This has to be my favourite portrait I’ve taken so far this year, and it’s all because of her eyes and how they tell a story (“she is looking at something”) and yet preserve a mystery (“but what is she looking at?”). Kudos to model Emily for gifting me with such an expression!!
In an age where (thanks to the Internet), graphically explicit pornography is just a mouse-click away, it is easy for the allure of the hidden to be forgotten.
(Mamiya 645 Pro-TL, 80mm f2.8 lens, Fomapan 100 developed in HC-110 dilution H, post-processed with Nik Efex)
On my list of cameras I’ve always wanted, a vintage Contax rangefinder has been near the top. The post-war Contax rangefinders (IIa and IIIa models) are wonderful precision mechanisms, and I was lucky sometime ago to acquire a IIIa body at a reasonable price, but I still needed a lens. I had good luck with the Russian Jupiter 8 on my Leica IIIb, so I rolled the dice again and go the same lens in the Contax mount, very inexpensively. I just got the first roll developed, and I am again very happy with the sharpness of this lens!
One of my favourite photographers of the twentieth century is Man Ray, a surrealist famous for (among other things) his photographs of nudes using the technique of solarization. I remember as a teenager in the 1970’s that this effect was very popular, almost to the point of overuse (sort of like HDR images today!). I think any effect is OK, as long as it serves the intent of the image, and in this case I like how it turned out. I had mentioned to the model that I liked Man Ray, and so I thought why not do a solarized image (although in this case the effect was applied digitally over a scanned film negative). This one’s for you, Man Ray.
This is my first crack at hand tinting a photograph, using special transparent oil paints made for the purpose. I made a conventional black and white print on matte paper in the darkroom, then applied the oils. This process was popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, before colour photography was widespread and practical. It’s amazing that the materials are still available. What I like about hand tinting (in addition to the look) is that each print is unique, like a painting. I gave the original to the model Emily today, so all I have left is the scan. I can (and likely will) make another, but it won’t be the same, and I like that.
Today’s image was taken recently with my Leica IIIb and Voigtlander 21mm Super-Wide angle lens. Although this kind of lens does not distort an image the way a “fish-eye” lens does, depending on the angle you can still get plenty of distortion. In the image below though this is accentuated by the building itself, Toronto’s Bata Shoe Museum. (A very interesting place, well worth the visit by the way.) Its walls have a number of interesting and unusual angles, and in this image it is tricky to tell where the building ends and the lens distortion begins.
A five minute walk from our house is a perfectly ordinary convenience store, but on an outside side wall is some plaster, wires and plastic pipes that seems to turn into poles suspended in a sky, clear with one cloud. No post production trickery, just light.
I’ve been asked recently why I like ambiguity and subtle facial expressions in my portraits, and the reason is simple: we live in a very black/white culture, prone to snap judgments and instant categorizations (good guys/bad guys, cool/uncool, attractive/unattractive, etc.). We are encouraged to make decisions and interpretations of people, situations and issues based on shallow criteria, anything to keep people from actually thinking for themselves.
Ambiguity and subtlety force people to slow down and consider more than one possibility, and this will always be a goal of mine.
(Mamiya 645 Pro TL, 80mm f2.8 lens, Delta 400 film developed in HC-110 Dilution B)
Something I’ve wanted to do for a few months now is to combine photographs and music in a slideshow. The photographs are my favourites of female models, taken in 2011. It was an amazing year, tackling this kind of photography for the first time!
I took this shot using my Leica IIIb and 50mm Leica Summitar lens. I had stopped into Broadview Expresso, a non-chain coffee shop on Broadview Avenue, not far north of the subway station bearing the same name. I had come in for a coffee, and when I asked if the seat next to his was taken he said go ahead, and started to engage me in conversation. We chatted for a while, and then when I was leaving I decided to ask if I could take his picture (and asking people I don’t know if I can take their pictures is something I rarely do, and definitely need to do more of!). I’m quite happy with how it turned out.
My Third Eye 