going low budget - branching out

for a long time i could only use slide film (usually fuji velvia or provia) or professional black and white film.  i did this in order to have what i thought would be highest quality pictures possible.  i felt that only the best would do.

as part of my therapy to break me of this mindset i bought some fuji superia 400 speed film - your standard print film - from walmart, took some snapshots, then had it processed at walgreens (just the film) then scanned it myself.

this is a big step for me.  in the end, i have to say i'm very happy with what i got.  the scans are somewhat unsaturated and grainy but i think it actually adds to the feel of the pictures.

at the detroit science center...

out garage sale-ing...

and the rest from a recent in-town vacation...

thanks for looking.

grand central terminal

sometimes luck has a lot to do with the success of a picture - especially when that picture is taken with a holga.

i was up on the balcony with the camera sitting on the railing, the lens propped up by my keyless entry remote on my keyring, and i held the shutter open for about a second. after that i crossed my fingers and waited.



i keep finding myself drawn to symmetry and order in my pictures. i feel in a lot of ways like i'm taking portraits of places. showing the simple truth of what something is.

sometimes it's purely informational i.e. - "this building is here, i found it interesting, let me show you what i see" - and that's all. nothing groundbreaking in the way i take the picture, nothing to knock you off your seat, the subject just speaks for itself. and that's all it needs.

the photograph above is extremely symmetrical and orderly (despite the usual rush of the travelers and tourists), even down to the formation of the people in it - an inverted triangle with a single man at the bottom (looking at his phone or something) holding it all together and drawing your eyes up and into the gorgeous space of the grand central terminal.

i'm grateful that he held still for that one second.

greetings from the lavatory

it has become a habit of mine to carry my camera with me at family gatherings or other similar outings. i enjoy snapping candid shots of what's happening around me - conversations, kids playing, friends laughing, etc. those pictures also make for great little surprise gifts for the people in them.

the picture above (the obligatory self portrait of photographers everywhere) was taken on one such outing. my family had gone to buca di beppo - which i think is becoming a family tradition at christmas time - and i had my camera right there with me... even in the bathroom.

after this trip i have to admit that i kind of burnt myself out photographically. i developed 8 or 9 rolls of film and then scanned something around 200 pictures and cleaned up most of them in photoshop - all within a week's time. it was awesome, i got so much done... but i haven't so much as loaded a roll of film into my old canon since. no need to fear though - the fire has been lit again.

i've got plans to explore the farmlands of northwest indiana now that it's warming up. i also might get a second chance to photograph in boston next month (if i can fit it into the schedule).

other than that, my next item of business is selling my old view camera. with the proceeds from that camera i should be able to buy a decent used lens.

it's good to be back.

the truth

"the camera never lies. the film sometimes does." - rodney smith, from the end.

depending on how you define truth, the camera (or film) rarely tells the truth. photographs are stylized moments in time, made visual. the camera by it's design actually modifies the truth of what it sees depending on various factors - shutter speed, aperture, focal length of the lens, film characteristics, grain, and camera movements (with view cameras), etc.

i've often heard people say that they want to capture exactly what is in front of them - the truth of what's there. but in my opinion it's the way that cameras distort the truth that makes photography so exciting.

despite what i've just said, i've discovered (for myself) an exciting way to show "truth" in photography - by photographing people when they don't expect to be photographed.

what do people (almost inevitably) do when someone's about to take a picture of them?

"smile!"

that's all good and fine but sometimes it's hard to really catch someone's personality if they're always putting their smile mask on when being photographed. sure it takes some guts to snap a picture of someone (even family) when they're not expecting it - but to capture them in that natural setting can be truly rewarding.

