Category Archives: Cameras

Cameras, Large Format Cameras, Lenses, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Portraits, Studio Photography, Taking Photographs

Portraits of Photographers

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Being a photographer who teaches, I have a lot of friends who are themselves photographers. It gives me lots of opportunities to photograph them, often with their cameras. It can get rather meta-referential, but that’s part of the fun.

This is Mari Calai, one of the members of the Handmade Photography Group at Glen Echo Photoworks. She’s also the current Artist-In-Residence at Photoworks.

Colin Gore waiting around for one of the other photographers in the Handmade group to do his portrait in Wet Plate Collodion. The group did an outing in February to the National Gallery of Art and then brunch afterwards.

Paige Billin-Frye, another group member and fellow instructor – she does amazing hand-colored and toned cyanotype work. It was interesting to see how many of the group members were using small (meaning medium format film or smaller) cameras on that outing. I was the only one shooting 6×7 (my new-to-me Pentax 67) – everyone else was shooting 6×6 square (mostly Rolleiflexes) or 35mm/full frame digital, except Mac who was shooting 5×7 wet plate.

Speaking of, there Mac is in action, shooting his portrait of Mari.

The man, the myth, the legend, not buried under a barkcloth. It was February, it was 45 degrees farenheit, and he was wearing sandals without socks.

Chris Gumm, who coincidentally practices gum bichromate printing, posing with his Rolleiflex.

Switching gears somewhat, Steve Greenberg is another one of the Photoworks people, but not part of the Handmade group. This was from a commissioned portrait sitting we did, this time with my 8×10 Century Master studio portrait camera and the Kodak 405mm Portrait lens.

A different take on Steve, with a different camera and lens – still a soft focus portrait lens, but this time the Pentax 67 120mm soft focus portrait lens. It’s a lens that surprised me – I picked it up because I liked the soft focus effect I was getting on the Kodak Portrait and with some of the smaller soft-focus lenses I have (the Hermagis Eidoscope, a Seneca Whole Plate aka Wollensak Vesta, and my Cooke Series II, which isn’t technically a soft focus lens but has really creamy out-of-focus rendering especially wide open). I wanted to see how good it would be for this effect on a small format. It’s going to stay in my arsenal of lenses, and actually stay in my camera bag unless I KNOW I won’t need it for a particular trip. It requires careful use to get the best out of it – you control the soft focus through the use of the aperture, where wide open is the fuzziest/glowiest, and once you get below f/8, it’s mostly tack sharp. Best used in the studio, where you can control the amount of light you feed it, especially with how relatively fast modern films are.

One parting shot, very meta-referential, as it’s a photographer in a photo studio, showing the fact that it’s a photo studio.

Black and White, Large Format Cameras, Nudes, Photography

Portraits and Nudes

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I had a photoshoot at the end of last year (sorry for the delay in getting these online, but life happens) with a fantastic model, Thomas Roblez. I found him on Instagram. He has a striking, somewhat androgynous look and just radiates sexy beauty. We did a session in my studio entirely with the big Century Master portrait camera and the Kodak 405 Portrait lens. It’s a soft focus lens with a very distinctive signature look, something not easy to replicate even with extensive Photoshop work.

These were an homage to Narcissus. I like the effect of the soft-focus lens on these because it gives them a dreamy, hazy look that you’re not quite sure if it’s real or if it’s something out of the imagination. Very appropriate for the mythological nature of the subject.

This one is a darker psychological exploration. A Plague Doctor emerging from the depths of your psyche – is he here to heal, or to terrify? As we emerge from the unreal nightmare of the three year pandemic, how do we remember those times? They feel like years that didn’t really happen, that went missing, and we’re not sure what to think of them or how to remember them, or even if we can really remember them at all.

Gen Z gonna Gen Z and be on their phone non-stop.

One of his (and my) favorite shots from the photo session. I just love the relaxed, languid pose – it reminds me of those 1920s advertisements.

Not all photos, especially nudes, need to be serious. It’s good to inject some whimsy and humor from time to time.

Not all portraits need be vertical.

Black and White, Cameras, Large Format Cameras, Photography, Still Life, Studio Photography

More Still Life Experiments

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I’ve just been playing around more with my ultra-simple setup – an ostrich egg on a cardboard box. No distractions, no fancy backgrounds. The first image is just one light – a big fresnel.

This one is two lights (obvious from the highlights on the shell), both aimed to bounce off the backdrop and backlight the shell. I’m not fully satisfied with this one, I’ll try re-shooting it some other ways.

A third take on the theme, this time contrasting the shape and texture of the egg, the box and the fossil. I realize I missed the depth of field on the fossil a little, so the very leading edge is a little soft. Another one for the re-shoot pile.

