MARTIN LUTHER KING FUNERAL APRIL 9, 1968: LISL STEINER IN ACTION

April 9, 1968. Five days after  the assassination of the civil rights activist and Nobel Peace Laureate Martin Luther King, Jr., 

               Martin Luther King in 1965. © Lisl Steiner                                   

one of the most important men of Twentieth Century, as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis (Tennessee), the coffin with his body is now inside the Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta (Georgia), the same in which both King and his father had served as senior pastors.

All of his family (his wife Coretta Scott King, his children Yolanda Denise King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, Bernice Albertine King, his mother Alberta Christine Williams King, his father Martin Luther King Sr, his brother A. D. Williams King, Mahalia Jackson, and Coretta´s parents who had arrived from Alabama) and closest aides and friends (Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Bernard Lee, Hosea Williams, Thomas Kilgore, Fred Shuttlesworth, James Bevel, James Orange, Samuel Billy Kyles, B. Clarence Mayfeld, Harry Belafonte, L. Harold De Wolf  and many more) have been inside this church for the whole previous night, along with very relevant dignitaries, politicians, heads and ambassadors of worldwide states and personalities of culture and sport sphere who have travelled to Atlanta to attend to Martin Luther King´s funeral: Senators Robert and Edward Kennedy, Vice President Hubert Humphrie, Jacqueline Kennedy, Sammy Davis Jr, Paul Newman, Richard Nixon, Marlon Brando, Hailie Selassie, Dizzie Gillespie, Governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller, Wilt Chamberlain, Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, Michigan Governor George Romney, Floyd Patterson, Jim Brown, Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, Sydney Poitier, Senator Eugene McCarthy, Bill Cosby, Ossie Davis, Diana Ross, Massachusets Senator Edward Brooke, Eartha Kitt, Rabbi Harold Gordon, Ralph Bunche, James Baldwin, and many others.

The photojournalist Lisl Steiner, working for Keystone Press Agency, has also spent the night inside the Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta, and is now covering the events with other acclaimed photojournalists like Bob Adelman (Magnum), Erich Hartmann (Magnum), Cornell Capa (Magnum), Constantin Manos (Magnum), Moneta Sleet (Ebony Magazine), J.P. Laffont (Sygma), Don Hogan Charles (New York Times), Flip Schulke (Life), Charles Tasnadi (AP), Mel Finkelstein (New York Daily News) and others.

Lisl is working with two cameras: 

a medium format Rolleiflex 2 ¼ x 2 ¼  2.8f K7F Type 1 (made between 1960 and 1981) featuring a lower Zeiss Planar 80 mm f/2.8 taking lens with Deckel Synchro-Compur MXV 60 sec to 1/500 sec plus B central shutter and an upper Heidosmat 80 mm f/2.8 viewing lens) and 

a Leica M2 with Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 SAWOM and a Super Angulon-M 21 mm f/3.4.

It´s around 11:30 h in the morning of Tuesday April 9, 1968. The first programmed funeral service for Martin Luther King, officiated by his best friend Ralph David Abernathy inside the overcrammed Ebenezer Baptist Church (utterly packed with many of the country's political leaders, as well as many labor leaders, foreign dignitaries, entertainment and sports figures and leaders from numerous religious faiths, and whose limited capacity of 1,300 has resulted in some stressful situations the night before, in which even Wilt Chamberlain – the most powerful NBA center – has had a lot of difficulties to get inside and give his last farewell to Martin Luther King) has just finished and everybody begins coming out for the massive three-mile procession through  Auburn Avenue led by Martin Luther King´s casket loaded on a simple wooden farm wagon drawn by two mules which will start its march near the church and will go to the Campus of Morehouse College (the one in which King had studied and graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Sociology in 1948, being only 19 years old), where the second funeral service for Martin Luther King is due to be held at 14:00 h in the afternoon, after which the procession will go to the Atlanta South-View Cemetery (founded by former slaves in 1866) for his interment.

Approximately 150,000 people (a very high figure for the time) are waiting outside, wishing to accompany one of the most important men of XX Century during the procession.

The heat is suffocating and it´s very difficult to move in any direction.

Lisl Steiner´s eyes were witnesses of Martin Luther King´s funeral, one of the most significant events in the History of Photojournalism.    

