Wet Rocks Study #4, Forest Park

This is my final post of this subject and for 2009!  I've been using this picture to develop a landscape look that simulates pictures made with the Leica I circa 1925 and learn the maze of controls in Nik Silver Efex Pro.  The Leica I was the first camera to use 35mm motion picture film and set all the standards and idioms for the format that continue in the DSLR world.  I found that the earliest Leica users were hand spooling from 100 ft. rolls of Kodak Panchromatic Cine film, which by 1933 was sold as Kodak Panatomic in 35mm cassettes.  The stock was inherently high contrast, softened somewhat by the lack of an anti-halation layer and lenses without modern anti-reflection coating.  When you see prints from Leica and Contax negatives made between 1925 and 1937, they have a glowing, chiseled butter quality that vanished as film and optics "improved".

Technical: Nikon D100, 50mm f1.8D, ISO 200, Cokin P series circular polarizer, f/10 @ 1/100s, tripod.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2.6 for minor corrections, then edited in Nik Silver Efex Pro to simulate Kodak Panatomic film and sepia toner.

Concrete Face #2

Just a few feet away from the first Concrete Face in Forest Park is this lady.  This time I am experimenting with a more film like representation.  I'm not sure, but I think both faces were once painted. With the contrast and monochrome filtering cranked up, you can see where the pupils had pigment.
Technical: Nikon D100, 50mm f1.8, ISO 200, f/2.5 @ 1/640s,  tripod.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2.6, then edited in Nik Silver Efex Pro to add Ilford HP5 film effect, green filter and partial Kodak Blue Toner effect.

Canoe Prow, 19th Century Africa

This is a detail from a canoe prow, collected in Africa in the late 19th century, on display at the St. Louis Art Museum.  I'm still working on the look of pictures made with Leica I in 1925.  There is something very romantic about photographs from that era.

Technical: Nikon D700, Nikkor 24-85mm f2.8-f4, ISO 800, 66mm @ f/4.0 @ 1/8s, handheld.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2.6, the converted to monochrome in Nik Silver Efex Pro using the blue filter with the Kodak Tri-X film setting.

Overmodeled Skull from Paupua New Guinea

More from the basement of the St. Louis Art Museum - a human skulled with the tissue boiled off, then the facial features added back with clay, burnt lime and oil from tree bark.  The eyes are cowrie shells and the hair is human.  I am intrigued by the subject, but the technically accurate colors and uninspired lighting don't suit my impression.
Technical:  Nikon D700, Nikkor 24-85mm f2.8-f4, ISO 800, 85mm @ f/4.0 @ 1/20s, handheld.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2.6.  Color corrected using the Xrite Color Checker Passport to 2650K and +9 Tint.

The color of the red clay presented some emotional distance for me, so opened the picture in Nik Silver Efex Pro to see in a monochrome conversion would add drama.  None of the stock custom styles gave me the look I was after, which was to imitate the look of a picture made in 1925 using a Leica I and the venerable push Kodak NC 35mm motion picture film.  Silver Efex Pro lets you set the grain and spectral characteristics, so I was able to simulate the ortho-chromatic sensitivity and match grain to pictures in Leica history books.

19th Century New Guinea Canoe Prow Detail

This beautiful carved wood boat prow from New Guinea is in the basement of the St. Louis Art Museum, the detail presented here as a faux Holga image.  Which got me to thinking...

My first experience with shooting with a toy camera was in the Fall of 1970 through a Photography I at Florissant Valley Community College.  My serious interest in photography began earlier that year.  By the time I showed up for the college course, I had already built and outfitted a darkroom, bought a Nikkormat and two Nikkor lenses, absorbed many technical manuals and monographs by photographers like Ansel Adams and Edward Steichen.  That Summer I burned through at least 100 rolls of Tri-X and made a trip to New York City to see Irving Penn's incredible platinum prints.  I also quit my job at an IGA grocery store when I landed an assistant photographer job at Todd Studios, where I learned how to operate an 11x14 Deardorf and run a custom black and white lab.  Nonetheless, I remember that I was concerned that I was not sufficiently prepared for a college level course devoted to my new found passion.

I was immediately disappointed with the Photography I class.  The teacher gave us the syllabus and it was clear that photo history, chemistry and optics would not be discussed.  The supplies list for the class required us to buy a Diana a toy camera, similar to the very popular Holga, and 50 rolls of Tri-X 120 film.  We were told that we would process the film in Kodak Dektol, a paper developer, instead of film developer to boost the contrast of the fuzzy plastic lens.  I asked the teacher if it would be acceptable for those of us who already had cameras to execute the assignments our existing gear.  The teacher's response:

"No, absolutely not!  You will experience a thrill in the darkroom when you see a picture you made emerge the first time in the developer.  I want you all to shoot hundreds of pictures with an inferior camera so that you get over that thrill and learn that pictures are not good just because you made them.  That is what this course is about.  To make you critical of your own work."

