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Author Topic: For Rob's eyes  (Read 13019 times)

bill t.

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #20 on: August 12, 2012, 02:49:40 am »

The ponytailed and pedalpushered girl from Mannheim brings this to mind.

Behold the lovely Janet Leigh.  Unfazed by a clearly difficult situation, her smile outshines the chrome.  Back then we had cars properly sized for for freeform posing and suitable for every kind of frolicking.  You don't see shots like this anymore.  Mother of Jamie Lee Curtis.

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Rob C

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #21 on: August 12, 2012, 04:21:21 am »

I remember Janet (only from the movies, sadly) as having a very uplifting and pointed set of bras; as a young lad I'd note and remember that detail. In the shot you posted she appears to be suffering from the two-stroke motor sound effect that I sometimes experience whilst walking straight after lunch on days when the restaurant has served its delightful bean salads...

Those were the days! I'd take a bra with imagination any day instead of an outright silicone fib. Not to rub it in, but what's the point? Obviously, repairs etc. are of a different ethical nature and an admirable use of surgery, IMO, but for perfectly normal people to put themselves through that for ego and false dreams... might as well take up photography; probably cheaper and certainly less dangerous.

Rob C

P.S. The dashboards of U.S. cars were always the single failure for me; too much shine and nowhere near the exquisite workmanship of, say, Jaguar or Humber. But the body-shapes were in a class of their own: aspirational. Much like the bras of the period, then.

Rob C

WalterEG

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #22 on: August 13, 2012, 05:20:22 am »

Some 50s Chrome for Rob.

Couldn't resist reaching for the phone for this one.

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Rob C

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #23 on: August 13, 2012, 10:12:30 am »

MG Magnette? If I remember, it was one of the saloon brands being manufactured (just) at the time Red Robbo and his loonie red army were killing off the UK car industry.

The motor group hired Farina to design, then did a UK 'take' instead. Oy veh, already; can't blame the reds for that bit of enlightened business acumen: direct management madness. But hey, that's how you design a camel. We all need a Mk. 2 camel, right?

Walter, don't you feel a sense of total freedom using your cellpix camera? I know it's limited, of course, but what it has going for it is worth a lot too.

Rob C

WalterEG

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #24 on: August 13, 2012, 05:20:18 pm »

Walter, don't you feel a sense of total freedom using your cellpix camera? I know it's limited, of course, but what it has going for it is worth a lot too.

Rob C

I had purchased a Panasonci GF-2 last year as a walking-around grab shot camera.  It sucked so bad I thought, 'I might as well use the phone!'

I bought a slip-on adapter for the phone which has a tripod mounting screw thread and that makes a world of difference if and when it matters.

Cheers,

W
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Rob C

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #25 on: August 14, 2012, 04:22:46 am »

Walter -

Tripod jacket for cellpix. Doesn't that instantly negate the value/ease factor associated with the idea of the cellphone in the first place? On the other hand, I can see the value of carrying a light tripod as a self-defence system.... Main problem I see with mine ('phone camera, not tripod), at least, is that there's no way of firing it without pressing the little area on the screen that activates the 'snap'.  neither am I sure exactly when the exposure gets made: whether at the first touch, or later; the screen goes through a series of now-you-see-it-now-you-don'ts that leaves me bemused. I have discovered some shots appear to have been taken after I moved away from holding the thing in the right direction... but I can't be sure because I seldom get to see the subject clearly.

I wish folks would post a few of their own cellpix - it would be interesting to see how/why they use their cellphone cameras in the first place, instead of traditional cameras.

Today should see my blind arrive! (?). I think I might start off using it for a series on the old musos after all - at least it'll give me an idea of how the space/background work together. If I can find one that's not mounted, I think I'll look for a tranny off the 500 Series and create a black frame incorproating the two little notches on the left vertical, I think I'd find that funny. Very arty.

I've finished the Ansel letters now, a very interesting book that reveals how similar are many of us snappers in our psychology, our wishes/expectations and probably ultimate disappointments with a world with which we seek to engage and influence towards a better way of life. There's so much in the book that's worth quoting, but it would probably lead to a coyright issue.

