bob ross & the perfect tools

[smokysun]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

at the end of the 'imants & personal photography' thread, bob ross suggested we discuss how our equipment affects us and how in turn we make magic with certain tools.

 

i'll quote a bit from that thread, then ask a question.

 

hi bob,

 

that's an interesting topic. i'll see how i can phrase it. oddly, i actually like the lcd vs viewfinder. in the old days i'm sure i would have liked seeing the image whole on a glass plate. looking down into the rolleiflex/hasselblad always seemed natural to me. (and johnny stilleto says, 'shoot from the hip if you want interesting pictures.')

 

i do think equipment can inspire us. digital has done it for a lot of former film professionals who burned out. i think a tool we love to handle makes a difference, despite those who say 'it's just a tool'. for any artist i know, a tool is not just a tool, including a woodworker friend who has the best.

 

the reason for getting the m8 - and thanks for that info - would be if it fires up the desire and the imagination. (i could swing it if i sold all my canon stuff.) at the same time taking a trip or falling in love might have a greater impact! somehow it all depends on our desire being stirred up in such a way it makes us more sensitive to sight and life exciting to record.

 

so my question is: what have been your experiences with different kinds of equipment in terms of what they bring out of you? (perhaps someone can ask it in a better way). we discuss the technical aspects of sensors, etc., but people are taking great pictures with holga, pinhole, and other very basic cameras.

 

even more specifically might be: what have your leicas done for you that other cameras haven't? (for me this would include being part of history, imagining i'm hcb, though different, being amongst a group of people with a special interest in photographic excellence, the delusion that because leicas have lasted my pictures might, and one final, having people ask and then say, 'a leica, wow!' no, you don't see many leicas in this part of the world.)

 

any thoughts? thanks,

 

wayne

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Bob Ross]

Wayne, Your title line make me sound like Jack and his Magic Beans... , so let's go up the bean stalk...

I'd start this out with calling a camera an Eye tool and as such the kind of viewfinder seems to have an affect on our choice of what we choose to capture and how we go about it. A window viewfinder as in the Leica M class cameras gives a three dimensional direct view of reality. The projection viewfinder such as LF view cameras, TLR & SLR cameras show a two dimensional image on a ground glass screen, sometimes upside down or reversed. The processed viewfinder as the EVF and LCD monitor on digital cameras gives a two dimensional near final product image. If I have missed any, please add.

The other side of viewing is our eyesight and our mind's eye. I think that we are all wired uniquely and probably visually enculturated differently, too. I wont attempt any catagories in this area. Know how we mentally visualize could be the key to what eye tool we need.

How far up the bean stalk have we come? Are we there yet?

Bob

[Guest stnami]

Hi

The 'right' cameras and gear were important when I worked for other people, now that I self finance my exhibitions and other work I am free to do as I please. The camera is just that a tool, if it is appropriate it is used and discarded when no longer needed.

 

Most of my images are digitally,chemically or physically altered so what happens after the camera is more important unless it processed straight from the digital or film/scanned and unaltered and left raw with mistakes and all. Everything is funneled into a digital image either staying on my site for a while and then being discarded or ending up as a digital print on fine art paper, e.g. Epson Velvet,Arches etc. and then altered again.

 

Sold my LC1 which was a spare as it was too much like the D2 and growing attached to a camera and its style is not on for this fluffy duck. Have a Oly with a11-22 for landscapes, but I am not doing landscape stuff, the D2 is in for repairs,the CL is gestuffed(paper weight along with the XA} alas no camera,

 

p.s. I missed the D2 for about a week but got over that,and joined Ray Monk into the dark side in that philosophy doesn't make life any more pleasant and got on with it

[stuny]

I think that the Leica gear has caused me to take more photos. I suppose this is a combination of ergonomics, bright, clear viewfinder images, and results. Also, as Bob indicates, we perceive differently. Analogous to this, many people wax enthusiastically about hearing depth in recordings reproduced on high-end audio systems. I can’t. Likewise I cannot hear depth in live music. However, I think I do not miss anything else (other than the effects of normal aging on high frequency perception). Which leads me to rangefinder vs. SLR. I just cannot adapt to rangefinders, and sold a rather nice IIIf , rather nice CL, convenient tiny Rollei 35, and a Minox.

