Posts from the ‘Abstract’ Category
Making Visible
Tri-X, N-1, Bessa + Biogon, Venice Beach
“Art does not reproduce the visible. It makes visible.” — Paul Klee
“What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm – the relationship between shapes and values.” — Cartier-Bresson
Part of the reason I’ve been putting quotes about photography in my blog l,lately is to make me think about process. In the last year, as Mike Peters has gently and appropriately pointed out, I’ve been distracted quite a bit by equipment. Partly to push myself beyond that, and partly because I think about artistic process quite a bit (I teach it in my coursework) I have been reading a bit lately.
Venice Beach boardwalk
When I come across an image in my scanning where I am reminded of a quote, or am reading and I come across something that I think is appropriate, I have been putting it in the post.
Venice Beach
Not that I agree or disagree with the quote, per se, but rather that the quote made me think.
And I hope it makes you think, as well.
Ben Lifson
5D, Nik Silver Efex, C/Y Zeiss 50mm f/1.4
Photography is an art form. I’m gonna make a stand there, not really expecting my readership to muster much of an argument. I don’t talk much about the art, mind you, because, as Kirk Tuck has discussed, blog posts talking about art or vison don’t generate much traffic. However, if I posted a review of the Canon 5D Mk III, I bet you I might set records for page views on my site. And, since I just described myself on my business cards as a “fine art photographer” I guess I’d better start talking about it. Eh?
Normally, I tend to keep to my standard topics, which specialize in film-related issues. If I’m known for anything on the web, it’s that I post more b&w than color, and more film than digital. I love those images and topics, and it would be unlike me to veer to far from those topics and those issues.
But I’ve had in the back of my mind two posts which are related to each other. The first is a post about Ben Lifeson, the second a post about Sean Reid. The reason they are related is that I found out about Mr. Lifson by reading columns written by Mr. Reid.
5D, C/Y Zeiss 50mm f/1.4
So, I’ll get to Mr. Reid another time. Today I talk about Mr. Lifson.
Mr. Lifson is a long-time teacher of photography and editor of photography books. In 2005, he published a series of articles about the nature of visual art and the traditions of painting as they applied to photography at a web site called rawworkflow.com. I felt, as you might reading this now, that rawworkflow.com was an odd location for such a series of articles. But there they were anyway. There were 12 articles in all, and the main theme of the articles was centered on the relationship between fine art (drawing and painting) and photography.
It would be difficult to summarize all the topics Mr. Lifson discussed in detail, but among them were the structure of a face and how best to portray that face; the importance of the hands in portraiture, the importance of the bottom of the frame in terms of grounding the image, etc.
There were 12 articles in all, and I printed each one out. The insights and wisdom was always astounding, and reading them and re-reading them always brought insight and new ways of looking at my work.
When I thought of discussing these insights recently, I went to find the articles (each of which I had printed out, very important as they had ceased to be found on rawworkflow.com — I assume Mr. Lifson had asked that they be taken down, or perhaps their license for use had expired). To my dismay, I only found articles 5 through 12. Numbers 1 through 4 were not in the hanging file where I thought I had left them.
I don’t know where they went, or how I lost them. But lost they seem to be. I will, over the next few weeks, try to summarize the insights in various columns on the blog.
All the images in this post were captured in Vancouver and LA on my trip, which concludes this evening.
Looking at Photographs
Tri-X, DD-X, Canon FD 100mm f/2.8
“The photograph should be more interesting or more beautiful than what was photographed.”- Garry Winogrand
Images from this roll was captured as a test shoot of a new used lens I bought from ebay for my FTb, a 100mm f/2.8 FD lens from Canon. The experiment shooting with the Sonnar while I was in SF has really made me think through my standard set of equipment. For one thing, I want to use an SLR, film or digital, mainly for the things an SLR is really good at (telephoto, macro and extreme wide angle). For standard focal lengths, 35mm and 50mm, especially, I want to focus on using rangefinders. And, I want to use zooms as little as possible, both for image quality as well as shooting technique.
Thus, I purchased a 100mm lens for the FTb to add to my ‘walking around’ bag. This bag as my Bessa (with its 35mm Biogon) and my FTb (currently with a 50mm f/1.4 FD and, now the 100mm FD. After I buy the 50mm Lecia-mount lens (either a Sonnar or a Planar, I suppose), I will keep the 50mm FD as well as the 100mm FD. The great thing about that equipment is that it is light. That whole four-lens, two camera kit probably weighs about the same as my 5D plus the 17-40mm EOS Zoom.
