Author: johnmeadowsphotography

An amateur photographer in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Travel Textures

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I am continuing to work through the images I took in the British Virgin Islands, and while many of the photos are colour-centric (to be expected in a place where the ocean is a melange of breathtaking shades of blue), I do like the black and whites images I took. I’ve only had time to develop one roll so far, which contains images taken at “The Baths”, a famous beach on Virgin Gorda.

The Baths, Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands

Virgin Gorda is not only a place of amazing colours, it is also a place of  amazing textures and shapes, and I am looking forward to developing the other black and white rolls I shot during my week in paradise.

Bottling Joy

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Last night I got back from a week in the British Virgin Islands. A business meeting, but no shortage of fun, and time for photography! (Both film and digital). The image below is one of my favourites from the trip: a couple living and loving the moment. Just for a moment, I felt like I had bottled joy.

DSC_0468

A Room With a View (Camera)

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I’ll be off the grid for a week, but I did want to get one more post in. I recently purchased a used 4×5 view camera (a beat-up but functional Cambo SC), something I’ve wanted for a while. While I have had little to no time to use it due to family realities, I have so far had a chance to take the picture below. I used the paper negative technique; instead of conventional photographic film I use real photographic paper (darkroom, not inkjet). It is very slow speed (about E.I. 6) but since a view camera must be on a tripod, the fact that a 60 second exposure was required was no big deal. Once the negative is developed, I can either do a contact print to get a 4×5″ image, or just scan the negative and invert the image digitally. I am really looking forward to the challenge of learning to use my view camera, the ultimate in the totally manual photographic experience.

An Empty Chair

A Comment On Photography Books

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No picture today, just a bit of a rant about the state of Photography books and bookstores.

I will be out of the country next week, and I wanted to take along some reading. Since I got a view camera recently I thought I would pick up The Negative by Ansel Adams. This book is a classic of the genre, and I thought it would really help me learn what I need to know in order to make better pictures. While I could have ordered the book online, it would not have arrived on time to take with me. It was not available as an ebook. Note to Kindle et al: I won’t really take the concept of eBooks seriously until you expand your catalogs! It’s not as if you need to rent more warehouse space.

The only option I had was to go to a physical bookstore, so I went to downtown Toronto to a couple of the larger bookstores in the city. In the first store, it seemed that every photography book had the word digital in it, regardless of how digital-specific the content was or was not: Digital Lighting, Composition for Digital Photography, Shooting the Digital Nude. (That last one was a puzzler; maybe a proctology fetish book?). The store did not have what I was looking for, so off to the second bookstore.

I saw more of the same at the second store, but luckily they did have one forlorn, semi-hidden copy of The Negative, so I went ahead and bought it.

Except for niche, specialized, high-end or used bookstores, maybe this is one more reason the death knell is sounding for the typical physical book store; if you can’t compete on price, selection or experience, what is left?

 

Photographs and Memories

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As I write this, my father has passed away, and it is a time for reflection. Among the many debts of gratitude I owe my father, one I am thinking about this morning is how he instilled in me his love of photography.

In 1975 I bought a Brownie Hawkeye camera at a garage sale for $1.50. As a gift, he bought me rolls of film (the now discontinued 620 format) some flashbulbs (not cheap!! we have it easy in the strobe era) and processing. Some time later, he let me use his Voigtlander Vito B camera. This camera pictured below (not my father’s, just a representative sample) is a beautiful precision instrument.

Voigtlander Vito B 3

In 1977, when I was 15 he made it possible for me to buy my first SLR, my Yashica TL-Electro, which I still have. I used that camera for many. many years; the last roll of film I shot with my Yashica was of my eldest daughter, when she was born. Both cameras are “retired” but have places of honour in my collection of cameras.

The bulk of what I do know about photography was learned on these two cameras, so every time I snap a shutter in a sense I am paying tribute to my father.

Thanks Dad.

 

Votive Candles

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As a born-again agnostic, I feel a bit conflicted when making images with religious themes. I am still drawn to religious architecture and some liturgical music, but right now that’s as far as it goes. The image below is from the Dome cathedral in Cologne. I was drawn by the atmosphere, ritual and sense of history, but that’s about as far as it goes right now.

Lighting candles

Time-Warp Tuesday: By Any Other Name?

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Another deviation from the usual time-warp. This is a photo I made this past Saturday at a Toronto Photo meet-up at an Orchid show here in Toronto. I left the digital gear at home, and went strictly old-school. Mamiya medium format with Macro lens, Kodak Ektar 100, no lights, just a tripod. There’s just something about using film for flower macro work; organic materials for an organic subject perhaps?

orchids023

A Happy Accident

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In film photography, so many accidents can be fatal: the accidental exposure of film, “developing” your film in fixer first, even loading a roll of film backwards so that no exposures result :-(. Occasionally though, a technical issue can result in a good image. The image below is from a roll that I developed yesterday morning, and there was an issue with the fixer chemical, leaving a fog in some frames. When I scanned the negative, however, the fog in this image resulted in a blue tinge/haze over much of the frame. Even though it was a black and white image, I scan my negatives in colour, hence the blue.

Since the subject matter is ice, the blue really fits in well. I am going to have a go at refixing the negative (since it will just get worse) over time, but in the meantime, I am enjoying this happy accident.

 

Happy Accident

Time Warp Tuesday: The Dancers

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I am reinterpreting Time Warp Tuesday again, by not posting an old image, but rather trying to go for a timeless feel. This image was taken at the Ballet dress rehearsal I mentioned in my previous post. By using black and white analog film I feel I was able to capture the timeless nature of the ballet; an artistic discipline that on one had is very proscribed and restricted, but on the other still manages to allow talented dancers to create something special within its confines. A ballet could be a hundred years old, but I don’t think I could ever use the term “period piece” to describe it.

By not trying to be “the new thing” art can liberate itself from the timeline.

Dancers

A Clunk In a Forest of Clicks

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This past Wednesday I (and about 50 other photographers) attended the dress rehearsal of a ballet in Markham (Actual ballet pictures will follow, once we get through a rather Byzantine approvals process). Most people in the room were shooting digital only, although I was shooting both film and digital. There was one other person there though shooting film, using an absolutely gorgeous Hasselblad 500C medium format camera.

At the Photo Shoot

As the ballet took place, the room was alive with the sounds of shutters clicking, including the sound of one shooter who felt he or she needed to shoot 8 frames per second to capture a dancer spinning. But every now and then, out of the din of digital shutters, CLUNK. It was the sound of the Hasselblad shooter firing her shutter.

It was a beautiful, authoritative, absolutely analog sound, and it was interesting to see other photographers turn their heads at the unfamiliar sound. Without trying to wax too poetical, the sound of the Hasselblad shutter firing expressed the soul of photography, more than the tinny little click of a DSLR shutter ever could.