Lisl is now located standing near the main door of the Ebenezer Baptist Church and has already seen that Don Hogan Charles (photojournalist of New York Times) and Erich Hartmann (Magnum) have managed to get places near the church main door on elevated positions from which to take pictures.

The previous day she has also taken some photographs from an elevated position, specially with her Leica M2 and Super Angulon-M 21 mm f/3.4 of the long queues of people waiting to get inside the church to see Martin Luther King in his coffin.

But conditions now April 9, 1968, with midday approaching, have become increasingly worse to make photographs: the nearby area to the main door of the church is absolutely overcrowded with thousands of mourners, since everybody pines for seeing Coretta Scott King, King´s children and his comrades aides of the SCLC, and to cap it all, there are some people raising Super 8 mm and 16 mm movie cameras over their heads, trying to record King´s relatives, aides and famous personalities getting out of the church.

In a context like this, having a press accreditation doesn´t guarantee at all to be able to get near the famous persons to take pictures, since the areas around them are jam-packed and furthermore, the fear to a new racist attack renders most times to approach as much as possible to the subjects (the short distances in which Lisl likes to work always trying to be at the right place at the right moment as key factor to capture representative moments) exceedingly difficult, because the security men are specially active and often ward off any kind of approximation or inadvertently cross in the photojournalists shooting trajectories while doing their protective tasks. 

Therefore, the stress is maximum and Lisl realizes she must take a quick decision: either getting a fixed position on an elevated point or among the people, striving after getting pictures the best she can.

It´s virtually impossible to move in any direction, but she takes the riskiest choice: she will mingle among the crowd, fighting to move at every moment and make a way for herself, taking pictures from different spots.

Suddenly, she sees in the distance Robert Kennedy with his wife Ethel walking towards the beginning of the procession. Both of them are heavily escorted by SCLC members and some private security men. Many people are approaching them, which slows down their march, so Lisl advances with strenuous effort towards them, making her way through the throng, until she is almost at point blank range.

Only one of the SCLC escorting members separates her from Robert Kennedy. It´s a delicate moment, because everybody is exceedingly nervous, specially the men tackling security missions. Lisl decides not to use her Leica raising the camera to her eyes, but her medium format Rolleiflex and 

                                         © Lisl Steiner

shoots from her chest, looking through the waist level finder and getting the picture, with Robert Kennedy in the center of the frame and Ethel, behind him, on the right.

But now Lisl is more enclosed among a sea of mourners. She can´t move. There are thousands of people around her and not even an inch of ground is unoccupied, so it´s impossible for her to have visual references of King´s friends or personalities to be photographed at the moment.

She needs to advance any way to get an acceptable watching point. 

Enhanced by the cramming people, the heat is increasingly stifling. She sweats very much and gets fidgety: the risk of not being able to get through the cluster of mourners is apparent.

But she is stubborn. Meter by meter, she manages to advance, striving after reaching a location from which to identify personalities to get them pictures, and after fighting very much, she attains it.

Now, she is watching Jackie Kennedy also walking towards the beginning of the procession. She is being escorted by two policemen and some private security members wearing sunglasses behind her.

By dint of courage and resolve, Lisl approaches progressively to them, once more opening a way for herself through the multitude.

She´s now only a few meters from Jackie Kennedy, but the policemen and security members don´t allow anybody to approach. Lisl realizes she must act very fast and above all discreetly. She will only have a shot chance.

She´s at the moment at a distance of approximately two meters from Jackie, and analyses the context: the security men behind Jackie are greatly concealed by the bodies of the two uniformed policemen protecting her, Jackie looks deep in thought and nervous, with her tongue half outside her lips, the woman behind her is looking at her right, a white priest wearing white collar is also walking absent-minded, the uniformed policeman on the left has got an instant of distraction, and the policeman on the right has momentarily his both eyes closed because of the fatigue, stress and sweat.

                                         © Lisl Steiner

It´s now when Lisl presses the release button of the Compur between lens leaf shutter of her medium format 2 ¼ x 2 ¼ Rolleiflex and gets the picture, amazingly capturing them all utterly unaware, to such an extent that none of them are looking at the camera.

But once again, she is enclosed within the great crowd massed outside the Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta (Georgia). She can´t move and everybody craves specially for seeing Martin Luther King´s most significant aides through years, belonging to the SCLC, taking the slain leader´s bier from the church to the green colour wooden farm wagon pulled by two mules onto which it will be laid.