After the 100mm lens arrived, I had an extra roll of Tri-X from the SF trip, so I loaded it into the FTb and used it to test the lens wide open on a snowy day in March, right after I arrived home. These images are all from that test roll.
As you can see, the lens is plenty sharp enough, and the tonal quality of the Tri-X and DD-x combo is still present, although expressed a little differently than it was with the Sonnar. Still, I gotta say I’m lovin’ it.
Then, while I was scanning the roll yesterday, I came across that Winogrand quote on the web. I was looking at the images, thinking about the quote, and looking at the images once again.
What a wonderful summary of photography that is. To take something, whether beautiful or ordinary, and capture it in some fashion that brings forth its ‘inner sense’ that makes what was photographed more beautiful than it was when you saw it.
Every one of the images in this post, to me, is more beautiful than the thing I saw on that cold snowy morning in March. The reflection, the chair, the leaves and twigs, the trees . . . all look more special than I remember them.
Cross Processed
Velvia 50 Cross Processed
As I mentioned the other day, here are more images from that cross-processed roll of expired Velvia I shot while in Vegas. Throughout this post I’ll talk about what I was thinking while I gathered this whole roll. I had gone back to shooting color film after a long period of shooting nothing but black & white film. I did this intentionally, for a couple of reasons.
First, to enhance my eye for color. To separate the seeing of color from the seeing of black and white. On this trip, I took no b&w film at all, and in all the images I captured, intentionally looked for as much color as I could possibly get into the frame.
Second, I wanted to shoot wide-open with my Biogon as often as I could, playing with out-of-focus areas. It was Vegas, after all, and I knew it was gonna be bright outside.
Third, with this expired roll of Velvia, I was getting a roll of freedom, in that I knew from the start I was going to cross process it, so it felt more like shooting with a Holga than anything else. I was letting go of any attempt to control things, and I was just kind of looking for interesting content and firing away.
I had played with cross-processed presets in Lightroom before, but had never actually used actual film and developed it that way. And I was hoping (and, as you’ll see later, got) some element of randomness. That excited me.
One of the things I don’t know is how the film was scanned. What I mean by that is this: when you scan color film, you have to color-correct. Each film has its own color curve and color cast, and you know that when you scan Velvia as opposed to Portra NC, for example. But when you cross-process, all that goes out the window. Do you look for grey or white and then color balance, like you do when you correct for white balance issues in digital?
I wasn’t sure, and I’m going to send my lab an email asking what they did. This was indeed an experimental trip; I sent off four rolls to North Coast, all shot on the same trip, with the same lens and same camera. The first roll as you see it, Velvia. All the images in this post were from that one roll. There’s also a roll of Fuji 200 , Fuji 400H Pro, and a roll of Provia 400 VC. Over the next few days I’ll be posting images from all four rolls, so we can all compare and contrast.
I really love the images from this experiment, and I’m going to be doing more work like this.
The next two images illustrate the experimental nature of this roll. I don’t know whether the two images below came about as the scanner tech did a different color adjust on the scans, or because I rotated the camera 90 degrees, or what. Take a look:
Shot #1
I love this shot, but then the next frame on the roll is this:
What the hey . . .
Same tree, 15 seconds later. I don’t know how this happened.
Anyhoo, I hope you enjoyed these images. I’ll be cross-processing more rolls in the future.
More from North Coast
Velvia 50, Cross-processed, Bessa, Biogon
Back to posting regularly, things have been developing . . .
Just received four rolls of color film I shot while on my West Coast Trip in early September, developed and scanned by North Coast. I’ll post a bunch of images tomorrow, but this is the first image from the first roll, Velvia 50 cross-processed. The reason I cross-processed it was that I inherited the roll from a gent I received some darkroom equipment from last fall. The roll had been sitting in his garage for years, so I didn’t know what kind of shape it was in. I figured that roll was ideal for some experimentation. Indeed it was, and the roll is filled with very interesting images, this being just the first. I shot four rolls of color film on that trip, and I’ll be posting images from each roll, one after the other. The rest of the rolls were processed normally. (The building in the image above is gold in real life, btw)
Travel
I just received word I’ll be traveling again the first week of December, traveling through some cities in Europe (none near you, Ove, unfortunately (unless you want to travel a little and meet me on Saturday of that trip). I’ll be loading up on film for those days, as I need to travel as light as I can, and the Bessa is the lightest camera I own. More on that trip to come.
Portraits
A couple weekends ago I shot some senior portraits for the daughter of a friend, and they came out quite nice. I’ll see if I can get permission to post an image or two.
Books
I’m in the middle of reading Beyond Monochrome. A very interesting and dense book. I’ll write up a review soon.
Schedule
The semester is almost done, and I’ll get back on a more normal schedule. It’s just been crazy this fall.
World of Today?
Bessa, Zeiss Biogon, HP5, Xtol
Pretty much a typical day at the office for me . . .
Looking for gesture, as someone once said . . .
Brand Loyalty
Disney Concert Hall. EOS-3, 17-40L, HP5, Xtol
“We all have, deep within us, a desire to be part of a Tribe. Not just any Tribe, but a successful Tribe. Because only successful Tribes continue on. This desire can be traced all the way back to those early campfires, where we would tell stories about how we succeeded at the hunt that day. We’d sit around, eat that day’s capture, and revel in the shared nature of the Tribe’s success, as personified by our tribe’s best hunter. If our tribe wasn’t so good at hunting, our tribe wouldn’t last very long. So much of our ‘modern’ social interactions are simply echoes of our desire to be part of a tribe that ate well, and survived.” — David Mamet, American playwright
Marketers use the term ‘brand identification’ when they talk about how consumers decide whether a product is one we wish to purchase. While it is sometimes true that we buy products for the product itself, we all-too-often buy the product in an attempt, on a subconscious emotional level, to acquire some of the attributes of the product in addition to the product itself. Attributes that the marketing team have ‘connected’ to the product through their ads. Ads for dish-washing liquid don’t just talk about how well the soap itself works, but imply (through the actors chosen as spokespersons, and the way those characters’ homes look, and what their kids look like) that happiness, well-behaved children, and financial success all come from choosing the correct dish-washing liquid (which their liquid personifies, of course).
The message deep beneath the ad is ‘people who buy our dish-washing liquid gain all these qualities,’ or, put another way, ‘members of OUR tribe all buy this dish-washing liquid, and see how happy we are?’
Tribal behavior includes outward displays of identification, such as wearing logo t-shirts or camera straps, using similar vocabulary and body language (“Acronyms for $20, Alex”), and unique shared activities. Families are the smallest tribal unit, and racial groups are the largest. Individuals identify with their tribe, and view people inside the tribe as ‘same’ and people outside the tribe as ‘other.’ This tends to happen to us without us being aware of it all the time, and influences a great deal of what we think and know and feel about ‘same’ and ‘other.’ It also infuses those discussions with a degree of emotion that often exceeds common sense. Example #1 that we are all familiar with is: Apple and Microsoft. All you need to do is bring up their names in a room of tech geeks and someone is bound to make a comment.
And think also about how Apple is a master at communicating to their customers that ‘our tribe is cool.’ I’ve always liked their products, mind, but I am also aware that they are selling the illusion of cool, and MS has struggled for a long time to find an answer to the Apple cult of cool. Vide the many different directions the MS marketing has tried in an effort to deflect the ‘cool’ tag Apple has adopted. Whether Apple deserves the tag or not is irrelevant, actually.
While I am aware of the desire we all share to be part of a successful ‘tribe’ (defining success in our current shared universe as ‘mastering photography’ in some form), and I am just as much a victim of this effect as the next blogger, My next post (currently in draft form, awaiting a scan of an image) is about my experiences recently using a Leica M6, and perhaps no other camera brand is as driven by the cult of ‘Tribe’ as Leica. In that post I will talk about my struggle to separate what I truly experienced in the moment with the camera in my hand while shooting as distinct from what I had bouncing around in my head about what I ‘should’ feel, as had been described to me by card-carrying members of the Leica tribe.
The point of all this? When you react or choose in an arena where there are Tribal forces at work, keep your head! Pick up the camera or shoot with the lens, try it for yourself. And then when you have the object in your hands, be CONSCIOUS. Try to be neutral. Observe your breathing. Be here now. It is just too easy to be fooled into this tribal thinking, too easy to convince yourself you see things that aren’t actually there because you want them to be there so that you can belong.
One example from recent events for me personally
However, as I said, I am just as vulnerable as the rest of us. I just went through a very similar thing, and I almost succumbed. As you know, I was weaned on Canon FD gear. The tribal influence at that time was very pro-Nikon, as my teacher was a Nikon geek. I didn’t have the cash to buy Nikon, but I could buy Canon, so I did. I resisted the tribal pull, and found that Canon gear worked just fine for me. Even today, the feel of a Canon FTb just feels right in my hand. I have never regretted it back then or now.
