 24mm by 36mm.
The beefy and tripod-mounted cameras in use at the fourth dimension meant that nigh snapshots tended to feature subjects formally arranged in stiff poses. The Leica 35-mm camera, nevertheless, fitted into the palm of the hand. Nicknamed Lilliput, it used a motion-picture show ringlet instead of individual moving-picture show plates, assuasive photographers to take multiple photos without reloading film afterward every single shot, or needing to exist in a dark room.
Its atomic dimensions allowed lensmen unparalleled portability and liberty of motility, thus paving the way for some of the most iconic shots in the earth of photography.
Even today, Alfred Eisenstaedt'southward 1945 picture of a sailor kissing a nurse in New York withal courts controversy. Nick Ut's 1972 shot of a naked Vietnamese girl screaming as she flees a napalm bomb, is widely credited as existence pivotal in ending the Vietnam State of war.
These, and many other iconic photos, such equally portraits of Che Guevara and Mohamed Ali, are all on display at Leica Photographic camera AG. All were, of course, shot using Leica cameras.
THE CHINESE REVOLUTION
Only as photography entered a new era with portable cameras small and portable, Huawei'due south new P30 Series is taking photographic camera smartphones to a new level, by equipping them with DSLR-similar and farthermost low-low-cal capabilities.
The Chinese smartphone manufacturer has used camera lenses co-engineered with Leica in its P- and Mate series phones since 2017.
It is a collaboration that seems to have paid off, earning Huawei recognition equally a manufacturer of some of the best camera smartphones available. Information technology sold 20 one thousand thousand units of its P20 Series, and expects to achieve similar sales figures for its P30 Series, according to Huawei Consumer Business Grouping's Chief Executive Officer Richard Yu.
"Fifty-fifty though applied science has changed a lot in the past 100 years, Leica has non changed its tradition of offering premium quality in terms of its products and photograph images," said Li Changzhu, Vice President Of Smartphone Product Line, Huawei CBG. "For Leica, it has always been well-nigh the Bauhaus principle of 'Grade Follows Office', premium quality, the art of photography, and concentrating on the essential."
The Bauhaus principle was developed in the 1920s and 30s, challenging the frilly conventions of fine art and blueprint of the fourth dimension, advocating instead, a return to craftsmanship and elementary, rational solutions. It remains a ascendant design philosophy today.
"Aside from collaborating with Leica on optical design and post-processing relating to prototype quality, nosotros feel that simply as Leica cameras revolutionised photography 105 years ago, Huawei has revolutionised smartphone photography.
"Smartphone photography has a special intimacy considering subjects don't feel alerted or threatened. They're adept tools to consumers to exhaust their imaginations; to create art anywhere, anytime. Everyone can be an artist," said Li.
READ: China'southward Huawei posts higher profit as smartphone sales hit record
To encourage this democratic artistry, the company's Next Prototype campaign offers smartphone photography courses online and offline, holding masterclasses pitched at professional photographers and videographers, and organising roadshows and exhibitions.
Since 2017, it has also organised an annual Next Image contest, open to anyone who meets i status: That the images are captured on a Huawei smartphone.
Co-ordinate to Li, the beginning competition drew 150,000 entries, while the second i drew 400,000 entries from 130 countries. At the end, 5,000 images are selected to be exhibited at the Paris Photo, considered one of the world's most important photographic exhibitions.
The judges for this year'southward competition include honour-winning photographer Steve McCurry, who shot the haunting image of the green-eyed Afghan girl, which was used on the cover of National Geographic mag, and Liu Heung Shing, Pulitzer-prize winning photographer and founder of Shanghai Heart Of Photography.
More data available here.
CNA Lifestyle was in Wetzlar at the invitation of Huawei.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/entertainment/huawei-p30-series-leica-lens-next-image-competition-254721
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