Lisl is now at a distance of around one hundred meters from the main door of Ebenezer Baptist Church and knows that the most important images for her assignment are the ones of Martin Luther King´s prominent aides and great friends: Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Bernard Lee, James Orange, B. Clarence Mayfield, Thomas Kilgore, Fred Shuttleworth and others.

Once again, she is bound to rush into the area, advancing with great difficulties through the crowd. Her march is inevitably rather plodding and she is afraid that perhaps she won´t be able to arrive in time to get pictures of King´s aides taking handheld his casket within the stretch of ground between the church and the wooden farm wagon drawn by two mules on which it will be laid, that is already waiting.

A few minutes elapse and Lisl has finally managed to reach a position near the area through which Martin Luther King´s most important aides must walk from the church main door to the beginning of the procession which will be led by the mules drawn rickety farm wagon with King´s coffin on it up to the Morehouse College.

Meanwhile, inside the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King´s most significant aides and some men of the Marcellous Thornton and Hanley Bell Street funeral firms are arranging King´s bier to begin taking it handheld out of the building towards Auburn Avenue.

Outside the church expectation and grief are huge and thousands of persons are near the main door of the church, so it´s impossible to approach it.

Once more, Lisl has to take decisions. She notices that hundreds of volunteer members of the SCLC and some policemen have set up a security path through which King´s woman and children, rest of relatives, his most significant aides and the famous guests will walk from the church to the beginning of the procession.

There´s the great fear of a new racist assassination attempt on Abernathy or any other of King´s aides.

Lisl has been in this area for two days and nights, so she knows the place, and decides to wait standing on the nearest area of Auburn Avenue giving to the main door of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

A few more minutes go by. The heat is unbearable and from time to time there are some unavoidable moments of hassle among the persons near the church, because everybody wants to watch events.

Kodak Tri-X Pan 400, the 35 mm film used by Lisl Steiner and vast majority of photojournalists covering Martin Luther King´s funeral on April 9, 1968. Its very high sensitivity for the time, wide exposure latitude enablibg to tackle the most challenging lighting situations, outstanding acutance, unique grain structure attaining a great level of realism and dramatism matching each subject and versatility turned it into a top-notch all-around performer chosen by a lot of pros for action reportages.

Suddenly, Lisl sees Ralph David Abernathy (King´s best friend and his successor), Harry Belafonte (great friend of Martin Luther King and his family, who goes by Abernathy, on his left, in the usual place of Andrew Young, King´s second chief deputy and prominent member of the Civil Rights Movement, that for security reasons is going apart escorted by a policeman), Thomas Kilgore ( an important man of the SCLC in the South and on both coasts, key organizer of the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom to Washington in 1957 and the Civil Rights March on Washington of 1963, who is walking by Abernathy, on his right), Bernard Lee (King´s personal assistant and travelling companion throughout sixties), B. Clarence Mayfield (Civil Rights Leader in Savannah during late fifties and sixties, who joined King´s SCLC and became a great friend of his), Fred Shuttleworth (one of the founders of the SCLC with Abernathy, Bayard Rustin and MLK, and the key man of the human rights movement in Alabama during late fifties and sixties) and other men of Martin Luther King´s inner circle going out of the Ebenezer Church.

This means a turning point in the developments, because Martin Luther King´s casket will undoubtedly come behind these men, taken handheld by other prominent members of the SCLC.

Two big security men are just in front of Lisl, and they prevent anybody from approaching more.

Ralph David Abernathy and his entourage go on advancing. There´s a sepulchral silence and thousands of people are crying.

They are about to reach the Auburn Avenue. In very few seconds she will have them around five meters in front of her.

Now, the two security members abandon a bit their positions and advance in the direction of Abernathy, Thomas Kilgore, Harry Belafonte, Bernard Lee, B. Clarence Mayfield, Fred Shuttlesworth and the rest of SCLC men to protect them as much as possible from anybody trying to approach or any kind of attack with gun. Stress is very high. Both security members are with their hips towards King´s friends and paying uttermost attention to their flanks, so a momentaneous gap is generated between both of them.

The context is now also very delicate. Both security members are very nervious. Lisl realizes she will just have a one shot chance and will have to make things with utmost discretion.