- unrehearsed subjects caught in a moment where the truth is subjective.

a few more pictures... and a theory

here are a few more pictures from my latest batch.


elliot.


kaylinn pulling a face... or her face, i guess.


elliot and sam learning about robots at the m.i.t. museum - thanks eric!


cute taylor ann.


so i have a theory, and here it is...

the more time and effort you put into something the more value it has to you. it may not be a monetary value and it may not hold any value for anyone else but you but it still has value. i think that's one of the reasons i still do film photography. if i had a digital camera i don't think i would value my photographs as much.

when i release the shutter i understand that i am using up a piece of film that i will have to develop, scan, and retouch in photoshop. i believe that because of this i am more careful about what i am doing with my cameras - especially large format where setting up and taking a few pictures can take a half hour! this may not be the most cost-effective or efficient method to do photography but it works for me and i love it.

a little fuzziness is oh so nice

say hello to sam as seen through my old canon ae-1, a 30 or 40 year-old metal body slr.

i've heard people say they want to get away from the "point-and-shoot" look and get a "nice camera" that takes great pictures with "fuzzy backgrounds", etc. i've also heard of people going out and buying an slr hoping to get those great pictures but then being disappointed with the point-and-shoot-like results from their expensive new slr.

so what's the problem? how do you escape the grasp of the point-and-shoot?


their are two solutions to start with - both relatively easy to implement. interestingly enough, the camera actually has little to do with the problem.

the first is the flash. if you just use the default flash settings you'll get a very brightly lit picture just like a point-and-shoot camera will give you. you can usually set the flash to a "fill flash" setting or manually tone it down so it's not so intense. and don't be afraid to bump up the iso setting in low light. but this is all beside the point, i want to talk about the fuzzy backgrounds that are oh so nice.

the fuzziness is caused by shallow depth of field and the two things that effect depth of field are the size of the aperture (bigger = shallower depth of field) and magnification (higher magnification = shallower depth of field). as for the magnification, think about macro photography or telephoto photography - both magnify the subject quite a bit and therefore produce shallow depth of field. this leaves big apertures to do the work when it comes to normal shots of people and such.


back to the problem - most new slr's come with zoom lenses (everybody loves zoom lenses, right?) and most zoom lenses don't have very big maximum apertures so it's a bit more difficult to get the fuzzy effect with these lenses.

solution? sacrifice the zoom capability and get a fixed focal length (non-zoom) "normal" lens. something around a 50mm lens should be good. just make sure the lens has a big maximum aperture - you can find this right in the description of the lens. it will say something like "Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor Lens" - the number 1.8 is the maximum aperture. remember that with apertures the smaller the number is the larger the aperture will be, so an "f/1.8" lens is pretty good.


all the pictures in this post were taken at f/1.8 (wide open) at about 1/60 or 1/125 second on 400 speed kodak tri-x film without a flash.

these lenses are also very inexpensive - usually somewhere around 100 bones. you'll have to zoom with your feet instead of the lens but that's a small price to pay for a big aperture.

fun with fuji in the fall

a very generous photographer friend of mine recently gave me a supply of large format film including some fuji instant color film. it's like polaroid film but this stuff is so much more spectacular.

when you look at a print it feels like you are looking at the scene through a very clean window - like you could reach in and touch it. the colors are bright and clear and since there is no enlargement in the print, the details are as sharp as you could ever imagine.

here are a few pictures taken on the fuji instant film with my large format camera. unfortunately my scanner can't reproduce the quality and detail in the pictures so you'll have to use your imagination.

elliot and sam in our front yard (sam had just thrown some leaves up in the air)



the first test run of the fuji instant film

elliot actually took this picture of me

fun with an old polaroid

this cumbersome piece of machinery is the polaroid 101 "automatic" land camera named after edwin land - polaroid's founder. it was made in the mid-sixties and originally cost about $135 - i got mine for $35 at an antique store in parowan, utah. sweet.

one of the things that makes this camera fun is the way the pictures are made. after taking the picture, you pull a small paper tab which comes out completely but also exposes another tab. as you pull this tab a small pocket of chemicals is broken open and is spread over the picture. you wait about a minute, peel the picture away and there is your picture! the black and white film worked well overall but i was thoroughly unimpressed by the color film.

these were all taken with my polaroid land camera...

the kids

the girl

sammy watching for trains in boston

stay tuned for a post about the champion of instant photography...fuji large format instant film! oh yeah!