kinetic sculpture.

http://www.georgesherwood.com/

george sherwood, the artist who made this:

lens repair.

Sat down today with a 35-135mm Canon lens that had some loose parts on the inside, including a lens element that was nearly sideways inside its housing. When shook it was obvious that the lens had a few screws loose, but I was able to disassemble and reassemble the lens with the help of the diagrams I found on this site:

http://www.micro-tools.net/pdf/Canon/

These exploded view diagrams helped identify the correct placement of the various screws that were loose inside the lens. There are few if any businesses that repair lenses locally, and shipping and repair can cost as much as a new lens. The inner mechanisms of the lens were nice to see in naked action, and the repair was more or less successful. The only failure was the loss or lack of an individual screw, but with two out of three screws in place the lens seems to be functioning. The engineer in me wants to learn more of the dying craft of camera repair. If anyone knows where used and broken lenses can be obtained please, please let me know.

medium format prints.

lighting workshop.

This is the best image that came from the lighting workshop. It is far from perfect and among many that were absolute failures. I did not anticipate how bright the strobe flash actually was and as such it took several frames to stop down sufficiently. Thank you to Trina for being a cooperative model, the strobe flash is not something anyone's eyes appreciate. Given a chance to re-shoot, the following changes would be made:

The subject would be moved further from the background, so to avoid the shadow in the right of the image.

The strobe would be held higher, the low angle to the face creates a distinctive shadow but not an ideal one. We did not have a tripod for the light so it was held in hand, the light should have been around eye level if not slightly higher.

Preparedness. The lighting would be set up, the model would be given a better position to work from, and the camera would be properly calibrated for the brightness of the strobe, all before the model arrives.

The sync speed on the camera used for this image reaches 1/250th of a second. This next image is an example of surpassing that. 

At 1/800 of a second the shutter moves much too quickly to for the flash, resulting in the blank area seen here. The great thing about the digital medium is that it allows for errors to be made at little or no cost to the photographer, creating the potential for a steeper learning curve. As stated by Henri Cartier-Besson, "your first ten thousand photographs are your worst." Digital photography allows present-day photographers to tear through those first ten thousand quickly, cheaply, and with little material waste, though given the looseness with which many photographers approach a digital camera that number might be inflated higher than ten thousand.

bronica.

So my first round with the Holga was short and bitter. After two rolls of film that were nothing less than butchered I moved on to the Bronica, which loads the same 120 or 220 format films compatible with the Holga. The first roll I shot was highly underwhelming, I'm still in my adolescence when it comes to shooting film and need to establish trust in a new camera. The lens on the Bronica I used was 50mm (which translates into wide-angle on the Bronica) so my tendency on the next two rolls was to shoot landscape. 

The view finder shows a horizontally flipped image, making composition a confusing task at times, and it got to the point where I went with the flow when it came to framing, allowing some pictures to be dramatically off-kilter. This evolved into intentionally establishing lines in the frame that were straight but not horizontal or vertical as horizontal and vertical. A tilted frame can admittedly be obnoxious, especially when said frame is only slightly off, but sometimes the effect results in a perspective the eye would not have experienced were it not for said image. I was heeding advice to take risks, I wanted to do something interesting with each the sixteen frames on each roll shot for this project. The Bronica proved to be a fantastic camera, though I do wish it was square format. Square format has a distinct appeal and I was tempted to crop some of my images.

With regards to the Holga, I would like to get my hands on one that functions reliably and shoot a roll or two. I'm currently holding one roll of black and white 120 film that I have reserved for a functional Holga, I don't think the Holga has a place in my emulation project but after seeing some of the work that came out of the class's use of Holgas I will absolutely get some work in with that plastic camera.

camera lucidia.

Roland Barthes writes from an era where pictures were becoming prevalent, but from a time before the barrage of images that we encounter in our lives today. He writes from when photographers were skilled in their craft, and the average picture held a higher degree of preciousness. His tone is reminiscent, his words are articulate, and his lexicon is distinguished, frequently dropping words I have to look up or read back over to fully grasp. Barthes' position remains that of the viewer, never that of the photographer, from which he breaks down the experience of interacting with an image into the punctum and the studium. The punctum refers to the impact an image can have on the observer and the relationship that develops. The studium refers to the context of the image, the social and political state from which it was captured. In Barthes' words, "a camera mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially," this is the way of the camera, it is a device that captures (as well as possible given the camera and the photographer) the light that is in front of it in space and time, "the photograph's essence is to ratify what it represents." Barthes speaks of a picture in which he could not recall every having been photographed, but based on the fact that he is looking at a photograph, he admits to no choice but accepting the scene as a fact of the past. "One day I received from a photographer a picture of myself which I could not remember being taken, for all my efforts; I inspected the tie the sweater to discover in what circumstances I had word them; to no avail. And yet, because it was a photograph I could not deny that i had been there (even if i did not know where)." This statement is outdated in the modern world of graphic manipulation, cgi, and photoshop, but is one of my favorite passages in Camera Lucidia. There is a romanticism in the old manner of photography and the inherent integrity of film. Before the advent of the digital sensor there was more time spent asking oneself: "why choose (why photograph) this object, this moment, rather than some other?" It is important to treat each photograph as precious, it becomes too easy when shooting digital to ask oneself: "why not photograph this moment?" Such a nonchalant approach is causation to the current state of inflation, not of currency, but of imagery. From the moment we no longer ask ourselves why we are taking a picture our integrity is lost and our work loses value.

emulation: hilliard study

at pawtuckaway.

neutral macro two.

lighting techniques.

Rembrandt Lighting:

The technique of rembrandt lighting employs a key light that is positioned to cast a shadow on the face of the subject. secondary lights may be used for fill effects but there should be one main light source in order to create the shadow. Rembrandt lighting may be identified with a triangular shadow on the face of the subject.

Diffuse Lighting:

Diffused light is soft and shadowless. Diffuse light will allow the camera to capture good detail throughout the subject. diffuse lighting generally creates flattering images. In order to create diffuse light light can be reflected off of a surface or filtered through a fabric. Proper diffuse lighting creates an environment in which there is little or no shadow cast.

wikipedia - diffuse reflection:
Diffuse reflection is the reflection of light from a surface such that an incident ray is reflected at many angles rather than at just one angle as in the case of specular reflection. An illuminated ideal diffuse reflecting surface will have equal luminance from all directions in the hemisphere surrounding the surface (Lambertian reflectance).