Therefore, she advances as much as she can to the limit (being very careful not to go beyond the two security men) and this time she doesn´t use her medium format 2 ¼ x 2 ¼ Rolleiflex, but her rangefinder Leica M2 ( a great and very versatile photojournalistic tool for the capture of this kind of image with its 0.72x magnification and framelines for 35, 50 or 90 mm lenses) with Summicron-M 35 mm f/2, 

Finder eyepiece of Lisl Steiner´s Leica M2 featuring a coupled 0.72x rangefinder calculated by Willi Keiner (and which also had some design concepts provided by Heinrich Schneider) optimized for the par excellence photojournalistic 35 mm wideangle lens.

Lisl Steiner´s Leica M2 window of the RF, illuminating window for finder frames and window of the viewfinder.

the best possible binomial fostered by the optical computations of this camera RF calculated by Willi Klein, who managed to add a bright-line frame for 35 mm wideangle lenses which the Leica M3 lacked.

Concentration is maximum, since this is a defining moment, a concept Lisl has heard explain many times to the great Alfred Eisenstaedt, with whom she has worked inside United Nations building in New York for some years.

The space around the 35 mm lens brightline frame of her Leica M2 camera enables Lisl to see what is happening immediately outside the boundaries of the image on the left and on the right, a key factor in this photograph, because the two security men might move at any moment and conceal Ralph Abernathy, Thomas Kilgore, Harry Belafonte, Bernard Lee, Fred Shuttleworth, B. Clarence Mayfield and the rest of King´s aides and friends, so she fastly presses the release button of the rubberized cloth shutter of her mirrorless camera, which renders an exceedingly whispering low noise sound, virtually imperceptible and decisive to preserve the discretion.

                                        © Lisl Steiner

Lisl Steiner has been successful taking them all (Thomas Kilgore, Ralph Abernathy and Harry Belafonte in the middle of the picture and Bernard Lee on the right, while Fred Shuttlesworth appears behind Abernathy´s left shoulder, and B. Clarence Mayfield behind the right area of Belafonte´s face) by surprise, to such an extent that none of the ten aides of Martin Luther King are looking at the photographer and they haven´t detected at all either the presence of Lisl or her Leica M2. And the same has happened with the two security members, fully unaware about what has just happened.

Needless to say that the absence of blackout of the image due to the lack of a tilting mirror (what enables the photographer to see the subjects at every moment) and the staggeringly short 11 milliseconds shutter lag of the Leica M2 has also been of invaluable help in terms of quickness shooting. 

But there isn´t time to rest even a second, because now Lisl sees in the distance the casket of Martin Luther King which is getting out of the church, being taken handheld by Jesse Jackson, James Orange, other also prominent leaders of the SCLC (all of them great friends of Martin Luther King) and some members of the Board of Deacons of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

The atmosphere of the place and its surroundings becomes awesome and a total silence, even more apparent than before, reigns supreme around King´s coffin and the nearby areas overcrowded with people who weep tearfully. 

Thousands and thousands of persons try to approach as much as possible to see the biert, so the policemen and security members of the SCLC become inevitably more strict in preventing anybody from approaching.

Now, the closest area of Auburn Avenue to the Ebenezer Baptist Church is wholly full of security members.

Lisl Steiner realizes that it will be impossible to capture King´s aides taking his casket from the same spot she has just made the picture of Abernathy, Kilgore, Belafonte, Bernard Lee, B. Clarence Mayfield, Fred Shuttlesworth and others group, so she takes the most undaunted decision of the day: to walk backwards making a way for herself among the crowd, to get a new location approximately 25 meters behind, near the wooden farm wagon pulled by two mules which is already waiting with Hosea Williams (who will walk clad in overalls in front of King´s casket and the mules) and Albert Turner (Alabama´s SCLC Director who will hold the animals´ reins) next to it.

James Orange and Jesse Jackson go on advancing grabbing the front handles of Martin Luther King´s bier, while the rest of active pallbearers (Milton Cornelius, Jethro English, Arthur Henderson, Howard Dowdy, C.K.Steele, Fred Shuttleworth and Fred C. Bennette) go behind them grabbing the middle and back handles.

Once more, Lisl fights to her utmost to arrive in time at the place she has visually chosen, located at a short distance from the green wooden farm wagon drawn by two mules on which King´s casket will be put.

She is now sweating profusely, since the heat has reached its peak, emotions are running very high and everybody is restless, so she must be very careful not to turn anybody on edge while she endeavors to reach the location from which she will try to photograph the pallbearers taking Martin Luther King´s coffin.