Cheers -

Rob C

Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #26 on: August 14, 2012, 09:32:48 am »

Rob -

Are you telling us that you take your cellpix hand-held, without benefit of a really solid Gitzo tripod? I'm shocked!   :o
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Rob C

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #27 on: August 14, 2012, 07:18:12 pm »

Rob -

Are you telling us that you take your cellpix hand-held, without benefit of a really solid Gitzo tripod? I'm shocked!   :o





Look at it this way, Eric: I have the Gitzo 410 with its equally heavy bonce that tilts both ways, and I have the Samsung Galaxy portable telephone-cum-camera. I have a choice of taking one or the other to lunch - it's what the Americans call a no-brainer call. I think.

My blind background that's going to make part of my terrace into a 'studio' didn't materialise after all; I rang the shop and got the father who told me that the son (who is doing the job) has been away in Palma all day. I said okay, I'll ring tomorrow. Dad said No! tomorrow is a holiday. Which I'd forgotten. So I'm now low on cash because the banks will be closed and I never use cash machines in case they chew up my card and cause me weeks of stress trying to get it back. When my wife died, I went to the bank to cancel her card. I was using mine one day and it bounced. Turned out that the bank had cancelled my card instead. Crisis, what crisis?

I have to remain calm - the cardiologist demands this. Eric, I could write a book about how 'they' are out to get me. No wonder I don't sleep much -just get up late(ish).

It's 01.17hrs as I sit here at the computer. Been out to an evening of music and my head's abuzz and my ears are closed.

Rob C
« Last Edit: August 14, 2012, 07:20:31 pm by Rob C »
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nemo295

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #28 on: August 14, 2012, 07:40:27 pm »


You don't see shots like this anymore. 



And we're the poorer for it. Fabulous portrait.
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Ed B

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #29 on: August 14, 2012, 11:22:05 pm »

There's so much in the book that's worth quoting, but it would probably lead to a coyright issue.

Cheers -

Rob C


Surely some of those quotes must be in the public domain by now.  ;)
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WalterEG

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #30 on: August 15, 2012, 02:08:08 am »

I've finished the Ansel letters now, a very interesting book that reveals how similar are many of us snappers in our psychology, our wishes/expectations and probably ultimate disappointments with a world with which we seek to engage and influence towards a better way of life. There's so much in the book that's worth quoting, but it would probably lead to a coyright issue.
Cheers -
Rob C

Rob,

As you are possibly aware, I am no fan of Adams' but I have read the book of letters (does that make him a 'man of letters' and they are a potent insight into a boom time in the history of our craft.

Might I also recommend that you read the DayBooks of Edward Weston.  And Charis Wilson Weston's biography, "Through Another Lens".

W
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Rob C

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #31 on: August 15, 2012, 10:14:06 am »


Hi Walter

Taking my courage into both hands, and in the hope that this is a legal use of quotations, I’ll venture into the AA business.

I have sometimes mentioned here that I have doubts about the advisability of ‘students’ putting themselves into such situations (of being students) for anything beyond purely technical instruction, my fear being that they will open themselves up to the direct influence of another’s mind, and lose that which was their own. I shall quote form AA’s letter to Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, May 25, 1974:

“You will note that the students of Minor White are most profoundly influenced by him; you will also note that the majority of them are NOT his peers (and are perhaps not capable of being forces in their own right). I think you might agree that a truly forceful artist will achieve a real creative success in spite of everything that may, or may not, happen to him. I think we may be all confused over the actual number of artists (or those professing to be artists) and think there are more really great ones than there are. Everything is now so slick and easy, and individuality seems to be rarer and rarer as time goes by.”

The above does not imply any shortcomings into Mr White’s abilities, in my view, just in the dangers of exposure to such a strong personality (photographic).

My last quotation from this book is this one, from a collective letter to a group consisting of the Newhalls (above) and Minor White, November 1, 1958:

“We always get involved in yaks about teaching, etc. No result but agglutinations! Really – it all boils down to the fact that Those Who Have It Will Get There – maybe you can help them get there faster. Most of the others should be going in another direction in life. It is wrong to support them doing something beyond their ken. But so many schools are founded and continue on that basis. God runs his fingers along the window-sills of the world and looks for genius–dust!…”

(Thanks again Patricia for the book – it was sure worth the effort!)

