In this video the photographer Jimmy Nelson describes how he uses a 4 x 5 film camera to capture vanishing peoples in remote parts of the world. His description of "less is more" when using the camera, which forces him to be very focussed on what he is photographing is part of why I am drawn to go back to using film to make pictures.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
Friday, January 3, 2014
The shock of the old new
Over the last couple of weeks I have had a chance to revisit some old friends. These friends are my own pictures... images taken on film in the 70's and 80's on 35mm, 120 and 4 x 5 film. I have been meaning to catalog my film negs for some time now by photographing them in their polyethylene negative sleeves with a digital camera and then processing them to give me digital contact sheets. The process works really well, with a Nikon D800 giving me more than enough resolution to be able to preview the images larger than was possible in the past using a loupe pressed against a printed contact sheet. I have approximately 1500 contact sheets which were taken over a 10 year period and the more I looked at them, the more I could not look away.
This is a history of my picture making life, beginning in 1975 when I bought my first Pentax Spotmatic and began taking pictures. Yes, among the negatives are images from 1975, such a long time ago, and now they have come back to life, in ways I could never have imagined. The ability to look at these images greatly enlarged on a computer monitor has made them much more real and accessible than they ever were before. In a sense I am seeing the work for the first time, after so many years. With time, distance and the perspective that experience brings, I can certainly see my own work differently and I am pleasantly surprised.
Taking the process a step further, I began scanning some of these negatives with an Epson V600 flatbed scanner and was amazed at the detail I could extract from the negs. With this encouragement, I found other medium and large format negatives that I was able to resurrect, digitally process in Photoshop and print to a quality level that is very comparable to the silver gelatin prints I made back when that was the only option. Never content... it felt as though the negatives should be yielding more detail than I was getting. After doing so research on the net, I found that photographing the negatives with a macro lens on a DSLR was better than the scanner. Since I have the D800, I thought why not.
With a very meager and let's say a flimsy set up, I have been able to extract detail from my medium and large format negatives that are very impressive. Using a 105mm macro and the D800 I am able to photograph the negs at 1:1 magnification and with the resolution of the D800 capture the film grain with no problem. (I still need to do a comparison test with an Imacon film scanner). I am very pleased with the quality of this process.
However this is not the real story.
As I began to work with the negatives and to look back at almost 40 years of picture making, some ideas have dawned on me that are both very comforting, but also very disturbing.
A bit of background... back in the day when I was taking pictures with film, I was fairly meticulous about storing the negs in archival sleeves and keeping them in binders according to year. I accumulated a couple of cardboard bankers boxes of binders which over the next decades I hauled around from place to place as I moved, not really paying much attention to them except that I knew where they were and with no intention of ever letting them go. I last had a darkroom in 1990 and have not really looked at these negatives until now.
As I hold these images frozen in silver in my hands, as I am able to see and touch the film acetate and see the negative image there, I cannot help but wonder... if in this age of "digital" image making, my digital images would have survived intact, with no alteration or attention (indeed, neglect), for over 20 years as these film negatives have. The disturbing thought is that they likely would not without some regular intervention on my part to copy the digital data from format to format (i.e floppy disks, syquest cartridges, Zip disks, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray to multiple hard drives, not to mention keeping up with the computer operating systems). The comfort to me is that the film negatives are still here, as rich and vibrant as ever… and now able to be interpreted through digital means. Then there is the nostalgia, and since I am now over 60… I will allow myself that indulgence. As I look at the film negatives again I remember what it was like to take pictures with a 4 x 5 Nagoaka folding rosewood camera, in itself a work of art. Making pictures this way was a ritual, a contemplative, meditative ritual that fed my soul as I made them. Because of the process of using a 4 x5 camera, you do not take pictures lightly as it is a deliberate act just to set up the camera. And yet… and yet…. this is part of the magic and the wonder that is recording light. I suspect now that I may have lost my way and become somewhat enticed by the technology of digital at the expense of craft and seeing. In some ways digital feels like fast food, but I do realize that it is just a tool and the image is all that matters, no matter how it is made. However there is something to be said for "less is more", for a more deliberate and thoughtful approach that requires a greater sense of awareness. In many ways that is also what I miss, not just the tangible physical aspect of a film negative but the whole process. I now have a sense that I want to go back… not completely as digital is also in my blood, but I do want to slow down and see again through a 4 x 5 ground glass to compose the image, slide the film holder in, remove the dark slide and take a few minutes to meter the contrast ratio of the scene to decide on the proper exposure, and then with cable release in my hand... trip the shutter. I’d like my camera to be handcrafted in wood, as simple as simple can be, a dark box with a lens at one end and fresh film at the other.
