"...Four hours and 120 sheets of paper later..."
Hmm... 120 sheets at 2 minutes each in Dektol = 4 hours. That's fast work!
The point, however, is well made
"...Four hours and 120 sheets of paper later..."
Hmm... 120 sheets at 2 minutes each in Dektol = 4 hours. That's fast work!
The point, however, is well made
I started taking snapshots with a Brownie box camera when I was about 9 years old. It wasn't until I was a teenager when I got the opportunity to print my negatives in a darkroom. My dad was in advertising and one of the photographers he knew let me use his darkroom after hours. I took an experimental negative I had taken with the family kodak 35mm camera of the swimming raft in the moonlight. I had steadied the camera on the dock and counted a few seconds off hoping to capture enough light to get a good photo. The photo finishing lab did not print those negs probably because they were too thin. I took one of these negs and used polycontrast filter to increase the contrast and made a really nice print of a raft on the water in the moonlight. It was then I realized the creative potential of what you could do with the right materials in the darkroom. Couple years later got a Nikon F, couple years after that a Calumet 4x5.
I had my epiphany aound age 20 as a freshman in college, when I was trying my hardest to be a "serious" b/w photographer. I poured my life savings (about $300) into a used Nikon F, because the photo professor explained, "if you want to get 4x5 quality out of a 35mm, get a Nikon."
I worked with it for about a year and enjoyed the camera, but it never really gave me the quality I'd seen in prints from bigger negatives. I sold the Nikon and added another $100 or so, and got a Leica because most people in the photo department agreed that if you *really* want to get 4x5 quality out of a 35mm camera, get a Leica.
The Leica never really did much for me, probably just a personality conflict, and the negatives didn't seem noticeably different than the one's from the Nikon. A few months later, I traded it (with another couple hundred dollars) in on an Alpa, because by then, I'd learned the inside secret that if you REALLY want 4x5 quality out of a 35mm, get an Alpa.
After a few months with the Alpa, it was pretty obvious that the negatives were pretty much on par with the ones from the Nikon and Leica, and the guys at the local camera store were oohing and ahhing over a brand new generation of 35mm Contax, which would give you negatives that REALLY, REALLY gave you 4x5 quality. I think it was about $2700.
About that time, I noticed an old home-made 4x5 in the back of the store with a $20 price tag, and had an epiphany...
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
It was July of 1979 - I'd spent about ten days on Deer Isle, Maine - having gotten permission from a lobsterman and offshore fisherman to accompany these folks and their crews to photograph them working. For my accomodations, I was allowed to pitch my tent along the shoreline owned by the Haystack Crafts School - and was basically left alone there. I decided to stay for a few days after my fishing series assignment ended, spending this extra time alone on that rocky stretch, with just a Rolleiflex and small tripod. I've never completely returned from those few days.
well i had one just10 days ago. i have been shooting canon A-1, EOS, Leica M, R, screw mount, Nikon, Hasselblad, Rollei, Contax 645, Alpa 12 and linhof 4x5 the last 15 years......(i have a thing with techniques....cant live without the latest)
10 days ago my 5 year old daughter was going on a 2 week trip with her mother. I thought I´d have some fun, and borrowed a Toyo G 8x10 and a Polaroid preocessor from a friend....when the first print on 809 came out....that was it..!!! I just ordered a Canham JMC810 at midwest today.....
As a teacher and obsessed LF photog I have two epiphanies both connected.
Teaching-I was a long term substitute teacher on the south rim of the grand canyon for two months, sept 1-oct 31. That was a bunch of tough kids. One eighth grader, who had just returned from a long suspension and was barred from one of the classes for calling his teacher a whore, was sitting in the hall, since I was on planning I decided to help him out. When the period ended he decided that, instead of sitting in the hall he would come to my classroom for that period to learn his math. One day he looked at me and told me that everything about his life and school sucked except the time he spent with me when he felt important and smart.
Photography-the same two month period was spent without a camera. Yep living on the rim with no camera during the most beautiful light of the year. One day I was watching the sun set in betwen storms when a rainbow appeared to my right that almost made a complete circle, not just an arch and the light to my left lit up like like a fire storm as the sun rays hit a sheet of rain. Got my first camera after that, and have enjoyed the slippery slope of bigger negs and trannies ever since.
I've had a number of them and I expect that I will continue to so long as I have the capacity to take in art. A lot of my epiphanies consist of looking at someone's work and having that work cause me to completely reevaluate what I consider a particular medium to be.
For example, this happened a dozen times or so at the library at Ohio University. The most notable were when looking at books by Jock Sturges, Daido Moriyama, and Nobuyoshi Araki. Very different artists, yes, but I love them all and in their own ways they made me reevaluate photography.
Other experiences like these include looking at Lee Bontecou's sculptures, etc at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, watching varoius films involving camerawork by Christopher Doyle, and listening to music by people like Rob Dougan, Björk, and Sigur Rós.
I appreciate all of my many, varied minor epiphanies. They add up to some pretty big personal evolution.
If I told anyone around here I had an Epiphany, they'd probably rush me to the emergency room. Or maybe a Lutheran minister.
I have had so many over the years, eventually the sheer weight of them broke me.
When I was very young my father used to develop his own B&W in some dark closet in some house someplace we lived in. I remember going in there and seeing the lights and smelling the chemicals and thinking it was such a strange and fascinating world that I hd to be a part of it.
When I was entering my teens a friend's father had a small darkroom in his basement. My friend took me in there and showed me a stack of nudie magazines. Zowie! Then he showed me some photos his dad had developed of nekkid women. I looked at both stacks for some time, trying to understand the difference between porn and fine art nudes. Very careful and lengthy examination was involved as you might understand. I didn't quite have the vocabulary to express the difference, but I knew that I needed to be part of that world.
In my twenties I needed a book on lighting to help me with a non-photographic project. I went down to the local bookstore to see what they had. The entire photo section fit on one small rack. There were four or five of the usual mainstream junk titles you would find, plus one book on lighting for glamour nudes. Well if I was going to look at pictures of lighting... I studied that book, too, and began to understand the theories involved. I also understood that I somehow should have been part of that world (I was far too old by then, of course, to learn photography).
Many years and similar epiphanies later I finally got my act together and found my stride. I was frantically photographing, really just flailing about with a camera, trying everything I could from still lifes to portraits to landscapes to street shots, just not finding anything that felt 'Me'. One day I took a photo of a pile of dead bugs on a paint can and that was it.
Dead bugs may not be on the same level for most people as naked women, and people (especially model friends) think it odd of me when I decline to photograph them because I've got this great new bug I'm trying to capture, but hey, it works for me! Now I get hassled by friends and family to take photos of anything else and it's only under the most grudging of circumstances that I do so. I guess the final epiphny (so far) for me is that I can find something that I want to specialize in and find the beauty in, and if other people don't like it or understand or whatever it makes no difference to me t all. I finally understand those nut-jobs I used to make fun of who labored and toiled on their "art" while the rest of the world went about its business. It was kind of a sobering realization.
"I appreciate all of my many, varied minor epiphanies. They add up to some pretty big personal evolution."
I agree with David. Through all the little and sometimes big steps, our work and thought evolves to what it is, and hopefully keeps evolving. Sometimes, though, I kid myself and pretend my progress is by intelligent design...
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks