Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: petermfiore on December 19, 2017, 06:01:29 pm
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This is me in my first semester at Pratt Institute...with my seminal camera.
Peter
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... before you grew the beard so you could make your own paint brushes. ;)
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Rollei 35.
My first camera. Still have it.
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... before you grew the beard so you could make your own paint brushes. ;)
You bet...
Peter
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Rollei 35.
My first camera. Still have it.
I still have mine...and functional too.
Peter
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Must have been keen - still in your pyjamas! What time was it?
;-)
Rob
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Must have been keen - still in your pyjamas! What time was it?
;-)
Rob
I'm sure it's somewhere between 3 and 5 AM. My usual bedtime in art school. 17 years old. Is anybody really that young?
Peter
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I'm sure it's somewhere between 3 and 5 AM. My usual bedtime in art school. 17 years old. Is anybody really that young?
Peter
No, not anymore. They are all at least seventeen-going-on-thirty, especially the girls, even at fourteen. Not that I know any fourteen-year-olds anymore. Mine all grew up to be mid-twenties right away.
It's something to do with relativity and a short formula I no longer recall. It was something like: Excitement=MyCubalibreSquared. But you know how it goes with us folks with too many pictures in our heads... uncertainty and anxiety camouflaged as wild assurance.
:-(
Rob
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... uncertainty and anxiety camouflaged as wild assurance.
:-(
Rob
Ah, there are liquid consumable balms for that too...
:~)
Peter
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That looks suspiciously like Peter Max wallpaper.
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That looks suspiciously like Peter Max wallpaper.
If only...Very bad suburban, couldn't afford to change it, garbage...
Peter
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Rollei 35.
My first camera. Still have it.
Mine too. I'm looking at it now as it sits on a shelf. I kept that camera in my pocket for six or seven years. I love the 40mm f/3.5 Tessar.
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Mine too. I'm looking at it now as it sits on a shelf. I kept that camera in my pocket for six or seven years. I love the 40mm f/3.5 Tessar.
Bob,
I carried that all thru my 4 years at Pratt and for several years after that...I love that camera.
Peter
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Bob,
I carried that all thru my 4 years at Pratt and for several years after that...I love that camera.
Peter
I think I'll make myself a promise right here and now. If I do get back to live in Britain I will make a basic darkroom simply to process film, which means a new life for the F3. My scanner still works - at least, it did last time I used it - but I won't be printing wet again, much as I loved it. Never say never...
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I think I'll make myself a promise right here and now. If I do get back to live in Britain I will make a basic darkroom simply to process film, which means a new life for the F3. My scanner still works - at least, it did last time I used it - but I won't be printing wet again, much as I loved it. Never say never...
My Nikon scanner works as well and I still have my film reels and tanks. Hmmmm...Rollei may breathe again.
Peter
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You guys are making me nostalgic for standing at the sink with a stainless steel 35mm tank full of Microdol.
But then I remember what a pain in the posterior all that was, with dark-bags and the rest of the paraphernalia, and the washing and the cleanups and how inflexible the results were in comparison with digital.
Quick! Back to Photoshop!
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You guys are making me nostalgic for standing at the sink with a stainless steel 35mm tank full of Microdol.
But then I remember what a pain in the posterior all that was, with dark-bags and the rest of the paraphernalia, and the washing and the cleanups and how inflexible the results were in comparison with digital.
Quick! Back to Photoshop!
That's why I won't go back...the worst part of darkroom work was film development. Most important, but boring. Those 10-15 minutes seemed like hours to me back then. However printing was where the magic was. Special developers, hot developer painted on with a brush to make the lighter parts of the print come alive in a timely fashion.
Printing, I miss...very hands on.
Peter
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Quick! Back to Photoshop!
'Cause it's so nice and easy! :D
The closest I'll ever get to the wet darkroom again is possibly keeping a tray of stop bath next to my PC, just for the nostalgic aroma.
Eric
P.S. Film development became tolerable when I began to treat it as time to meditate.
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There was nothing difficult about processing film. It was just routine and a rather dull but essential step en route to the next bit, which was the aesthetic challenge.
I have never used a changing bag in my life and would have hated to try that. Especially as I seldom processed a single film at a time. Probably need a changing tent!