Finally, after plenty of suffering and tension, she manages to reach by the skin of her teeth the spot she has chosen in advance.

But Martin Luther King´s casket is now very near, at a distance of around ten meters, with the very tall and sturdy James Orange holding part of its front handle with his left hand while Jesse Jackson is doing the same with his right hand. 

The rest of pallbearers are behind them, barely visible because they´re mostly covered by the bodies of Orange, Jackson and a very tall security man of the SCLC who advances next to Jackson and whose mission is to prevent anybody from approaching to the pallbearers, a task shared by the younger security man visible behind James Orange´s right arm, who because of the great stress and heat has loosened both his tie and the top button of his shirt.

Lisl is very near them, almost at point blank range, and once more she is aware that only a shot will be possible.

Her attention is maximum and suddenly, there´s an instant in which Jesse Jackson has got his eyes oriented towards the other side of Auburn Avenue, with a lost gaze and highly distressed ( he was with Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy and Hosea Williams on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenessee, when King was slain by a bullet on his head shot by a racist assassin* with a 30.06 Springfield rifle on April 4, 1968), the tall security man by him has got his eyes momentarily closed because of the tension and sweat, the even much taller and bulkier security man nearest to Lisl and wearing a dark cap is looking at the coffin,  a very sorrowful James Orange has got his head low, and the other younger security man (sweating very much and rather tired) has for a little while his left eye closed and his right one about to close, and the two pall bearers behind James Orange are looking at the right.

                                      © Lisl Steiner

Now is the moment in which Lisl Steiner presses the release button of the rubberized cloth shutter of her 24 x 36 mm format rangefinder mirrorless Leica M2 camera connected to a Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 SAWOM and gets the picture, a great photojournalistic document oozing drama and a defining moment enhanced by the presence of a mourner on a wheelchair on far left of the image and a futher very upset young mourner (fourth from the left, who can be hardly glimpsed and clearly with his head down in affliction.

45 years later. May 25, 2013. Lobby of the Elisabeth Kaiserin Hotel in Vienna. Lisl Steiner by a 13" x 18 " copy of the picture she took of Martin Luther King´s coffin being taken by James Orange, Jesse Jackson and other Martin Luther King´s aides and great friends of the SCLC on April 9, 1968, the day of the funeral of the unforgettable leader of human rights, one of the greatest men in history.

Original New York Daily News from April 10, 1968 with cover photography showing the terrible scene of the interment of Martin Luther King in the South-View Cemetery of Atlanta (Georgia) at 17:19 h in the afternoon of the previous day. It has been preserved by Lisl Steiner for almost half a century. Ralph Abernathy (on far left of the image), is crying a river, while Hosea Williams, Fred Shuttleworth, Jesse Jackson, and other SCLC aides and friends of King begin burying his coffin. The very tall and sturdy James Orange (another of MLK´s great friends and aides) is standing behind Jesse Jackson, also weeping.

Text and Indicated Photos: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

* Though the widespread statement is that Martin Luther King´s assassin was James Earl Ray, the most updated researches indicate that he might not have been the man who pulled the trigger of the 30-06 Springfield caliber Remington 760 GameMaster rifle which slew Martin Luther King. 

Even, Dexter King, the second son of the legendary civil right leader, had the chance of talking to James Earl Ray in prison in 1997, and both him and the rest of Martin Luther King´s family have expressed different times their conviction that James Earl Ray wasn´t the man who killed him.     

HARTMANN BRILLIANCE OPTIK VIENNA & LISL STEINER

Lisl Steiner inside the main hall of Elizabeth Kaiserin Hotel of Vienna on May 24th, 2013, at 10:50 h in the morning, ten minutes before going to Hartmann Brilliance Optik to start the display of her pictures in the elegant shop windows of the reputed spectacles and sunglasses shop.

Erich Hartmann, driving force of Hartmann Brilliance Optik Vienna, founder of the firm and an international authority in optics and manufacture of spectacles, sunglasses, contact lenses and a number of accessories made with horn, featuring an experience of more than fifty years in this scope and thirty as a director of Hartmann Brilliance since its opening in 1980. A self-made man who through very hard work of decades and a tremendous love for what he does, has managed to turn nowadays into one of the most important worldwide experts in this professional domain, achieving a flawless symbiosis between the most advanced technology available and well rooted craftsmanship working parameters, unabatingly spawning brainstorms and keeping a steady indefatigable struggle to attain his most important aim: to gain the full confidence of his customers and to utterly satisfy their requirements, by means of a very wide assortment of customized top-class eyewear products able to meet the highest quality and personal taste criteria.
  
