Showing posts with label funny stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label funny stuff. Show all posts

9.7.12

Monday Column: Why a Vampire Can Not Be an Analog Photographer


As an analogue photographer you have all experienced how is to be hours and hours in the darkroom. I don’t know about you, but I had, after several hours in the darkroom in the middle of the night at local elementary school, a strange feeling of presence. I knew that I was alone in the school, but... Hopefully I’m not paranoiac, but as part of consumer of modern popular culture, we are all bombarded with stories about supernatural creatures. And one of those creatures fit perfectly in the dark lonely corridors of the empty local school in the middle of the night.

Could be a vampire? A lonely sorrow creature craving for the blood. And a lonely sorrow analogue photograph in the darkroom seems to be a perfect target. Not! As commonly known, vampires have some deficiencies. Among allergy for garlic and UV light is also allergy to silver. Be thankful to that, that analogue photography is all about silver those days. In the modern films, the vampire killers uses bullets filled with silver nitrate for killing vampires. So, if you are afraid of the vampires, just keep some of used developer. After you develop a film or photographic paper, it has a lot of washed away silver from not exposed parts of film in it. So in the case of need, just pour it over the creature. Guarantee success.  So you don’t need the garlic wreath on the door of the darkroom. You could be sure that no vampire will come and bother you, when you are printing your precious photos.

But hey! Maybe they are not so bad after all. And after all you could find a brother soul in analogue photography? Oh, there is a problem. Photography is all about light and vampires are allergic to the sunlight. But they could be nightlight photographers and they could produce masterpieces like the Edward Steichen’s Pond – Moonlight?


                                       Edvard Steichen: Pond - Moonlight                                                                                  
    Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/ThePondMoonlight.jpg




And others could develop and print the photographs for them, as they did for the Henry Cartier Bresson (and many others photographers too). But why they would bother? At present days, for night time photographers, you have are more appropriately suited tools. A blasfemy for analogue photographers, but nevertheless, vampires goes digital. We already stated that when we are talking about soul in photography, it is analogue. Vampires have no soul. So that’s the ultimate reason, why a vampire could not (wont) be an analogue photographer. They don’t even bother about, they have ISO 204,000.

29.6.12

The "RolleiHolga"


No, it's not the newest Lomo camera or a hybrid camera I made by myself (I would never profanate a Rollei and even don't own a Holga)! But it happens even to best ones (cameras, to be clear) to be sometimes a bit off. So it happened even to my beloved Rollei SLR, actually to its film back. The film leading/retaining spring clips (which are supposed to hold the film flat, very flat) were not doing their job properly, as it turned out later. On the contrary, the film was so unflat, out of focal plane, the image sharpness was on a par with a Holga. Hence, the name RolleiHolga! It happened on a Sunday trip. And to make things even worse, I forgot to take the right lens hood for the wide 50 mm lens. Being a nice, but also a naive and technocolic guy I am, I was sure shooting at f/8-11 would not produce noticeable vignetting. Wrong! The wrong lens hood added another »Holga-feature« to the shots! 

Two shots made with the "RolleiHolga" from Motovun
Under normal circumstances, I would not show these shots to anybody, but I thought it would be nice to share this happy accident in this case. And luckily, the problem was solved in a breeze by my trusty camera mechanic. By the way, these are panorama shots of the river Mirna valley, taken from the tiny little town of Motovun, located in central Istria. If you have a chance, go for a visit there. It is a picturesque town, with galleries and local taverns serving good Istrian cuisine. But the town is most famous for its film festival, which is going to be soon! And don't forget to take your camera with you!

silver regards
Mitja