Hans Windisch. Die Neue Foto-Schule (1940)

     Hans Windisch. Die Neue Foto-Schule (1940) Windisch pronounces on the right way to take photographs, develop film, and print enlargements. There is an immense amount of technical data here. Windisch suffers from the German awe of the “Fachmann”, the person with special, expert knowledge, and exhibits a corresponding disdain for the layman, who, he says, is merely a “Roboter” when he follows rules and guidelines without knowing the technical basis for them. In other words, the tone of this book is offensive, however much useful data it contains. And much of the data was even more useful back then, when a good deal of the chemistry of film photography was still being explored, and manufacturing techniques weren’t capable of the consistent high quality that became available after the war.
     Windisch is a born teacher; his explications of the theory underlying the technology are models of clarity. It’s a pity his tone is that of the superior expert deigning to share his knowledge with the humble bumbling amateur. He is also quite vain. Over half of the photos he offers as examples are his, and he is, at best, merely capable. He has good technique but no art. This may be related to his belief that the art of photography were merely a matter of sound understanding of some underlying science.
     A series of pictures with text is offered as an example of how to tell a story through pictures. It’s quite good, except for its subject and tone. It consists of a number of head shots taken of the man who is rowing the photographer and his wife across Lake Chiem to an island. The man is talking about his former girlfriend, who gave him some troubles. “But not to worry – there are plenty of others where she came from”. This is told in Windisch’s version of the Bavarian dialect. I suppose he thought it was humorous, and such, but it comes across as condescending to the man and nastily indifferent to his wife, who is listening to the story, too.
     An interesting and curious book, not least because of the high quality of printing and paper. The war-induced shortages had not yet hit German life in 1940. *** for the technical content, 0 for everything else. (2006)