Rob C

 

WalterEG

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #32 on: August 15, 2012, 05:23:05 pm »

Everything I loathe and detest about the etiolated St Ansel right there Rob.  By May 25, 1974 Adams had written books and conducted workshops and thereby accumulated an army of acolytes slavishly seeking out the tripod holes of their mentor and diligently following his every utterance as to how best to replicate the effect of his prints.  The world, indeed this very world here on LuLa, is largely still caught in the vortex of Modernism that Adams espoused so vehemently.  He espoused it to such an extent that William Mortensen, a romanticist, was publicly pilloried by Adams as "the Devil" and "the Anti-Christ" of photography.  The world doesn't need another hypocrite on that scale.

And who the bloody hell does he think he is to suggest that it is wrong to assist people in the pursuit of their aspirations and to decide if "it is beyond their ken"?

There is something in me that says the tuition and mind games of the Adams' view of life, the world, and everything applied selective blinker-vision to many more devotees than White ever did - not to say that White was not, in his own way, cast from the same mould.

I have always taken my hat off to Sally Mann and Jock Sturges who are two Adams' Workshop students who took the basics of his gospel and then adapted it to their own unique (and individual) visions.

W
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Rob C

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #33 on: August 15, 2012, 06:08:54 pm »

I didn't know Sally M was an ex-AA photographer. I liked her shots of her children, even though I sometimes felt sightly uncomfortable with how the wee girls were represented: making them look older is doubtful (to me). Having a daughter of my own who, as a child, spent much time in my studios holding up cards with 4, 5.6, 8, 11 etc. on them to check how well my flashmeter of the day (a Bowens!) agreed or disagreed with processed Ektachrome, I understand how easy it might be to manipulate kids, especially one's own. But in no way does that diminish her abilities (Sally's).

Jock Sturges I have never been able to like. I just don't see where his stuff is good.

To be honest, I'm not the world's authority on older photographers because apart from having looked at a few books, I was always absorbed in the doings of the current guys of my own time. I suppose I liked to know who was shooting what, how and with whom. It certainly paid dividends for me as an out-of-towner: I would generally do castings mainly with girls who'd already featured in productions that had appealed to me as a photographer. I've not been one to believe that I can spot a good model in the flesh: it always takes a test, and since I couldn't very well do that in London living in Glasgow, I was happy to accept that if Miss A could do it with Lichfield, she could do it with me; I never felt any sense of inferiority in that respect - I knew that I would be shooting my way and not anyone else's.

My photographic 'education' was derived from the pages of Vogue, Nova and Harpers as well as from the great Popular Photography Annuals of the 50s and even, I think, the early 60s. I was never into landscape or any of that stuff at all, which is something that turns out expensive now that I live in a world devoid of models. Well, expensive in terms of not having built up any sort of life-long, basic, personal liking for other genres than women.

It seems sort of tragic to shoot things that are just so-so in their appeal to one; it takes so much time sitting at a screen... but, one has to do something.

Bedtime.

Rob C

P.S. Looking for some 500 Series shots from which to clone the borders with 'blad triangles (no luck: only have them unmounted in b/w neg) for my new proposed game of shooting musos on 35 FF digi and then printing within 6x6-shaped areas, I came across some b/w glossies I'd made here in Mallorca on Ilford Multigrade; though I hated plastic papers as well as Multigrade, they still look superior to anything I've ever produced on digital paper. And to think that I thought my digi prints are excellent... how we can deceive ourselves when avoiding confrontations with some earlier methods.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2012, 06:27:12 pm by Rob C »
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WalterEG

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #34 on: August 15, 2012, 07:02:35 pm »

Sleep well Rob,

And for when you awaken ....

Like you, in my days of full-on production I had neither the time nor inclination to overly worry about the past.  yes, I did have an awareness, indeed and appreciation, for a few of the tall poppies but i did not have the resources of time or energy to get to any depth in my investigations or venerations.

In fact, back then I doubt anybody in the commercial world got into too much that did not relate to food on table or fruit on sideboard.

I certainly did not want to BE (or even emulate) any of them.  I was happy and proud to be myself.

And it has to be said that at that time I did not venture too vigorously into 'Personal' work (as 'Fine-Art' was called back then).  I admire the socks of the likes of Bailey, Penn and Avedon who managed to pursue massive non-commissioned projects while working so hard to commissioned assignments.  Since I worked entirely to my own brief I used to argue that everything I did was 'Personal Work'.

I have a number of books of both Sturges and Mann and, though each is very different in their approach, I admire the work of both.

Nevertheless, Adams spawned an industry worldwide and in doing so provided a goal for many to pursue and derive enjoyment from and that, to me, is his greater legacy.  I have seen early Adams prints and later Adams prints and I have long held that the poor wretch fell victim to his own hubris.  The vintage prints were glowing gems at a size that one could get intimate with.  The later work (some of the Museum series for instance) was money for old rope and excessively grandiose.

I guess it is worth noting, also, that the Modernism that Adams espoused was fairly localised and became known as West Coast School.  It screamed in the face of the likes of Bill Brandt and the more gritty style of British photography but that is not to say that either approach is right and the other wrong.

W
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #35 on: August 15, 2012, 07:15:43 pm »

Everything I loathe and detest about the etiolated St Ansel...

And who the bloody hell does he think he is...

Bartender, no more drinks for this guy!  ;D

Rob C

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #36 on: August 16, 2012, 04:09:39 am »

"In fact, back then I doubt anybody in the commercial world got into too much that did not relate to food on table or fruit on sideboard."

Yep, Walter, and I think that that's probaby still the case today for anyone with a real photographic business: there simply isn't time. I used to work bloody unsociable hours (when there was work) and many weekends. It was a strange thing: the 'phone would go on Friday afternoons with some ad agency guy pleading for prints first thing on Monday. First thing on Monday I'd turn up with the shots and then quite often later visits to the art director's office would reveal them still in their see-through envelope, untouched... rush seemed to be a one-way concept. But what could you say, No!?

The point you make about manageable size of print is valid. I have long noticed that, when I'm starting to work on a new picture, I have to reduce its size to around whole-plate (or smaller) on the monitor in order to understand what I've got and where to trim, if trimming is required. I don't have tunnel vision, and I don't think it's a question of anything like that - I think it's more a matter of being able to catch something in the mind's eye without scanning a lot. Why should it really be much different looking at pics on a wall?

Of course, I know the commercial answer to that: art's about names and square metres. Period.

Rob C

« Last Edit: August 16, 2012, 04:13:24 am by Rob C »
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WalterEG

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #37 on: August 18, 2012, 03:14:31 am »

Multi-Culturalism alive in the automotive world back in the days of the MG Magnette posted earlier this week.

Taken a while back on the iPhone:

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Rob C

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #38 on: August 18, 2012, 04:11:06 am »

Lancia has ever been a mystery to me: from a marque that, in Italy at least, used to stand for expensive and prestigious cars, it reached a nadir in the UK when all imports were ended because of the rust problems that made the brand unsellable.

Ever since it appears to have continued in some minor key as maker of the 'quirky' rather than the desirable.

Strange.

But then it wasn't only Lancia had problems: I bought a Fiat X1/9 in preference to an MGB because I liked the styling as well as the practical consideration of the targa top; in less than two years I had to let it go because, not of body rust (which other owners discovered very quickly) but because of the alloy wheels: the things came with clipped on balance weights on the rims... washing them one day I discovered the effects of different metals in tight proximity with one another when graced with the added benefits of winter salt's catalytic joys.

On going back to the dealership (friends of ours!) I was told that Fiat had authorised exchange of affected wheels but that the deadline had passed: as usual, I didn't know about the offer. I couldn't trade the car in at any other dealer whose product I wanted - ended up with an Alfasud.

Rob C

jule

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Re: For Rob's eyes
« Reply #39 on: August 19, 2012, 02:07:05 am »

Some Mini Shots. Ever since my grandson has been able to push or in some way propel a riding toy, he's had a Mini. This was last Christmas' Electric Mini.



Next to his Papa's Mini:



Love it !!!
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