MORE from the Secret Weapon Lens plus some questions for you...

[Jim Galli]

And because you can go more places, you are more likely to find a line (an esthetic, a train of thought) that maximizes your comfort with it, even if you do not like the picture, per se.

Did that make any sense?

Yes, and thanks to all who replied.

This type of picture especially serves no other purpose but to perhaps hang on a wall and be a root cause for innumerable departures depending on each viewers history, mindset etc. IOW I may look at the first picture of the coffee mugs and my mind takes me 113 miles east of Winslow Arizona in the lounge car of a Santa Fe chief in 1939. Those cups are neatly stacked as the muffled ka-thunk ka-thunk of the track joints passes under us and a gracious black porter who probably has a higher IQ than me says "Sir, may I pour you some coffee?"

The next person in line may look at it and think "I hate all this overhyped indian crap."

In either case since the picture isn't really describing any real place in time, I think the soft focus helps it.

[JoeV]

As usual, I really enjoyed this latest series, Jim. I've been puttering with the front objective lens to a 7x50 binocular, on my Speed Graphic, using the curtain shutter to time the exposure. F/3 wide open. Just finished some darkroom prints from this setup for Christmas cards.

I really am interested in the general optical effect you've posted; it resembles very much what my bino lens cell does. I don't know if one could classify this optical effect as an entirely distinct genre, in the same way that Zone Plates and Pinholes have a particularly unique optical 'look', but it does seem to possess some unique charm. I think it resembles human vision; sharp in the middle and indistinct at the periphery.

~Joe

[rippo]

I have an "optical inlet"??????

It's right above your pie hole, Glenn. It's called your 'light hole'.

[rippo]

for the most part i like the earlier series with this lens better. i think it works (for me) with a light subject on a dark background. the flare and halos are more apparent. however i realize one must be flexible...

the three flutes one at the bottom is the one i like best. i like how the text is in focus, and the lower tip of the flute's base, and nothing else. it's like the front edge of the the flute is poking out from this dense curtain of ambiguity. it helps that the other bases of the flutes are completely clear (or at least, appear to be), which makes them seem to be disappearing into the focal fog even more than they are.

geez i need to find some time to do some still lifes.

[gbogatko]

In Douglas Hofstadter's wonderful book "Metamagical Themas", Chapter 11 deals with how the brain reacts to nonsense. He gives the following as an example. Note how it seems to make sense, but doesn't quite.....

"Oh, limpid stream of Tyrus, now I hear
The pulsing wings of Armageddon's host,
Clear as a colcothar and yet more clear --
(Twin orbs, like those of which the Parsees boast);

(NOTE: none of this is to imply that Jim's photos are nonsense. Period.)

Notice how as you are reading it, your brain starts to fill in logic gaps -- that's why it teasingly seems to make sense.

Hofstadter attributes this to inheritance. Way back when we had just about made it from the ooze to standing up without a walker, our brain developed mechanisms to "fill in the gaps" as a survival mechanism. Hear a branch crack? Maybe it's the wife. Maybe it's a tiger. Look for more clues. Gulp.

So I think with Jim's photos, we are given information that triggers the "fill in the blanks" mechanism, and that this process will take many forms and avenues depending on the viewer, which is what takes it beyond merely fuzzy and into art.

On a related note, propaganda depends on this "fill in the blank" mechanism as well -- your brain will automatically fill in pure empty rhetoric with meaning. EX: "Health care is our number one priority." You brain may fill in: "Of course it is stupid. When I'm sick I damn well want a doctor" or "But national health care is the product of Satan's legions." : but that's not the purpose of the phrase, which is to fill up space in a debate and get up your dander. --But that's another discussion.

gb

[Sandeha]

I have an "optical inlet"??????

Ya got TWO.

[Sandeha]

Does the soft picture open up
some window of longing before we realize (or don't realize) that it has had an affect
that an ordinary sharp picture would not have? Does the soft focus cause a shunt
around our normal analytical process and take us to a different place?

I have a suspicion that while our eyes perceive things with all the sharpness of reality, our minds are not always ready or willing to do that. We dream a lot, our minds drift. The softened image doesn't so much take us anywhere, rather it reaffirms something that we already know but rarely 'see'.

[Struan Gray]

One tidbit: for me at least, there is a vast perceptual difference between a uniform blur and a blur that varies through the image in a conventional optical way. Maria Miesenburger is one artist who re-photographs prints out-of-focus so that the whole scene gets blurred to the same amount. The effect in a wall-mounted print is very different from the low DOF, aberrated look that Jim does so well.

So not just any old blur will do. It needs to make spatial sense - which is why doing it in camera is often more successful than trying to fake it in post-processing.

[Jim Galli]

In Douglas Hofstadter's wonderful book "Metamagical Themas", Chapter 11 deals with how the brain reacts to nonsense. He gives the following as an example. Note how it seems to make sense, but doesn't quite.....

"Oh, limpid stream of Tyrus, now I hear
The pulsing wings of Armageddon's host,
Clear as a colcothar and yet more clear --
(Twin orbs, like those of which the Parsees boast);

(NOTE: none of this is to imply that Jim's photos are nonsense. Period.)

Notice how as you are reading it, your brain starts to fill in logic gaps -- that's why it teasingly seems to make sense.

Hofstadter attributes this to inheritance. Way back when we had just about made it from the ooze to standing up without a walker, our brain developed mechanisms to "fill in the gaps" as a survival mechanism. Hear a branch crack? Maybe it's the wife. Maybe it's a tiger. Look for more clues. Gulp.

So I think with Jim's photos, we are given information that triggers the "fill in the blanks" mechanism, and that this process will take many forms and avenues depending on the viewer, which is what takes it beyond merely fuzzy and into art.

On a related note, propaganda depends on this "fill in the blank" mechanism as well -- your brain will automatically fill in pure empty rhetoric with meaning. EX: "Health care is our number one priority." You brain may fill in: "Of course it is stupid. When I'm sick I damn well want a doctor" or "But national health care is the product of Satan's legions." : but that's not the purpose of the phrase, which is to fill up space in a debate and get up your dander. --But that's another discussion.

gb

It makes me proud that the human race can now evolve to the next level thanks to my images. Thanks gb