[jrc]

I think the main effect that cameras like the M8 will have on working habits (and on personal art) is that people will shoot a lot more. You will literally be able to go out on a day and shoot 200 shots at no cost to you above what one shot would cost. And you'll get instant feedback through the LCD and histogram on composition and exposure. So results may change because of added experience, but everything else will be pretty much the same.

 

That's not true with some of the more interesting new SLRs. I have a D2x, but I'm fascinated by the new Nikon D80. 10mp+ for $1,000, relatively compact and lightweight. Stick a Nikon 18-200 VR on it, and you have a vibration-reduced view equivalent of a 27mm-300mm zoom, of pretty good quality, and hand-holdable. For street shooting, I don't think it'd be much more conspicuous than a Leica, and you have that great lens range... THAT will make a difference in how people work, and what their images look like.

 

I'm planning to go to the state fair in a couple of weeks, and one day I'll take the M7 and the RD1, and the second day I'll take the D2x and an F5. Good opportunity to see what can be done...

 

JC

[marknorton]

A D2X AND an F5? Your shoulders will be telling you all about it by the end of the day....

[Guest stnami]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

The digital SLR are all basically the same, better sensors making some images cleaner etc but using them and the results are similar . Don't miss the point it is more about the type of image produced and what individual quirks it forces upon the photographer than the camera ergonomics and physical properties.

All this is seen easier in film cameras as using an old folding camera produces a very different image to a modern SLR, etc. With digital it is the point and shoots that possibly can come from left field.

Post processing makes the real difference in digital and in that the camera starts becoming obsolete so I am not sure how far this thread can go give the sameness of digital. With the forum members being more equiptment focused than image focused we may be fighting a losing battle here, when the M8 comes out that is about all that the forum will be for the next 18 months or so

[smokysun]

hi imants,

 

all the more reason to try and talk sense before the m8 comes out, don't you think!

 

the sameness of all digital dslr images - boy, that will get you some disagreements. however, my experience with canon rebel and 20 d pretty much confirms what you've said. i did see a difference with L lenses, but on the whole you can duplicate the results on the computer. the computer is the heart of digital. and though you say you don't covet any camera, i remember the day you got a new 21 inch monitor. i suspect you do have preferences in that direction. i've bought and used literally hundreds of plugins, experimenting with everything ( http://www.thepluginsite.com the best source of info) and these days i use a few over and over again. as for compacts: i'm a digicam addict and they've given very different images. i don't know if you've tried the sony 717 but i have two of them and they give very different results from the canon g5, the elphs, the panasonic lz2, the d-lux 2, and the d2, as they all do from each other. (the one's i've used so far.) with a quantum leap in sensor technology and faster lenses, they will be the camera of the future. (at least for most people, as they already are.) the 717 is especially special and i recommend everyone try one for fun. (again, we're talking about picture quality, not ergonimics, though you can set the custom wb with an outside button, the greatest way yet.)

 

hi bob,

great beans from the stalk so far! let me add another one. the other night i watched a dvd of 'the eyes of laura mars'. oddly, it's one of those posters i remember from 25 years ago and always wondered about the film. when i heard helmut newton had taken the photos in it - and the whole film is really a take on his work - i had to see it. it's a good thriller about a fashion photographer who starts seeing the murders of her acquaintances thru her viewfinder. but what i found interesting was her comment in the 'making of' clip. she said she thought people like her character channel all their energy and sense into their sight and it puts them in a different world.

 

so, in this sense the equipment that enabled and intensified this process for a particular individual would make sense for them. does this make sense? watch the film and see if it gives any other insights.

 

hi stuny & jc,

 

do you think that imants is right, that what makes the difference with the digital image is not the camera but post-processing?

 

on the other hand, the original leica changed the kind of pictures people took. and remember the minox as a 16mm 'spy camera'? or watch cameras, etc.

 

a book i heartily recommend is 'the creative photographer' by john ingledew. (abrams paperback) it's the only book i've run across that shows all kinds of pictures from odd-ball cameras: a scanner camera, bill brandt's police identification camera, pinholes, holgas, etc. he really opens things up. a fun and well-made book.

 

i personally feel imants right and that the digicams coming out of left field will create the greatest variety of image results straight from the camera. but the computer and the mix of digital and photographic will be the wave of the future.

 

am i completely off-base?

 

thanks, wayne

[Bob Ross]

Hi

Have a Oly with a11-22 for landscapes, but I am not doing landscape stuff,

I have the 11-22 for my E-1, but I never use wide angle for landscapes with miniature cameras. For me, wide angles are for getting in close, being too close to something too big or creative distortion. For landscapes I use normal to short tele so that the distant detail has a chance of being recognized. The 11-22 (22-44 in 35eqv) is one lens that shows where the DSLR works well, as you can see how the perspective is distorting without the parallax of a aux finder. Compressing a close subject wide angle image into two dimensions of the focusing screen may be the most useful way to get the image you want. I have yet to get the previsual down on ultra wide angles, so the reflex viewfinder is almost a necessity for me.

Bob

[Bob Ross]

Hi Wayne,

Yes, using a camera in an altered state of consciousness can produce interesting results. In fact, just using a camera for the enthusiast probably sets an altered state in process, as in seeing photographically. Since we perceive in the channels of our physical senses and the process internally in similar channels, cleaning up the internal processes, so that the visual channel gets all the data might invite some extrordinary internal data to enter the picture (pun intended). It is like you are expanding the bandwidth of your internal visual channel. For fun put a friend against a plain background in subdued light and stare at them for an extended period of time. You will probably see their face begin to morph into other people that you may never have seen. It also works with your self in a mirror depending on the background and light. I suppose this works with the other senses, but as a photographer I favor the visual.

The question here might be is how we can use this for previsualizing what we want the final print to look like and which kind of viewfinder will be the most useful when we put the camera to work.

Bob

[Guest stnami]

Bob by landscaping I meant the activity, the lens was great for taking images of peoples' houses/properties, I used to consult and construct. Sorry if I took you up the wrong path

"altered state of consciousness " do you mean which way to Woodstock but I lost my way and woke up under a bush in Afghanistan shouting out where is Nixon when you need him type of state....?

Wayne

" a sameness of all digital dslr images" I can cop it sweet on that as there there is not the variety as in film cameras and I know a good lens like makes a difference in digital. Thanks for the tip on the book by John Ingledew, I will try to add it to my workshop library.

These courses I am setting up bridge the digital with film and even plates when health and safety standards permit, hence the focus on the altered image by me. With film I am concentrating on medium/large format as these are easier to physically alter that 35mm which is a bit small to work on. Now that there is a bit of stability in digital there probably will be a book in it for students as a supplement to my art texts if my enthusiasm doesn't wane.

Though the M8 will not have as much impact as the M16 assault thingie has had........I guess I am straying

[Bob Ross]

The observation that most digital cameras produce a generally similar image quality isn't far off. While we can see some variation in color rendering and tonality and DR, it isn't as wild as film was and is. The designers set the JPEG/TIFF in-camera tone curves and the + or - contrast and saturation variations are also close. Using automation as presented, we are getting rubber stamp default images. User knowledge has a big impact, but the vast feature sets dilutes and often masks the photographer's creativity with too many choices. This does encourage post processing. My photo history always included a darkroom and I did more color printing than B&W over the years. Making the print and often remaking the picture in the process was a natural part of the craft. A lot of friends over the years never got near a darkroom or were even curious about mine. If they wanted a different look they used a different film...:-)

Altered state = using anything other than the camera's default settings, using a two dimensional representation of three dimensional reality for creative purposes or when you use too many plug ins for your mental work flow...:-) Hmmmmm, I wonder if I'd recoginize an unaltered state if I happened on one..LOL!

Bob

[smokysun]

hi bob,

 

if we start with the premise, 'every photograph is a new reality,' then there probably is no such thing as an unaltered state! the director william ball says the objective of a show is to put the audience in a trance for 20 minutes near the end of the evening. as i understand, watching tv puts you in an alpha brain-wave state, which is why it captivates and relaxes. at one point i did a lot of reading on hypnosis and concluded we go into trance states all the time. (a long freeway drive, a good example).

 

maybe that's why ultimately, we have to be totally forgetful of the equipment we're using in the moment. in a trance state of shooting, i feel there's a larger part of our brain at work, the unconscious which senses so much more than our conscious mind does. when people talk about the intuitive use of a camera, i think this is what they mean. and a point and shoot might be the ultimate, cause that's the way most people take pictures, even if they set the original parameters.

 

hi imants,

 

what you're doing typifies what the future for photography holds, even if film isn't actually used in the process. photos have a recognizable reality which if completely gone makes what we consider 'photographic' disappear. however the strength of digital is the transformation into various forms of abstraction. i think the combination of the two, where both are recognizable and interact, will ultimately give the most powerful images.

 

i spent the day with old disks of plugins, looking for one i'd lost. finding it, using a fractal machine, was a lot of fun. and putting a photo portrait in the middle of one a gas. i think people will miss a lot of the joy of digital unless they do a lot of experimentation to find something new and interesting to them. this, i suppose, has always been the artist's path.

 

keep up the good work. thanks to you both.

 

wayne

 

ps. how do you insert a photo in the thread? i could give an example of what i mean.

[Guest stnami]

Wayne scroll down to Additional options > click manage attachments > a pop up window appears > choose file > upload and that's about it.

If we start with the premise that digital images are photography and film was something else our views on recorded image and recording of reality would undergo a radical shift, both conceptually and morally. Tolerance would be a lot more flexible and innovation would be in the forefront, you can see how PJ work is in crisis with digital movies and cameras creating a new game

[Bob Ross]

Hi Wayne,

"at one point i did a lot of reading on hypnosis "...........me too (nlp & erikson), and there are some valuable resources in the concepts involved. The one that has been coming to mind lately is "content/process" (therapy styles). In seeing the work of so many photographers and talking to them online, I sort of sort them by "content" or "process" orientated. The content folks tend to take pictures of extrordinary subjects, but the photographic presentation is quite ordinary. The process folks can choose ordinary subjects and photographically present them with great impact. These are obviously exaggerated statements, since it is usually more of a blend. Photographic image processes, like light and shadow balance, tone and intensity, subject composition, light shadow composition, color composition, how the photo invites or rejects the viewer and how the viewer's eye is lead around (and probably more), may not even be in the photographer's concept inventory. I do know some photographers that look for the light(/shadows) first and then the subject and others, as Imant suggests, that can take an image and add the image processes to it afterwards. I think both of those approaches are valid. It is interesting to find that some of the great photographers had their own labs/post processors and concentrated on the image capture side. So does the ground crew get any credit?

I suppose on the equipment side all cameras can grab the subject, but could be awkward for the "process" style, if not well thought out.

Bob

[smokysun]

hi bob,

 

process vs product. that seems to bedevil us all! for example, i love the process of theater. the process of doing motion pictures bores me to tears.

 

hcb had someone else as a printer. edward weston left extensive notes on how he printed his own (and boy, he did a lot of burning and dodging.) in 'war reporter' you can see james nachtwey working with a printer, giving instructions, etc. definitely team-work.