I read the forums of APUG to learn more about film and film processing, and I follow a particular poster and his discussions, because I have found him to be knowledgeable. He happens to shoot Canon FD gear (amongst many other film cameras). He recently made a statement in a post that the one of his favorite lenses was a Canon 50mm 1.4 FD S.S.C. lens. I own the later version of the lens, the 50mm 1.4 FD (not S.S.C.). This poster mentioned he liked the way the lens ‘drew.’ Now, with all the Canon old FD gear increasing in value these days (you can buy adapters for Micro 4/3 cameras that take the FD lenses) I looked at prices for the S.S.C. version on eBay. I came very close to buying a copy. I came close on multiple listings to buying a copy. But WHY was I doing this? Had I ever actually shot with the S.S.C. version of the lens? No. Did I know whether it was actually different than the non-S.S.C. version? No. Even if there WAS a difference, did I know whether I LIKED that difference? No. But I WANTED THE LENS ANYWAY. Now, the lens isn’t really all that expensive (they used to go for around $40, and with the recent inflation, they are now going for $60-$70, with the occasional poster looking to make a killing at $100+. When I sat back and carefully examined my longing for the lens, I realized that it was in part to be part of the Tribe that APUG poster belonged to, ’cause, after all, given what he knows, how could he be wrong about the lens? Yikes!
Now, maybe I will eventually get myself a copy of the lens to audition. And, if I don’t like it, I’ll sell it off. But I’ll be conscious about what I am doing (hopefully). When you read my soon-to-be-posted Leica thoughts, use this post as a filter for that post.
Be Here Now.
#300: Prints & Printing
Canon 5D Processed in Nik Silver Efex
“If you want to be a better photographer, then you must become a better printer.” — Vincent Versace
I mentioned late the week of August 13th that I had ordered proof prints from Aspen Creek to begin the process of realizing one of my goals for the year, to begin seriously printing my images. Over the past year-and-a-half I have succeeded in getting out of my own way in terms of publishing my images to the web, mainly through this blog. This is my 300th post, a number I never thought I’d reach, so I think I can celebrate that a little bit. Yea!
As part of that celebration, I wanted to create an entry with some deep thought behind it, and I considered meshing my desire to generate and mount and display some prints with the opportunity to share some thoughts about that process, not just as it relates to me personally, but the concept of ‘hard copies’ of our images. So, that led me to really thinking about the creation of prints, the act of making an image ‘real.’ And the week began, and lo and behold the 2000-pound gorilla in the photo blog world, The Online Photographer, begins a two-part essay written by Peter Turnley, no less, about printing traditional silver gelatin black and white prints and stories about a particular well-known master of that craft. You should all go and read those articles.
That two-part essay, along with Mr. Johnson’s follow-up, kind of eclipsed any efforts I might make to editorialize on the process of creating prints (artifacts) of the photographic process. In that way, my timing vis-a-vis this subject could not be worse. I pretty much have to assume that any reader of this blog already knows of The Online Photographer and has read those brilliant, wonderful, humbling articles. If you haven’t, do so mow. Articles like that made me want to get my darkroom setup pronto (which I am almost done with now).
To the Point
But, on to the print (point)! First of all, circling back, I received my prints from Aspen Creek and was appalled and depressed. Not because they didn’t do their job, on the contrary, they did a great job but rather that the creator (me) didn’t do his so much. There were so many issues with the prints, and all the issues brought with them thoughts of my days in the darkroom. I’ll list the issues in bullet form and then explain:
- Sharpness: So, when I export images to the web, I use a Lightroom plug-in which allows me to just ‘sharpen for web content’ upon export. I don’t have to think about it much. This plug-in also has a setting for export for a print, and both settings are just general in their methodology. I experimented a bit when I exported, using Nik Sharpener Pro for one file, and when I looked at the images upon their return, I realized that I really need to understand this whole sharpening thing. I kinda got my first clue about that when I attended an online ‘webinar’ workshop with Vincent Versace where he described how you resurrect an image that is a bit soft through multiple layers of sharpening using multiple Nik tools (heh, he calls it the Lazarus Effect). This very educational session really opened my eyes to some of these issues (I remember him talking in the webinar about how, since the screen is only 72 or 90 DPI, you have to ‘over sharpen’ on the screen — “make it look a little crunchy” — so as to get the right sharpening in the print). Oy, this is a topic I know nothing about. I have never learned really anything about sharpening digital images, but it is obvious to get really great prints, you need to become an expert here. The screen as a delivery medium lets you be sloppy.
