Author: johnmeadowsphotography

An amateur photographer in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Young and Old

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Here is the second image I am posting that I created using my 4×5 Cambo SC view camera; it is a portrait of my older daughter Julia. What I enjoyed about creating this portrait was the low tech approach I used. The lens used was an old brass lens, a Busch “Rapid Symmetrical” that is at least a hundred years old. The lens board (used to attach the lens to the camera), was homemade, using two pieces of mat board, glued together. As for the exposure, since the lens has no shutter, I made the exposure (about 1.5 seconds, using a paper negative) by simply covering/uncovering the front of the lens with my hand. About as far from modern technology as one can get!

Daughter Julia

Cloud and Texture

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This image was created on the only cloudy day we experienced on VIrgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. On a island known for sandy beaches and sun, I found this rocky beach fascinating. Much of the smaller rocks are actually old weathered pieces of coral that have washed onshore, along with small shells or broken bits of larger shells. Amazing textures, that demanded to be captured in black and white, so out came the medium format Mamiya, loaded with Tri-X.

A Rocky Beach On Virgin Gorda

From a Distance

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This image was made with my Nikon D90, and processed using the just released Nik Software Silver Efex Pro 2. We were all on the ferry boat from St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands to Virgin Gorda in the British Islands when I noticed this building on an island, quite some distance away. Luckily, as we left port we got close enough for me to take some images. Even though the original capture was a colour digital image, from the beginning I knew I needed a vintage black and white treatment, so Silver Efex to the rescue:

Entropy

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