Hartmann Brilliance Vienna and the renowned photographer Lisl Steiner have signed an agreement of collaboration through which some pictures of the famous photojournalist made in late fifties and sixties will be displayed in the shop windows of the elegant top-notch Hartmann Optik located in Singerstrasse, 8, Vienna (around two hundred meters from the Elizabeth Kaiserin Hotel, in the downtown of the Austrian capital), which is currently one of the most advanced centers in the world within the sphere of manufacture of ultralight and antiallergic horn-rimmed customized spectacles and sunglasses, contact lenses and other accessories, thanks to the outstanding know-how and expertise of Erich Hartmann (the creator of the firm in 1980) and its great team, producing a comprehensive range of products, made with painstaking perfectionism and belief in traditional craftsmanship, to such an extent that the shop has got its own workshop and offers a reference class standard of quality and style, steadily striving after fulfilling the wishes of its customers all over the globe, thanks to very deep knowledge, state-of-the-art optometric technology and a unique treatment of the horn as a natural material with gorgeous color schemes and patterns that can´t be artificially reproduced.

Lisl Steiner standing by the elegant façade of Hartmann Wien Optik Shop just after the installation of her pictures in both shop windows.

                                        © Lisl Steiner

One of the 12 " x 18 "  (30 x 45 cm) copies of Lisl Steiner´s pictures shown in the display windows of Hartmann Brilliance Optik. Lisl Steiner was one of the first photographers deeply penetrating the Brazilian Amazonas area searching for remote tribes, capturing a lot of natives in their original environment and living exactly as they did thousands of years ago. In this amazing image we can see an Amazonas river indian young woman in deep introspection, masterfully depicted by Lisl. On the other hand, the excellent Lisl Steiner´s copies exhibited in Hartmann Brilliance Optik were a great work made by the Vienna based painter Alicia Sancha, who departing from digital archives of Lisl´s images, enhanced them through the use of a special software, subsequently getting the enlargements on premium Hahnemühle Albrecht Dürer 210 g/m2 FineArt InkJet Paper in synergy with a professional Epson printer. 

One of Lisl Steiner´s pictures shown in the shopwindow of Hartmann Brilliance Optik in Vienna. 

Left shopwindow of Hartmann Brilliance Optik Vienna displaying six 12" x 18" (30 x 45 cm) copies of photographs made by Lisl Steiner during late fifties and sixties during her projects Children of the Americas and Ancient Tribes of the Brazilian Amazonic Jungle.

                                                      © Lisl Steiner

Another of Lisl Steiner´s photographs shown on the shopwindows of Hartmann Brilliance Optik in Vienna. This image was taken by Lisl in 1957 and depicts four shoeshine boys in Copacabana beach, Rio de Janeiro (Brasil). They had no childhood, and Lisl was living with their mothers (who were prostitutes) in favelas for some weeks. Image belonging to her Children of the Americas project.

Horn rimmed ultralight and antiallergic customized spectacles manufactured by Hartman Brilliance Optik Vienna. The level of huge precision and manual labour needed to make them required a lot of hours of handcrafted work in seamless synergy with groundbreaking machinery and the most updated optometric technology, craving for attaining a fundamental dual goal: to offer a perfectly corrected instrument and to emphasize each customer´s personality, adjusting the spectacles to his/her viewing habits. 

And along with Erich Hartmann, a master of his trade who directs the remarkable Hartmann Brilliance Optik Vienna, there´s a highly competent team made up by Ingrid Hartmann, Martin Dünser, Petra Gorbach, Julia Wieser, Romina Reichenpfader and Josef Kuruthukulangara, they all working in perfect coordination with Stephan Hartmann, a full-fledged artisan who runs the workshop and has a stunning gift for handling the highly innovative multilayer technology 

rendering the colours of the spectacles and sunglasses frames along with accessories made of horn brighter and more intense, simultaneously fostering the chromatic range, so customers can experience by themselves an unmatched price-performance ratio in frames, lens technology, quality of viewing and comfort, with boundless designs, colours and combinations matching each individual preference, since Hartmann Optik Vienna will find the right spectacle lenses for them according to their habits, light conditions, working places, leisure time activities, sensitivity to light, changes in vision, fatigue, visual acuity, eye coordination, etc, through exceedingly complete previous examination, as well as providing two great bonuses: 

