Selective focus

[Jimi]

Hello,

I have been wondering about this for a while now, and as you all are a fine bunch of people having a lot of answers for a lot of questions I'll fire this one off:

The photographer Keith Carter, to my knowledge no LF photographer, has made a lot of photos in his book Holding Venus with a kind of selective focus which I haven't seen before. Is this made in-camera, or at the printing stage? Or maybe in Photoshop?

Look at http://www.peterfetterman.com/artists/carter/carter1.html to see some examples of his photos.

Any ideas?

[James Meckley]

I believe he uses a Hasselblad "Flex-body" camera which allows the lens stage to be tilted (and swung?) much like a standard view camera, thus achieving the strange focus effects. He's produced some very compelling images.

[M.]

Who cares? Looks like pretentious crap to me.

[Sandy Sorlien]

Carter's pictures have always been square so he's using an MF camera. I heard somewhere that the out-of-focus areas were done in the darkroom, but I can't vouch for the accuracy of that rumor.

[Mike Mahoney]

Looks like he's having some fun with swings/tilts.

[Dave Schneidr]

It's always good to see enlightened and thoughtful commentary on a photographer's work posted on these pages. Of course sometimes we have to settle for a whole lot less.

[Pete Andrews]

Is it true he's going to do another series? This time with the lens swung about the vertical axis. (God, I hope not!) The puppeteer picture reminds me of that awful episode of Star Trek, you know, the one where you could see the strings on the aliens.

[Jimi]

Well, Keith sure does get opinions on his photos in this forum, anyway...

I think his photos are good, but I shudder at the thought a the flood of photos from Carter-wannabes which might drown us in the future.

[Dave Willison]

In addition to the movements noted by the previous posts, he may be achieving these types of effects through filtration--either on camera or in the darkroom. It may be as simple as vaseline on a clear filter placed in front of the camera lens or below the enlarging lens. If I was going to mimic Carter's approach, I would prefer doing it through darkroom manipulation. This gives you a choice of printing a straight print or one with selective focus.

If you like Carter's work you will probably also enjoy Sally Mann's recent landscapes (Mother Land series) and the work of James Fee.

...............................

[Mike Kravit]

We just finished a Keith Carter exhibition here at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre in Delray Beach, Florida. All of his images displayed were shot in 6x6 Hasselblad format.

I had a chance to speak with Keith about his images and his technique for a short while. Keith claims that he is using tilt to get the selective focus in the field and not in the darkroom. This has me a bit confused (not a new concept) because the area of selective focus is about a central axsis.

Is the Hassy Flexbody able to use both front and rear tilts? I think this would be necessary to throw both the foreground and background out of focus at the same time.

Also, I wonder if he is using another camera like the Linhof with a Hassy back.

In any event, I have to tell you that his images are certainly very compelling. They are superbly printed and received an enourmous response. Keith conducted a Q&A session at the Museum Show Opening and he was extremely cordial and a pleasure to listen to.

I found his images much stronger in person than in his books.

Mike