Digital image making is indeed incredible, but it is so ephemeral, so transient that at times I wonder if it is real at all. Do not think that I am abandoning digital, far from it, I will use both and indeed there are aspects of image making that are truly just not possible with film, and as an expert with digital imaging tools I do know this to be true. However, I feel the call back to film and will heed that call.
This is a history of my picture making life, beginning in 1975 when I bought my first Pentax Spotmatic and began taking pictures. Yes, among the negatives are images from 1975, such a long time ago, and now they have come back to life, in ways I could never have imagined. The ability to look at these images greatly enlarged on a computer monitor has made them much more real and accessible than they ever were before. In a sense I am seeing the work for the first time, after so many years. With time, distance and the perspective that experience brings, I can certainly see my own work differently and I am pleasantly surprised.
Taking the process a step further, I began scanning some of these negatives with an Epson V600 flatbed scanner and was amazed at the detail I could extract from the negs. With this encouragement, I found other medium and large format negatives that I was able to resurrect, digitally process in Photoshop and print to a quality level that is very comparable to the silver gelatin prints I made back when that was the only option. Never content... it felt as though the negatives should be yielding more detail than I was getting. After doing so research on the net, I found that photographing the negatives with a macro lens on a DSLR was better than the scanner. Since I have the D800, I thought why not.
With a very meager and let's say a flimsy set up, I have been able to extract detail from my medium and large format negatives that are very impressive. Using a 105mm macro and the D800 I am able to photograph the negs at 1:1 magnification and with the resolution of the D800 capture the film grain with no problem. (I still need to do a comparison test with an Imacon film scanner). I am very pleased with the quality of this process.
However this is not the real story.
As I began to work with the negatives and to look back at almost 40 years of picture making, some ideas have dawned on me that are both very comforting, but also very disturbing.
A bit of background... back in the day when I was taking pictures with film, I was fairly meticulous about storing the negs in archival sleeves and keeping them in binders according to year. I accumulated a couple of cardboard bankers boxes of binders which over the next decades I hauled around from place to place as I moved, not really paying much attention to them except that I knew where they were and with no intention of ever letting them go. I last had a darkroom in 1990 and have not really looked at these negatives until now.
As I hold these images frozen in silver in my hands, as I am able to see and touch the film acetate and see the negative image there, I cannot help but wonder... if in this age of "digital" image making, my digital images would have survived intact, with no alteration or attention (indeed, neglect), for over 20 years as these film negatives have. The disturbing thought is that they likely would not without some regular intervention on my part to copy the digital data from format to format (i.e floppy disks, syquest cartridges, Zip disks, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray to multiple hard drives, not to mention keeping up with the computer operating systems). The comfort to me is that the film negatives are still here, as rich and vibrant as ever… and now able to be interpreted through digital means. Then there is the nostalgia, and since I am now over 60… I will allow myself that indulgence. As I look at the film negatives again I remember what it was like to take pictures with a 4 x 5 Nagoaka folding rosewood camera, in itself a work of art. Making pictures this way was a ritual, a contemplative, meditative ritual that fed my soul as I made them. Because of the process of using a 4 x5 camera, you do not take pictures lightly as it is a deliberate act just to set up the camera. And yet… and yet…. this is part of the magic and the wonder that is recording light. I suspect now that I may have lost my way and become somewhat enticed by the technology of digital at the expense of craft and seeing. In some ways digital feels like fast food, but I do realize that it is just a tool and the image is all that matters, no matter how it is made. However there is something to be said for "less is more", for a more deliberate and thoughtful approach that requires a greater sense of awareness. In many ways that is also what I miss, not just the tangible physical aspect of a film negative but the whole process. I now have a sense that I want to go back… not completely as digital is also in my blood, but I do want to slow down and see again through a 4 x 5 ground glass to compose the image, slide the film holder in, remove the dark slide and take a few minutes to meter the contrast ratio of the scene to decide on the proper exposure, and then with cable release in my hand... trip the shutter. I’d like my camera to be handcrafted in wood, as simple as simple can be, a dark box with a lens at one end and fresh film at the other.
Digital image making is indeed incredible, but it is so ephemeral, so transient that at times I wonder if it is real at all. Do not think that I am abandoning digital, far from it, I will use both and indeed there are aspects of image making that are truly just not possible with film, and as an expert with digital imaging tools I do know this to be true. However, I feel the call back to film and will heed that call.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
2014 - Old Dog, New Tricks
No I didn't blog much in 2013. Not sure why, too busy I guess.
2013 was productive. Exhibited 3 times, put work up on walls, sold some, felt good.
Image making is not complete unless you put it up... as prints... the screen doesn't count in my book.
On to 2014, a new year... and a paradigm shift... this one is profound.