Large Format, Large Format Cameras, Lenses, Photography, Still Life

Still Life in the Time of Pandemic

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The Cooke in action on the Sinar Norma. Starting today off with some chrome/stainless steel, then moving to glass.

While not a requirement for doing still life (you can shoot still life with ANY camera – a point & shoot or a pinhole will work just as well as a DSLR or a view camera, if you understand the operating parameters of the camera), I love using a view camera because it lets me place my plane of focus and depth of field exactly where I want them, and I can have a razor thin zone of focus or I can have it be total, and I can control the shape of the image.

The camera’s eye view.

Coming in March, I’ll be teaching a still life photography class online through Glen Echo Photoworks (check their website later for details on schedule and sign-up). We’ll look at the history of still life and have weekly shooting assignments. I’ll show you how still life isn’t just bowls of fruit or flowers, and how it can be every bit as exciting and dramatic a story-telling genre as street photography, plus you can do it in your home with minimal space and equipment (all you really need is a camera, a table and a window!). Of course, I get fancier, but you don’t have to!

Large Format Cameras, Lenses, Photography, Studio Photography

Working with the Voigtlander

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The set up

I got the mounted flange back from the machinists shop this week, so yesterday I got a chance to put the big Voigtlander on my 8×10 and shoot it. I set up my little outdoor studio with some quick still lifes using Coke bottles. I like my lighting simple and dramatic so I used a single 1000w fresnel. I wanted that longer duration from the light because the Voigtlander, being from 1863, has no shutter. I would need exposures long enough that I could use a spare dark slide as a manual shutter.

The Voigtlander on the camera

Here’s the lens mounted on the camera- it uses Waterhouse stops for apertures. I have one with it currently, that’s probably the equivalent of f/8.

What the lens sees

One of the cool things about working in a studio setting like this is that the ambient light is so low that you don’t even need a dark cloth to focus and compose! I will be developing my film from last night’s shoot today, but it was nice that I could give a preview of my results right off the ground glass.

Antique Processes, Cameras, Large Format Cameras, Photography, Platinum/Palladium, Still Life, Studio Photography

Residual Proof of the Outside World

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I’ve been engaging in series of work in response to triggers from my environment – there was that moment of eureka that started the six year journey resulting in the Sinister Idyll series and the gallery show at Gallery O on H. Now, with the COVID-19 crisis, I’ve been trying to work on a series coping with being in a near-quarantine situation, and how do we respond to/deal with the stress and anxiety of walking around every day in a public space that could kill you. After barely leaving my house for the last four months, I noticed that certain things were turning into patterns, most specifically, delivery food. I was cooking at home more, but I was also getting delivery from places I hadn’t in the past, and due to “contactless” delivery those delivery items and their remnants looked different.

Chipotle, Mexican Coke, Corona

Since I’m not leaving the house, and now I had all this accumulated subject matter, I decided that my response would be in the form of still life images. I brought out my 8×10 view camera and set up a small studio on my patio where I could work.

DC Noodles Delivery

These are just two preliminary images from the series. I’m continuing to work on ideas and presentation, but it’s a planted seed that will grow into something. Working on a series like this is very different from my documentary series Sinister Idyll because there, I had to go out and photograph my subjects in the places where I found them, in the circumstances they existed in (it might be rainy, or crowded, or the wrong time of day). Inspiration came from what I found when I found it, and I just had to interpret. Here, with doing still life, it’s a very different discipline because you’re creating something entirely de novo – yes, the delivery bags and food containers and beverage bottles are what they are, but I have to arrange them in a cohesive and aesthetic manner, I have to choose the juxtapositions, the backdrop, the lighting, the depth of field… everything. There’s nobody to blame for a shot not working but myself. I like the discipline of it, but it’s a big challenge.

As is customary for me, these are all going to be palladium prints. I love working in a hand-made medium, and the tactile nature of the photographs is so pleasing to me. The entire process of making them, from setting up the studio through using the large view camera, to developing the film and making the print, really, means that I put so much of my soul into the practice of making the photograph.

Here’s the little studio set up, if you want to see it. It serves as proof that you don’t need much to work with to make images- just a will to do something and a vision to make it happen.

And the camera in action.

