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I like film...(open thread)


Doc Henry

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Activatedfx, that's quite a kit to lug seven miles in NY summer. My XA2 is about right for that kind of outing. I like the first one very much. 

 

John  

 

The 500 C/M and 80 isn't really that bad - about the same weight as my A7ii + a fast prime. It fits perfectly in a Peak Design 5L Sling with room for film, filters, water and even my little Panasonic GM5 (Micro Four Thirds).

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Activatedfx, that's quite a kit to lug seven miles in NY summer. My XA2 is about right for that kind of outing. I like the first one very much. 

 

John

Cool! Er, I mean hot! No. 1 gets my vote, too.

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The 500 C/M and 80 isn't really that bad - about the same weight as my A7ii + a fast prime. It fits perfectly in a Peak Design 5L Sling with room for film, filters, water and even my little Panasonic GM5 (Micro Four Thirds).

I don't sell many cameras because I have a hard, fast rule that I take the camera out and shoot one more roll before making the decision to sell. That rule never fails to preserve ownership of my 500 C/M. With that camera the "one last roll" generally morphs into 3 or 4 rolls. Gazing into that ground glass is like visiting another planet. For me, the bulk of the thing seems to fade as I walk around with it.

 

In fact, my Canon F1 and any of my good, fast FD lenses seem just as bulky as the Hasselblad with 80/2.8. I love the Planars.....Any/all of them.

Edited by Wayne
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Canon F1, FD 35/2, Svema 32

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Exit 75, Peru

 

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M6ttl, 35 Summilux, TriX

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Prairiescape

 

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M6ttl, 35 Summilux, Tasma 130 expired

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Like activatedfx above I have been missing from this forum for some time with just an occasional look in. The quality of work has been fantastic.

 

No new photos to show as I haven't been taking pictures either. However just the other night I reworked some old scans and Wayne's comment above about his Hasselblad struck a chord with me. I have had two of them at different times but sold both. I really liked the Zeiss lenses (particularly the 60mm and the 150mm) but didn't really get along with the body, even with a prism finder attached. Anyway here's one from a few years back:

 

p2953905507-5.jpg

 

Yellow Thing, 2012

Hasselblad 500C/M, 60mm Distagon, Velvia 100

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Your photograph Sydney makes me want to watch Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Eclisse, again. In your black-and-white photograph, you capture the vortex of steel architecture, arresting against the counterpoint of clouds. I am hearing in mental rewind Gene Youngblood’s insightful commentary on architecture in the first minutes of L’Avventura included on the DVD, the contrast of the old buildings against the new and how Antonioni uses portals, arches, and doorways to frame the literal and metaphoric passage of his characters. Beyond Youngblood, it brings up the issue of still photographers in their relationship to architects.

 

The architect envisions and creates the structure, then the photographer documents/interprets that structure in a kind of (re)visioning. Are photographers then subservient to the architect’s statement, relegated only to interpretation? A footnote or a (re)visionIng that might underscore or challenge, that might question or exclaim. Thinking about this can be a cul de sac of sorts, since words alone may lead to simple either/or choices, whereas the photographic image may play on metaphoric thinking calling up simultaneous options. Zones of gray areas. Not to mention techniques like the blur, which engages the viewer in terms of gap theory, to add that which is missing, namely image definition. The eye wants to focus the out-of-focus image, to make sense of it. There is the cliché of memory blur, the indistinct past pressing on the present and a challenge to dismantle the cliché. The degree of blur, selective blur, peripheral blur, and vignetting. Recall that Thomas Bewick popularized the vignette with his late 18th century woodcuts in opposition to strict rectangular framing. I want to come back to the blur, later, particularly referencing Blow-Up and Persona.

 

Thinking about ruins in architecture, I have seen Jonathan Andrew’s haunting photographs of WWII German bunkers along the Normandy coast, standing defiantly in the face of time and erosion as mute testimony of an insufferable conflict. The architecture of war: aggression, assault, nightmare, fear, victory— what is the testimony of these eroding concrete bunkers? The photographer becomes the interlocutor, transporting the past into the present, the insistence of memory reclaimed. The photographer becomes then the “architect” of the present, employing the consciousness of the past, making visual statements and perhaps posing questions without words. This way the photographer becomes the designer of a visual catapult that launches viewers beyond the building, structural habitat, or ordered space. We are seeing what we don’t see

In another of your photographs, we see two girls, but one of them is cut off at the frame edge, and you wondered about the effect, the implication. Your framing echoes in a way Robert Rauschenberg‘s photograph “Norman’s Place.” https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/c1/4d/ee/c14dee05bdef2e6853a5f3134f35f0cd.jpg