I always liked a lot of space around me in the dark, where I knew exactly where I'd put everything so as for it to be conveniently to hand. Imagine knocking over a spìral and then wondering where the eff the damned thing had rolled! Nope, a room that I can darken every time. Processing you can do anywhere with water and a flat surface that doesn't scream if you wet it. Your kitchen would be perfect.
Contact prints are the bugger because they need a darkroom just as much as prints. Which is why I'd be happier with chromes. Trying to edit negatives is for anyone else but me. I need positives.
But be that as it may, since this is about selfies, here's an old one. I bet Ms Coke had no idea I was sneaking into shot!
(http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/6762944_orig.jpg)
If I may refer back to Alan G's post, and his link to music photographer Neal Preston: in the interview Preston tells us that he would far rather edit multiple films via contacts than digital via the computer. He reckons it would take a quarter of the time a computer would force him to spend. He does use digital cameras too, so he knows what he's talking about. Anyway, from my perspective, I would far rather edit a few hundred trannies on a big lightbox than attempt to do it on a screen. The ease with which you can rapìdly swap shots around, create groups and edit them down further can't be matched by computers and keyboards and stuff. Some things work best hands on. Of course, this is just opinion, and as we know, everybody has 'em, and if you are working in digital, it's all entirely academic anyhow. ;-)
Where I think the computer wins, hands down, is in the case of short shoots, where you are doing one basic shot and just want to find your best exposure/lighting. Fantastic option to have. Even the iPad does that well!
Rob
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That's why I won't go back...the worst part of darkroom work was film development. Most important, but boring. Those 10-15 minutes seemed like hours to me back then. However printing was where the magic was. Special developers, hot developer painted on with a brush to make the lighter parts of the print come alive in a timely fashion.
Printing, I miss...very hands on.
Peter
I agree, Peter. I remember the first time I saw that magical print come up in the developer. It always was magic, partly because the print was like a birth. It presented itself a bit at a time. With digital the print is full-born at first sight. I can live with that, but some of the magic is gone.
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I always liked a lot of space around me in the dark, where I knew exactly where I'd put everything .
Rob
It was Darkroom work that enabled me to loose my fear of the dark...I was afflicted with that issue since I was a young child.The Darkroom came along when I reached the age of 11. Now I don't fear the dark, only the things that can easily go bad at night.
Peter
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I agree, Peter. I remember the first time I saw that magical print come up in the developer. It always was magic, partly because the print was like a birth. It presented itself a bit at a time. With digital the print is full-born at first sight. I can live with that, but some of the magic is gone.
Russ,
That's the magic I miss... the faint image slowly evolving into a dream fulfilled picture.
Peter
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It was Darkroom work that enabled me to loose my fear of the dark...I was afflicted with that issue since I was a young child.The Darkroom came along when I reached the age of 11. Now I don't fear the dark, only the things that can easily go bad at night.
Peter
The things that can go bad at night are legion!
I don't think I've ever had a seriously developed fear of the dark, only of the crimes that can be done under cover of the night. What I do have, and hadn't realised it until driving through France once and stopping off to pee in a forest out in the middle of nowhere, was that I hate forests. The car and wife were what - forty feet away at the roadside? - yet the absolute silence, the impossibility of seeing more than another thirty feet ahead was awful. I knew that if I turned around and forgot my bearings, I'd never get out of that damned place sane, or perhaps at all.
I don't remember now if I had or had not already seen the Blair Witch Project. Probably not. If I had, I'd probably have hung on up to the next little town and bar!
Rob
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I remember the first time I saw that magical print come up in the developer. It always was magic, partly because the print was like a birth. It presented itself a bit at a time. With digital the print is full-born at first sight. I can live with that, but some of the magic is gone.
I have sometimes wished for a button in the Lightroom Develop Module which, when pressed, would show a blank white screen, and then gradually fade in the image over a period of at least two minutes, just to get the sense of magic back. Alas!
Yes, printing was magic. Developing film was just boring.
Eric
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I have sometimes wished for a button in the Lightroom Develop Module which, when pressed, would show a blank white screen, and then gradually fade in the image over a period of at least two minutes, just to get the sense of magic back. Alas!
Yes, printing was magic. Developing film was just boring.
Eric
Think of the panic and frustration if there's no Stop! button when it looks just right! Not that I've "had" one - in any sense of that word - but this concept reminds me of inflatable dolls. Big ones.
Don't invest. In the tech thing, I mean.
Rob