Role reversal

What happens when one reverses the role of the intention?
When a lens that was meant to "show" images suddenly "captures" them?
That is what actually happens when I use a projector lens mounted on a camera, the role is reverses.


refitted projector lens Meyer-Optik Diaplan 100mm f2.8  1/30sec

Technically speaking a lens from a projector lens is designed and optimized to show images there were once created with a different lens.
A projection lens, apart from being often not corrected for optical "faults", lacks mechanisms that most camera lenses have: a focusing helicoid and an aperture control diaphragm. They are really just a tube with several lenses arranged to project an image on the wall or screen.


refitted slides projection lens Will-Wetzlar Maginon 85mm f2.8    1/2000sec

So why would I want to cripple myself trying to capture images with a tool that clearly is "inferior"?
There is no clear answer and most likely not one that most people accept: because images photographed with projection lenses for me are more capable to deliver the concept of fantasy rather than reality.


refitted projector lens Meyer-Optik Diaplan 100mm f2.8   1/2500sec

Since trying to faithfully represent real life in a 2 dimensional format is a futile exercise that is simply limited by conventional constraints (perceived accepted unspoken rules) I much more prefer to explore the emotions that an image can create. Projection lenses enable me to create an in-camera look that modern lenses designed for digital imagery often can not.
While I am not interested in manipulating excessively a concept in post production, by compositing and editing conventional photographs, I allow myself to exploit the design faults of old simple optics to convey a sense of supernatural in my images.

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Photography and phone-photography

I had a little discussion with an enthusiast on how the public perceives that mobile phones have killed digital cameras.
Then the discussion turned to what is photography...
I wrote:
Once a person acquires a phone with a camera (pretty much any current offering) he/she becomes a photographer. I don't know anybody that has not taken an image on their phone, or others', myself included (I regard phones as phones, not as cameras!).
Then comes the difference: are we just happy recording and sharing or are we driven by the desire to create unique art, with little to no intention to record an event/place for memory/history sake?
I think the latter might be better served by a tool that is dedicated to create images versus a multitasking tool that acts primarily as a mobile phone and happens to have a lens in-built too. While incredible (yes, I use the right word: hard to believe) work has been created on the iPhone (great marketing from them) I just can't bring myself to get in the frame of mind to create something photographically that doesn't make me wish I had a better tool.
Documenting is no longer my priority...


adapted Helios 44-7 58mm f2  1/1600sec

Semantically anybody that makes images is a photographer but I distinguish between mere recording and consciously be driven by the passion to create an image. Occasionally I am just recording but it doesn't feel right; I am more in tune with myself when I "create".
Any camera however is just a tool, although the line blurs sometimes when I hear people defending their choices like it's religion ;-)
So, if it's a tool, I view the phone as a multi-tool affair with screwdriver, pliers, wrench cutting blade and god-knows-what else in one place. A dedicated camera (ideally with interchangeable lenses) is to me a finely tuned job-specific tool.
I know which one I prefer if I want to find pleasure and satisfaction in doing the task hoping for a decent result.

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Make-believe

We make the mistake to think photography represents reality, we want to believe that.

Kodak Cine Anastigmat 63mm f2.7

If we satisfy ourselves with the idea that a 2 dimensional, frozen-in-time moment, cropped vision of an event/place is depiction of reality, sooner or later we probably will find disappointment.

If we accept that photography is an interpretation at best and deceit at worse in showing us a snippet of reality then we are closer to its concept.

Anything else is make-believe, including the emotion that we create around a poignant image.

Two images, taken moments apart. Two different messages.

Are they real? they are real to me where real is used as believable.

But no image is real, and all are.

If one looks at them at a philosophical level, yes all images do exist, but do they represent reality? They can't, as mentioned earlier, reality is not a two dimensional print or screen display; it's just make-belief.

If we grew up understanding that photographs represent reality than probably we can satisfy our mind when seeing an image. We can create a story around it, feel an emotion, or none of it.

In the end images are nothing but triggers for our brain to believe what we want.

As Galen Rowell said so well before: ​"One of the biggest mistakes a photographer can make is to look at the real world and cling to the vain hope that next time his film will somehow bear a closer resemblance to it" - Galen Rowell​

but ultimately:

• “All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”
  — Richard Avedon

Immortality

It was sun-setting and I rushed to reach the top of a prominent rocky outcrop, I wanted to catch the last rays.
I was suddenly very disappointed when I came across this totally vandalized large sandstone lookout: names and dates have been carved into the soft rock.


adapted cine lens Kodak Ektar 25mm f1.9  1/1000sec

Upon reflection, I am now in two minds with the message behind this image: is it environmental vandalism or is it the primeval urge to mark one's presence?
Initially I was miffed to see this rock totally covered in carved graffiti: there are a few declarations of love but mainly I noticed persons' names and dates.
Then it came to me: humans have been marking their presence on earth before history, almost like to preserve their spirit to immortality .
We all have the need to belong and the want to be needed, it's part of being human. Is marking our presence the fact that we existed and a way to preserve our memory?