Fleshing out the elements of Rauschenberg’s interior, there is a seeming nonchalance to the construction and framing, an almost Bohemian, Beat generation attitude. Rauschenberg gives us that it is Norman’s place, but is it Norman who is sitting on the floor wearing only jeans, back against the wall, his hand poised as though he may get up at any moment? His identity is purposely withheld, out of frame, no accident. We are intrigued, engaged. Attention is riveted, instead, on the telephone sitting on the floor; is it about to ring, is it actually ringing, or has it just stopped ringing? There is mystery here, a voice asking for translation. Who is calling or about to call? Is the young man obstinately ignoring the phone call? Any number of scenarios pose themselves. And the mystery is exacerbated only by the framing that denies us information. Without the cut-off framing, the mystery would suffer, and the photograph would be, perhaps, commonplace.

 

Again, it is an example of the Romantic fragment poem, purposefully mocking “found poem fragments” that are missing part of the beginning and end but provide just enough so the reader can imagine what is missing and mentally reconstruct the whole, but thinking can be paralysis. What is the intellectual itinerary? Moreover, what is the photographer’s itinerary? Are we eavesdropping on the conversation that the photographer is having with a subject? What is the velocity and trajectory of that interplay? What intellectual movement do the contrails betray? How are we to decipher even the form of its language? Its code to decipher? Is there an identifiable echo that resonates from one piece to the next? Simply, a theme. Or the anthem of an anti-theme? There is, of course, the lens of the camera pressed into the service of the lens of the photographer’s vision that refracts that vision, sometimes with studied purpose and other times with a casual knee jerk or something in between. Recognize the room for improvisation and chance.

Notes to self. The topography of a mental landscape, photographic notations, footnotes that inform. John Keats employed in his poetry the notion of ekphrasis, but now expanding the definition to include photography, it implies a photograph that suggests a narrative beyond the photograph itself.

 

Thank you, Rog for giving such considered and articulate insight to a host of possibilities in art - many classically realized yet altogether more full of potential. Your mention of L'Eclisse is right on the mark. One of the most thrilling and stimulating passages of cinema for me is the final seven minutes of that wonderful movie. So much is said and alluded to in so minimalist a way. It is pure cinematic genius - inspired, mature and audacious. If any here haven't seen it - please do yourselves a huge favour. My one short attempt at film direction/production was directly inspired by it (

). As a side-note, the penultimate (long, interestingly also seven minutes) scene of his later film The Passenger is a masterpiece of conception, planning, cinematography and inspiration. Watch that and then look up what it took to get it (Wikipedia has a good description) - then try to work out what it all means.
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It is Aurora, IN. Also a river town. Gaming/gambling has infused some cash into the community. To the townspeople's credit, many do a good job of maintaining the old buildings.  

 

OBTW, When visiting/photographing these smaller communities, I make my first stop at the local police office to inquire about local rules governing photography. After looking at me as though a have come from a different planet, they, generally, tell me I can photograph whatever I like.........As long as I am standing in a spot accessible to the public. In some instances I even get some suggestions about places of local interest. I suppose my idea is that the police officer I have just spoken with is the same one that is going to receive any complaints about a guy walking around taking photographs. It takes only a few minutes. I recommend it. I think you get a leg up on any possible trouble if you come out of the gate having shown respect for the local Law.

 

Thanks for the comment.

 

Thanks for the comment.

 

 

I bet they also tell you what areas to avoid.  Not so much a problem in small towns but it's good to get the advice before you wonder into an area you regret.  Your idea is a good one.  

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Hoosiers, Indianapolis

 

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Minox B, Fuji 100 Superia

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Inspired by chrism, I've been meaning to try XP2 in HC-110. A few from the first roll at box speed. 

 

I'm sure I can do better, but probably won't pursue this and really just wanted to give it a shot. They look muddy to me, and I much prefer the look of Tri-X. - John

 

43193471681_074262e711_b.jpg

 

43193471421_5c789de4ab_c.jpg

 

43143816722_f85625e1b1_b.jpg

 

43143816212_2b435a5c07_b.jpg

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Very nice, Dennis.  I just love seeing photos from these old cameras and lenses.  The scenes are very peaceful, too.  Hope you'll share more! 

Well folks, here goes with my first attempt to attach a photo for you all to see!

 

I visited Ascott Hall, the country home of the Rothschilds in England and took a series of photos with the 1935 Leica II with a Summicron 50mm f2, circa 1953.

 

I can't see how to add more than 1 attachment, so I'll send a second REPLY.  If you can send more than 1 attachment, please advise how.  I can see one problem that 2 files will exceed the file size limits.attachicon.gif12020028-2.jpg

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Some straight up middle-of-the-day goodness from Gotham :)


6x9 Ektar


Linhof Technika Press 23, 100mm Planar


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