Jacques Henri Lartigue and his camera

[djdister]

Here's my variation of the "Lartigue effect" using a hand-held 5x7 Graflex Model B with a vertical focal plane shutter, panning with the movement of the car.

[jnantz]

lovely effect made from non perspective control camera
makes one wonder where he was standing and how tall he was
he had to tilt the camera down funny to get everyone in it that he wanted in it,
that's why hte bystanders are tilted one way and the car tilted a different way
it doesn't take much of a funny tilt to do that ...

the image plane trapezoid in the last image post 1 shows the image shape, it's the opposite
of what one gets when they tilt up with the A to H perspective/distort control action in photoshop's "transform"

[Mark Sawyer]

The answer is rather simple: the effect came about because Jacques Henri used a large camera which he panned to follow the car (but not quite fast enough) and he used a focal plane shutter of which the slit moved from top to bottom. In this way we see different moments in time projected on different parts of the film. In the image the slit of the focal plane shutter moved upward because of the bottom-up projection of the lens.
Both the leaning of the bystander and the deformation of the wheel and spokes can be explained in this way, demonstrated by this animation (which I wrote in MatLab). The animation should speak for itself.

BUT... the image on the ground glass would be inverted by the lens, so the focal plane shutter would have moved from the top of the camera to the bottom. True?

No, Lartigue panned in the opposite direction from the car's travel. That's why the pole and spectators are leaning in the opposite direction. The "reverse panning" accentuated the lean of the car (by increasing the car's rate of travel through the frame vs the speed of the moving slit), while causing the opposite lean of the background.

[Mark Sawyer]

Here's my variation of the "Lartigue effect" using a hand-held 5x7 Graflex Model B with a vertical focal plane shutter, panning with the movement of the car.

Try panning in the opposite direction of the car's motion. Panning with it just keeps it in the same place in the frame as the slit goes by, so no distortion on the car. But the background does lean, as it moved through the frame as you panned with the car.

[Tin Can]

Gotta try this!