a) A remarkable video centration system making possible the communication between eyes and spectacles and being able to accurately fix the most adequate parameters for the customization of the very thin spectacle lenses

b) The establishing of the diopter value of both eyes by means of the Zeiss i. Profiler, a revolutionary measurement device 

which is the core of a very innovative wavefront technology enabling to see more contrasts even during twilight, night conditions and on driving. This state-of-the-art contrivance is based on a new correction method with a complex and patented calculation system which optimizes to the utmost the choosing of the required lens thickness in reflected light using the wavefront analysis in order to wholly reduce any possible reproduction errors of the spectacle lenses and to increase the customer´s vision comfort, 

fulfilling a new experience in vision with colours richer than ever before, under any light condition, without any reflexes or irradiations, with stunning sharpness and rich contrast, because the machine boasts an integral automated system that compensates the higher order aberrations and measures in seconds the customer refractive condition, the corneal topography, the wave front aberrometry and the auto keratometry readings, which results in an exceedingly accurate and very customized i. Scription, in such a way that potential glare and decreased vision under dim light and at night are reduced to negligible levels. 

In addition, this great refractive technology is particularly peerless calculating the axis and astigmatic power, and yields the benefit of going far beyond the usual 0.25 diopters accuracy of lenses, because this contrivance enables to manufacture lenses with an accuracy of 0.01 diopters, featuring 25 times more precision than other methods. And besides, Hartmann Brilliance Optik Vienna has a relationship with Dr. Wolfgang Radner, eminent Professor of Ophthalmology at the Medical University of Vienna (Austria), who also collaborates offering expert advice and professional treatment.

Lisl Steiner walking by the very nice façade of Hartmann Brilliance Optik Vienna, while Erich Hartmann attends some customers. The wisely thought tasteful and spruced up minimalist art nouveau inner store space is a real treat for the eyes, with everything oozing a passion for detail and exquisite handicraft items, together with a well proved ability for designing and shaping creation at the highest level of quality, comfort, style and duration, it all complemented by a great and personalized treatment to customers, who first and foremost are true friends.


Copyright Text and Pictures: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

ALFRED EISENSTAEDT´S LEICA IIIa WHICH CAPTURED V-J DAY KISS IN TIMES SQUARE AUCTIONED AT WESTLICHT FOR 114,000 EUROS

SPANISH

The Leica IIIa used by the great Alfred Eisenstaedt (the most influential photojournalist ever and one of the best photographers in history) to capture his famous image of the V-J Day in Times Square on August 14, 1945 has been sold for 114,000 euros during the 23rd Camera Auction held at Westlicht Schauplatz für Fotografie in Vienna (Austria) on May 25th, 2013.

Front view of Alfred Eisenstaedt´s Leica IIIa VJ-Day with later Leitz Summitar 5 cm f/2 and VIOOH finder Number 60637 with the lower area of a picture of him taken by Bill Shrout a few hours before he got his famous picture of the sailor and the nurse kissing in Times Square.

The Kiss worldwide famous picture taken with the Leica IIIa Number 238716 by the legendary Master of Photography Alfred Eisenstaedt in Times Square, New York, on August 14, 1945 during the celebration of V-J Day. 

Front view of Alfred Eisenstaedt´s Leica IIIa with a later Summitar 5 cm f/2. Mounted on the hotshoe can be seen the original VIOOH finder number 60637.

Face up image of Alfred Eisenstaedt´s Leica IIIa VJ-Day with Summitar 5 cm f/2 and VIOOH finder.

Aerial back view of Alfred Eisenstaedt´s Leica IIIa V-J Day with Summitar 5 cm f/2 and VIOOH finder.

Back area close-up of the original VIOOH finder Number 60637 of Alfred Eisenstaedt´s Leica IIIa V-J Day.

Aerial front view of Alfred Eisenstaedt´s Leica IIIa V-J Day with Summitar 5 cm f/2 and VIOOH finder. Eisie had previously used on this camera a one prism VIDOM finder which he didn´t like because it showed a reversed left to right image  and had to be adjusted each time he made a vertical shot, so in late 1939 he changed to a VIOOH finder, which has two prisms in the eyepiece and meant a significant improvement, since it was much easier to use on featuring lateral correction.

Front view close-up of original VIOOH finder number 60637 of Alfred Eisenstaedt´s Leica IIIa V-J Day. The quality of the mechanizing and thouroughness of manufacture, following very stringent craftsmanship parameters are simply gorgeous. Those were the times.

Alfred Eisenstaedt´s Leica IIIa VJ-Day with its leather strap.

View from top of Alfred Eisentaedt´s Leica IIIa VJ-Day with Summitar 5 cm f/2 and VIOOH finder.

Coated 7 elements in 4 groups and ten blades Leitz Wetzlar Summitar 5 cm f/2 Number 658134 lens of Alfred Eisenstaedt´s Leica IIIa V-J Day. The mechanizing ot the chromed brass of the lens and specially the painstaking finishing of the narrow knurled focusing ring are really superb. 

Diagonal left view of the original VIOOH finder of Alfred Eisenstaedt´s Leica IIIa V-J Day.

Top view of Alfred Eisenstaedt´s Leica IIIa VJ- Day. The very beautiful VIOOH finder with its superb construction and an amazing level of accuracy are a good example of the great manufacturing precision and use of the best noble metals that have been a hallmark of the legendary German photographic firm.

A HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL AUCTION
From scratch, it was clear that the auction of the Leica IIIa rangefinder camera used by Alfred Eisenstaedt to get the famous picture The Kiss in Times Square on August 14, 1945 during the celebration of V-J Day, would bring about very high bids, because of many different factors, among which highlighted that it was Eisie´s camera, that the 35 mm Kodak Super-XX black and white film negative 

rated at ISO 200, exposed at 1/125 sec and f/8 which captured the worlwide known image was inside this rangefinder Leica IIIa Number 238716 camera when this exceptional photojournalist, the most influential ever, took it in Times Square on August 14, 1945 (the 35 mm roll film was developed in D-76 for twenty minutes at 68 degrees Fahrenheit and the image published on page 26 of Life magazine August 27, 1945 number), and the not so known fact that amazingly, forty eight years later, in 1993, this Genius of Photography made the Clinton family portraits at the Granary Gallery in West Tisbury on Martha´s Vineyard (Massachussets) with this same camera, using only one 35 mm film spool!. 

And certainly, the  strong expectation that Eisentaedt´s Leica IIIa had previously generated, resulted in a tremendously disputed fight by discerning buyers, with some remarkable moments of bidding war, something frequent when items of this level are put on sale. 

Bearing in mind that the camera was not a limited production model or prototype, but made in great quantities (91,887 chromed units and 800 black ones manufactured between 1935 and 1948) and fetched a very high hammer price of 114,000 euros in Westlicht auction , it says very much about the immense prestige of Alfred Eisenstaedt as a photpojournalist and his gigantic figure

                                          © Claire Yaffa

Alfred Eisenstaedt inside his apartment/office on the 28th floor of the Time & Life Building in Manhattan. Claire Yaffa, a friend of his during three decades until the Master of Photojournalism died in 1996, made him this picture in mid eighties, and could realize that the genius Eisie had got thousands and thousands of prints of the pictures he had made during his career inside yellow cardboard boxes, and thanks to his prodigious memory he knew exactly the location of each one, also remembering with lavish detail the year and circumstances in which he got them.

in the History of Photography, since among many other things, this extraordinary photographer was the flagship in the golden era of photojournalism, 

making 92 Life magazine covers, 2,500 assignments and more than one million images.

The estimate price initially appearing in Westlicht catalogue for this historical camera was between 20,000-25,000 euros, so the action began from 26,000 euros, 

quickly evolving into a full-fledged contended battle among bidders from all over the world.

Offers were soaring once and again.

It was apparent that this camera had become an exceedingly coveted item, so bids went on rising beyond 75, 000 and 80,000 euros,

until the figure of 95,000 euros was reached, producing moments of great thrill inside the auctions hall of Westlicht Schauplatz für Fotografie, and in spite of the pressure, the auctioning table of the auction (with the auctioneer Niki Schauerhuber, Jonny Glanz and Olivia Coeln) controlled the situation at every moment with outstanding professionalism and experience.

There were some inevitable seconds of stress, and finally a bid of 114,000 euros (premium included) was the  winner, and the attending audience burst into applause.


Copyright Text and Photos: José Manuel Serrano Esparza