- Focus: As I remember all too well from my darkroom days, as you enlarge an image, any defect in the focus becomes magnified. When I printed traditionally, I rarely made prints larger than 8×10. And I didn’t make 8x10s very often. I shot mainly FP4, and so to get 5×7 prints shot on FP4 to look out-of-focus in a 5×7 print, you REALLY had to screw up the focus on the day. But my proofs from Aspen were 8x10s from which I was going to choose images to print 16×20. Well, lordy, a number of those images were not going to make that cut, even though they had looked great when I exported them and showed them on the web at 92 DPI. Of course, there is an interrelationship between the Sharpness issue above and the Focus issue here, but man, I was a bit shocked. The size of images on the web makes you sloppy.
- Color: Most of us know about color profiling your monitor and such. In fact, Aspen gives you an ICC profile for soft-proofing your color. But, of course, the feedback loop, even if you HAVE the ICC profile, is problematic, because I can use the ICC profile on my ‘profiled’ monitor, but if I am off, I won’t know until the proof comes back. In this particular area, I feel a bit at sea without using my own printer in house to close the feedback loop.
- Crop: This, of course is a small issue compared with the others, but it is an issue nonetheless. I pre-cropped all the files and then sent them off the printer, but looking at the print in a real size at 360 ppi made me re-think the crop a bit.
Putting all of these issues together reminded me of the days when I would look at a contact sheet of images, circle a few, and then head off to the darkroom, only to emerge hours later and wonder why I would have chosen those images and how I could somehow capture the look of the small contact image when I blew it up. I was always disappointed, and this experience with Aspen made me taste that bitter pill yet again. And so thus I arrived at the tag line for this post:
Images on the Web are all Illusions, shadowy representations of the REAL image
Yes, they are. Tomorrow I’ll talk about the nature of prints and what they represent, and why I believe they are even more important as we go forward with digital photography than they ever were.
Ilford’s Pan F
EOS 3, 17-40 L, Pan F, Xtol 1:1
I continue to scan in the roll of Pan F I captured at the Disney Concert Hall. Every frame is a surprise as the qualities of the film and developer combo deliver beyond my expectations. It’s an odd combo is that it seems both soft and crisp at the same time; soft in the way it captured the subtleties of the tones and reflections of the wall; crisp in its grain structure and sharpness. The way the curves on the curved wall in the center of the frame above are very pleasing to me, as are the range of tones in the details frame left.
And the dynamic range really shocks me. In the frame below, understand that the late-afternoon sun is coming from off-frame left; you can see the shadow from an off-camera part of the building on the vertical wall. The overhang at the bottom of the frame is in the shadow on the shadow side of the building. I didn’t really calculate the stops of range on site (I should have, I know) but there is clearly detail on the vertical wall as well as detail in the shadow overhang. One of the real technical challenges of the building is the dynamic range of the reflections. While you can certainly use the explosive highlights artistically, you always have to be aware of them as you shoot.
I kept copious notes when I shot the 120 rolls of Pan F (developed last night and looking good on the light table), but I didn’t take notes when I wielded the 35mm cameras the day before (this is from that first walk-around). I still have a roll of HP5 to develop and then I think I’ll have access to all the images I captured while on site at the Disney. I’m thinking of doing a Blurb book or something of the best ones.
* * *
The school year approaches and I’ve made arrangements to use the medium-format scanners in the university’s darkroom/photo lab. There they have a Nikon 9000, an Epson 750, and a Imacon high-res scanner. Along with gaining the ability to scan my medium format negs, I plan to do some testing where I take a 35mm neg, such as the one above and scan it on the Imacon and compare with the Nikon 4000 scan above. Just to see what I’m missing, as it were.
Lastly, I recently received some prints back from Aspen Creek. One of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to begin making prints of my work, and so I sent out a dozen images to get back 8×10 ‘proofs.’ That was a very enlightening experience, but it deserves a post of its own.
Pan F visits Disney Concert Hall
Pan F, Xtol 1:1
I shot both film and digital while I visited the Disney Concert Hall. On the film side, I used Pan F (both 35mm and medium format), Delta 100, and my trusty old ally, FP4. Most rolls have yet to be developed. This image is from the first six frames from the first roll of Pan F. All of those so far have a lovely tonality. Very sharp, and very little grain. Early in the fall I think I’m going to re-visit the film and digital issue with Pan-F developed in Xtol, using the same lens on both sides. That will be interesting, I think