Why was everyone to use the same camera?  Our teacher also said she didn't want to try to deal with helping students use twenty different makes and models of camera - it would take up to much class time and be too chaotic.  As a reminder, in 1970 there was no auto-focus, let alone a complex digital menu systems.  The adjustments available were focus, f-stop and shutter speed.  In-camera meters were simple analog match needles.  To figure out the controls on any camera from that period or earlier should take no more than 30 seconds, a basic skill I'd expect a Photography I class to impart.

So I bought the camera and completed the first two week's assignments and learned several valuable lessons:

• Not all teachers are qualified to teach.  I'd had bad teachers before, but this one set a new low.  She had no idea what she was doing.  I caught her in so many basic technical flubs in the first two classes, it was clear to me that she was not a practicing photographer.  
• A college photography course is a total waste of time and money.  I confess I thought Photography I was a fluke, so I talked my way into Photography II.  Different school, different teacher, same technical and artistic inferiority.  Use the tuition to buy books and gear.  
• The best way to learn photography is to shoot, find and mimic photographers you admire, learn from your mistakes and get a job as an assistant for a good photographer.  The apprentice system makes the most sense for learning the arts, especially photography.  
• Best of all, you can get a full refund when you drop a class, as I did with both photo classes.

I got nothing practical out of my Diana experience in 1970, other than a renewed appreciation for fine German and Japanese optics and engineering.  In the past 20 years or so, a number of photographers have embraced toy cameras, considering the light leaks, lens aberrations and scratched film as positive attributes to their pictures.  In 2009 alone, there were two major toy camera photo exhibits in St. Louis.  While the shows had a few memorable images, in general it seemed to me that viewers were expected to somehow give a handicap to photographers for using inferior cameras.

While I might be the first to admire the Impressionist and antique feel of images from cameras like the Holga, I'm not personally comfortable limiting image quality at the time of capture.  Perhaps this view is driven by my early experience at Todd Studios, making contact prints from old 11x14 glass plates, the same type used in 1890 by Stiegliz and Steichen.  For them, the subject matter and printing process produced the Impressionist qualities, not the camera gear.  Today, at least for me, this means trying for the best possible capture, then transforming into the picture I had in mind when I shot it.  This allows me to experiment with degrees of pictorialism, rather than have the equipment to lock me in to a particular picture with random streaks and scratches.

Technical: Nikon D700, Nikkor 24-84mm f2.8-f4, ISO 800, 45mm @ f/4.0 @ 1/6s, handheld.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2.6, then edited in Nik Silver Efex Pro to applied the "Holga" custom style and "pulled" copper toner effect.  The "Holga" style adds quite a bit of grain and a heavy vignette.

Wooden Figure, 18th Century Hawaii

Among the treasures in the basement of the St. Louis Art Museum is this 18th century wooden figure from Hawaii,  sitting in a case about five times larger than it needs to be.  Very odd arrangement, but I like the design silhouette. 
Technical: Nikon D700, Nikkor 24-85mm f2.8-f4, ISO 800, 85mm @ f/4.0 @ 1/13s, handheld.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2.6, edited in Nik Silver Efex Pro to give the picture an antique travel card look.

Running Artemis Study #7

The St. Louis Art Museum keeps moving this statue, providing me with opportunity to shoot from different angles under different lighting conditions.  At the time of this capture, Artemis was parked in a very dark corner and I was shooting on a Friday night.
Technology: Nikon D700, AF Nikkor 24-85mm f2.8-f4, ISO 3200, 56mm @ f/8.0 @ 1/50s, handheld.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2.5 to adjust light balance and exposure, then edited in Nik Silver Eftex Pro for monochrome conversion.

Solarized Buddha #1

A bust of Buddha at the St. Louis Art Museum gets the Man Ray treatment, courtesy my just licensed copy of Nik Silver Efex Pro that arrived today from Adorama.
Technical: Nikon D700, AF Nikkor 50mm f1.8D, ISO 1600, f/2.0 @ 1/50s, handheld.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2.5, then edited in Nik Silver Efex Pro where I applied my own style preset I call "Antique Solarization II".

Fallen Tree #3

A fallen tree is mostly reclaimed by the landscape.  Only a section of trunk remains.  The warm print tone is very close to Afga Portriga Rapid.
Technical: Nikon D700, AF Nikkor 24-85mm f2.8-f4, ISO 200, 56mm @ f/8.0 @ 1/160s.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2.5, then edited in Nik Silver Efex Pro using the "Warm Tone" style and Ilford Pan F 50 film setting.

Wet Rocks Study #3, Forest Park

This is a "straight" version of an earlier post, Infrared Wet Rocks, Forest Park captured before switching to Infrared mode.  I'm not sure which version I prefer, but the experimentation is jolly good fun.
Technical: Nikon D100, Nikkor 24-85mm f2.8-f4, ISO 200, 60mm @ f/8.0 @ 1/1250s, tripod.  RAW file processed in Lightroom 2.5, then edited in Nik Silver Efex Pro using the "Architecure" style, adding Ilford Pan F 50 and coffee tones.