Content of shit

I read this and made me pause:

Like those pictures you take. The good ones are either art, or portraits, or, at worst, photography. But the really awful ones you put on Facebook -- that picture of the tunafish sandwich you had for lunch, or your dog licking himself, or the adoring selfie -- that shit. And that content is shit!
The Ad Contrarian

Be proud of your work but be your worst critic. Seek perfection but don't be stuck in perfectionism. Create with passion and not for an audience of imaginary friends with shallow "likes".  Explore and go against convention if that is what drives you, as only by seeking and not following you truly will master the art.
For yourself.

That is what I think when I photograph.


G-Lumix 14mm f2.5  

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Swirly bokeh for portrait

Isolating my subjects from a distracting background has been a quest of mine for some time.
In the past I have mainly used longer lenses or wider apertures to create a bokeh that serves as backdrop, while still trying to give context of the location.
Lately I have been exploring the virtues and faults of lenses that were never intended for my camera, let alone a digital sensor and even less size of format (originally film).
I have been playing with lenses that were designed for 16mm film (much smaller than the sensor in my cameras).


Bell&Howell 16mm film projection lens 2" f1.6 (fixed aperture) 1/250sec

As the image circle does not fully cover my larger medium the edges of the lens render with great distortion. Most photographers would never accept that, myself included, just a few years ago.
Sharpness was absolute priority, anything else had to come second.
Times have changed: I have grown my artistic sense and I am distancing further away from razor sharp modern glass that unfortunately often lacks of character. My auto-focus lenses are gathering dust...
I have shifted from my professional days of capturing a "true" representation of reality where everything must be sharp to something that, through de-focusing fields and adding possibly motion blur, leads to different results. I want my images to create an emotion rather then a recording of a place/event.
Some lenses create a peculiar background blur when the focused subject and background are at the right distance from each other and the lens is often used wide open.
I call it swirly bokeh.


Bell&Howell 16mm film projection lens 2" f1.6 (fixed aperture) 1/1000sec

As I view now photography more art than science I gravitate towards images of a different nature; extreme sharpness has taken a back stage spot.


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Authenticity

A photograph isn’t necessarily a lie, but nor is it the truth. It’s more of a fleeting, subjective impression.   Martine Franck 

That pretty much sums up my view on the truth about photography.
I find that I can never capture the authenticity of a place for each of us has a different view of the world. What I feel in a particular place and moment that "moves" me might not match somebody else's feelings. ​


M.Zuiko 40-150 R   f5.6  1/350sec

The question often arises on what a "real" photograph is.
To some that like to profess themselves as purists, is an image that was created purely in camera.
I often read the defensive statement: "no Photoshop here!" where the author touts that the image is straight out of the camera (SOC).

But what is photographic reality? The two dimensional representation that we have become accustomed to call "un-manipulated image"?
Some call it photojournalism where not much has been done to an image after the shutter was pressed.
Occasionally I can work on images long enough (out-of-the-camera rarely does it for me) to bring back at least the view that I had in that moment.
But does it still count if the shutter was pressed more than once (multiple exposures), or if the shutter was open long enough to create images our eyes can not see?


swirly effect created by wind,  M.Zuiko 40-150mm R   f6.7  1/30sec

Little we know what the real story is behind an image: was it staged? is the clever cropping and isolation of subject making it appear something that is not? .... selective views can do tricks to our minds.
The scene of the image above of the little girl on the beach was selectively cropped; just out of the frame was a large group of people and a marquee. If I were to include those subject in the scene I would get a very different feel from that image.

How about a moment frozen in time that our vision can not capture? a shutter speed so fast or so slow that creates a view that is not "real" reality? I have never seen star trail with my naked eye...
Particular lenses create images that certainly are very different than the human eyes sight.


OOC: Meyer Optik Trioplan 50mm f2.9 1/1500sec

Cameras can see in the dark, can bring objects into view that our own eyes can not, create a mood that might no truly represent what I felt and saw at the time. A good article on the subject here.
And the future might totally change how photographs are made; here is just a snippet.

Should we instead pause and don't tout a holier-than-thou when in reality all we do is set different parameters to our reality, that is far from anything but.
A photograph will never ever be "real" (the purpose to represent reality) as it is to the author to interpret what the light created in that moment when the shutter was pressed.
I like to treat photographs as an artistic expression aided by light and form; anything else is open to interpretation.

"All photographs are accurate, none of them the truth" ~ Avedon

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