Cameras, Collecting, Lenses, Photography

Growing Collection of early lenses

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Here are three recent additions to my optical glass arsenal. First is the perhaps most interesting of them – an R. Beard Daguerrian lens made by T. Slater, London, Ca. 1855. It’s the oldest lens I have, and probably the rarest, most exotic one. The back story is that when Daguerre announced his invention to the world in 1839, he got the French government to buy the license and pay him a lifetime pension. A similar offer was made to the English government but they refused, so Daguerre entered into negotiations with a private citizen in the UK to license the Daguerreotype. The first licensee sat on his rear about it, and in short order, a more enterprising individual, Mr. Beard, bought out his interests. Due to a quirk in English patent law, Beard was entitled to represent himself (as you can see in the inscription on the lens) as the sole patentee of the Daguerreotype (when in reality he held an exclusive license, and the right to sub-license to others). Beard insisted that anyone buying a license to the Daguerreotype process from him had to mark EVERYTHING with “R. Beard, Sole Patentee”, including things like frames and cases for images, and as we can see here on the lens, lenses and cameras too! This one is made by T. Slater, Optician. Mr. Slater was an optician in London, today better known for his telescopes than for his camera optics. This lens is probably a Petzval design, and from what I can tell, it just about illuminates a 5×7 inch plate. Useable coverage is probably quite a bit less than that. 
R. Beard Daguerreotype lens, by T. Slater, Optician, London

This next piece is my Voigtlander Petzval. If you pay any attention to such things, you’ll probably have heard people geeking out about Petzval lenses, especially in wet plate collodion circles. Petzval lenses are named after their inventor, and are famous for providing a relatively fast lens (very important when working with wet plate where the approximate ISO hovers around 1). They’re also coveted today for their notable defect, a pronounced curvature of the plane of focus. This gives the “swirlies” that you see in many wet plate images today.

Voigtlander was an Austrian/German lens manufacturer and an early pioneer in photographic optics. This lens is from approximately 1864, and is an 11 inch f3.4. To give you an idea of the size of this thing, the front element is 80mm in diameter, the barrel is 6.5″ long, 8″ if you include the lens hood. It weighs in around 2kg (4.5 lbs). The funny looking tab sticking out the side is a Waterhouse stop – an early mechanism for aperture control that relied on flat slips of brass with varying diameter holes cut in the center.

Last but certainly not least, is my Taylor, Taylor & Hobson Cooke Series II 10.5″ f4.5 lens. This one is not nearly so old as the other two, dating from approximately 1914-15. This one came to me in rather rough form, but it will live again to make more pictures after the thorough cleaning I gave it.

Lurking in the background behind the Cooke is my Hermagis Eidoscope #3 – it’s an 11 inch f5 lens, and most specifically a soft-focus lens. You control the soft focus effect by changing the aperture. The larger the aperture, the softer the effect, the smaller, the sharper. It’s actually a Rapid Rectilinear design, not a Petzval, which some people think that it is because they think that all brass lenses are Petzvals. The Cooke is neither a Petzval nor a Rapid Rectilinear, but rather an Anastigmat, but it too has a reputation as a soft-focus lens, the soft focus being controlled by the aperture, and also by adjusting the spacing on the front element. On the small Cooke lenses like mine, there is no official soft-focus mechanism, but on the bigger, longer portrait lenses, they had a ring that you could turn to adjust the soft-focus effect. Some enterprising individual took it upon themselves to engrave some marks around the front of the barrel to indicate where to turn the front element for soft focus effect. Once I have this lens mounted, I’ll give their markings a try and see what it does.

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Street, Travel

Iron Railing, Russell Square, London

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IronRailRussellSquareLondon
Iron Railing, Russell Square

This is all about using selective focus to emphasize a subject, and use of exaggerated perspective to draw the eye into and through the image. This is one of the things I like extreme wide-angles for – the exaggerated foreground-background relationships that happen when you put them very close to something give you a new non-eye-like point of view on your subject that really forces you to consider it formally, abstractly and within its context.

Architecture, Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Street, Travel

Lee Brothers Potato Merchants – London South Bank

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A street find while walking around with the LC-A 120. This is under the railroad tracks that cross the South Bank pier of London Bridge, just across the street from Southwark Cathedral.

LeeBrosPotatoMerchants
Lee Brothers, Potato Merchants, Behind Borough Market

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Street, Travel

London – Street Signage – Look Right

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LookRightFinsburySquare
Look Right

I happened to look down, and then saw this admonition to “Look Right ->”. I found it mildly amusing that traffic flow was considered so confusing that it was necessary to tell people which direction to look before crossing the street. And I love the crunchy texture of the pavement and sidewalk. This is at the corner of Finsbury Square where it abuts City Road in central London.

This is another image from the Lomo LC-A 120. The only real reason I ever mention the cameras I use nowadays is to prove a point about there being little to no correlation between the “quality” of camera you use and the quality of the images you make. I have very little control over the LC-A beyond what I point it at, when I choose to trip the shutter, the film I load in it, and the rough guesstimate of the distance between me and the subject. Everything else is really out of my control. But the decisions that are most important are the ones I do have control over – what to point it at and when to trip the shutter.

Knowing my camera and how it records images is also helpful to getting what I want out of the image, of course. But this image above would have not been any more successful if I shot it with a Hasselblad Superwide, a Rolleiflex TLR, or my Fuji XT-1, each of which offer far more control and precision than the LC-A.