 

the writer christopher isherwood said: 'you can write about extraordinary things in an ordinary way, or ordinary things in an extraordinary.' i think he felt the style and subject benefited by the dramatic contrast.

 

certainly those interested in process would be ones to use a view camera. i've just looked through sally mann's 'intimate family' again. she says some posed, some not, but to take intimate family pictures with a view camera as she has would certainly pose some challenges. the combination of formal means and informal content is part of what gives her power. (and the view camera seems to give her incredible control over what's in focus and what not, which she uses in all kinds of ways.)

 

hi imants,

here's a quote from the book you recommended ages ago 'another way of telling'. john berger writes,

 

"The arguments, put forward from the nineteenth century onwards, about photography sometimes being an art have confused rather than clarified the issue because they have always led to some kind of comparison with the art of painting. And an art of translation cannot be usefully be compared to an art of quotation. The resemblances, their influence one upon the other, are purely formal; functionally they have nothing in common.:

 

i wonder if anyone feels that digital, where the tool is a computer translation into numbers of a view, is that different from film, where the tool is mechnical/chemical?

 

for the purposes of this forum, it would be very useful to have such a distinction. as you've said, if film never existed, we'd see digital quite differently. (how would we see it?)

 

thanks for the photo instructions.

 

wayne

[Guest stnami]

The strength of digital is that you can work on several levels at once, an image may be taken with the mindset, take it in raw no changes to be made or the with the intent of transforming it. Then print it to another level

The example was finally printed to simulate a full solar eclipse and it is eerie as a print a large version as stage 2 can be seen on my site

[smokysun]

hi imants,

 

you've talked about coming to photographer as a sculptor. this image (and most of yours) have a remarkable 3D quality. would love to see a large print. and i agree, i don't think you could get the effect without digital.

 

here are a couple simple examples of combining digital and photographic. it too can create different qualities of depth, as well as wild color combinations. all those effects (and more) that photographers struggled to get (solarization, posterization, cross-processing, etc.) are now available to everyone and quite easily. to use them artistically is the next step.

 

hi bob,

 

those who've made a mark seem to have gone into another state by focusing so much on photography. look at 'revelations' by diane arbus. it's full of personal photos, notebooks, etc. it's evident there's a dedication and focus most of us don't bring to the project. to be totally inside the camera, so to speak, is to be in an alternative universe.

 

wayne

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Bob Ross]

Hi Wayne,

Those are very interesting images and they certainly challenge the viewer visually in many ways. The absence of symmetry, but obvious organic elements puts the mind on alert, to engage in further observing to find out what is disturbing the atmosphere....:-) It is not easy to create images that don't appeal to the ordinary expectations of the average viewer.

Some would say that if you find yourself doing this sort of thing alot, you need to head for the coast and find a nice beach to walk while obsrving (photographing) natures own abstract forms and letting the wind blow through your mind...hehe..:-) If you get that suggestion from someone, head for the coast and Manchester Beach just north of Pt. Arena and you might find something like this Drift Wood Beach Photo Gallery by Bob Ross at pbase.com.

Bob

[smokysun]

hi bob,

 

guess i'll volunteer to to be weird one on the forum (though i don't want to dethrone you, imants!).

 

my point, i suppose, is that digital is really the medium for collage, one great inventions of 20th century art (kurt schwitters, et al). as imants has said, the great thing is being able to do layers, to combine all kinds of things to convey your feelings, your meaning.

 

here are a couple more done to prove my point. one is of my fridge. this is something anyone might try to get a collage of their psyche!

 

ah, manchester beach. once camped out there. walking on that beach is the most relaxing thing in the world. thanks for reminding me (and the nice pics).

 

wayne

 

ps. many famous pics already collages (hcb's puddle-jumper). look at the work of henry ho on pbase. he's taken all kinds of interest pics of people walking by billboards.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!