It began however in 2013 as my partner Luci and I have been invited to participate in a gallery show featuring artist couples (In Tandem). The curator of the show would like my work to be "large format", i.e large prints, which I know in the gallery world means VERY large. The idea of having to produce work that large is somewhat intimidating, however I thought I should spent some time pursuing this notion with my current tools, which include a flat bed scanner able to scan film negatives. My thought was that I should scan some old (30+ years) negatives with the scanner to see what I could produce. In the 80's I photographed using medium and large format cameras and so I thought this would be a good time to catalog my negs by creating digital contact sheets and also by scanning some negs with the flatbed (Epson V600).
So I began by photographing my negs on a light pad with a Nikon D800 DSLR and reversing tonal values in Lightroom (colour and black & white). So far so good, went as planned and 1500+ contact sheets later I was ready to take a stab at scanning some negs on the Epson. The Epson scanner can scan up to 6400 dpi which is pretty decent.
I came across some online articles that suggested that using a DSLR camera instead of a flatbed scanner would yield better results. Ok, that sounds interesting, so since I have a 105mm Nikon macro lens that will go to 1:1, I thought I would give that a try.
WOW!!!!! Was I amazed at the difference in quality between the flatbed and the DSLR/macro lens solution. The DSLR/macro lens just blows away the flatbed scanner.
Here are some comparison images.
This first image is a detail from the flatbed scanner at 6400 dpi which is the maximum resolution of the Epson V600 scanner.
As you can see, the Epson flatbed scan is at a higher resolution than the D800/Macro lens image, however there is just over a 1% difference in the scale difference between these images. I estimate that the resolution of the D800/Macro lens images are around 5000 ppi as opposed to the 6400 dpi resolution of the flatbed scans.
The difference in quality is remarkable, with the D800/macro lens images so much more detailed than the flatbed scanner.
To give you some idea of the scale involved, here is an image of the full 4x5 negative, with the area of the above detail outlined in red. As you can see, this area is very very small, and the D800/macro image clearly resolves the grain of the 4 x 5 negative.
The D800/macro lens negative scan is made up of 30 images stitched together in Photoshop. This is time consuming and meticulous, but given the results, well worth the effort.
Output on these files is truly impressive. The Epson 6400 dpi scan will yield a 300 dpi print at 104 inches wide, but certainly with soft resolution of details.
The D800/macro lens scan at 300 dpi will yield a print which is 80 inches wide at 300 dpi but certainly with far higher detail.
I have made 13 x 19 and 17 x 22 prints from these files and they are truly stunning.
I have a large collection of negatives both in colour and black and white from the 80s which I am re-processing via digital means and in ways I could never have dreamed of at the time these images were taken. As much as this can be seen as a cliché, I am seeing my own work all over again and in the process appreciating it as I never have before.
Seeing what is possible with large format films and scanning, I am seriously considering getting back to making images using large format film.
Seeing my old work again after decades is like reuniting with old friends. Not to discount the current and present ones, but to remember the past with the exciting potential that our current tools can provide in ways we never thought possible in the past.
Old dog... new tricks.
2013 was productive. Exhibited 3 times, put work up on walls, sold some, felt good.
Image making is not complete unless you put it up... as prints... the screen doesn't count in my book.
On to 2014, a new year... and a paradigm shift... this one is profound.
It began however in 2013 as my partner Luci and I have been invited to participate in a gallery show featuring artist couples (In Tandem). The curator of the show would like my work to be "large format", i.e large prints, which I know in the gallery world means VERY large. The idea of having to produce work that large is somewhat intimidating, however I thought I should spent some time pursuing this notion with my current tools, which include a flat bed scanner able to scan film negatives. My thought was that I should scan some old (30+ years) negatives with the scanner to see what I could produce. In the 80's I photographed using medium and large format cameras and so I thought this would be a good time to catalog my negs by creating digital contact sheets and also by scanning some negs with the flatbed (Epson V600).
So I began by photographing my negs on a light pad with a Nikon D800 DSLR and reversing tonal values in Lightroom (colour and black & white). So far so good, went as planned and 1500+ contact sheets later I was ready to take a stab at scanning some negs on the Epson. The Epson scanner can scan up to 6400 dpi which is pretty decent.
I came across some online articles that suggested that using a DSLR camera instead of a flatbed scanner would yield better results. Ok, that sounds interesting, so since I have a 105mm Nikon macro lens that will go to 1:1, I thought I would give that a try.
WOW!!!!! Was I amazed at the difference in quality between the flatbed and the DSLR/macro lens solution. The DSLR/macro lens just blows away the flatbed scanner.
Here are some comparison images.
The difference in quality is remarkable, with the D800/macro lens images so much more detailed than the flatbed scanner.
To give you some idea of the scale involved, here is an image of the full 4x5 negative, with the area of the above detail outlined in red. As you can see, this area is very very small, and the D800/macro image clearly resolves the grain of the 4 x 5 negative.
The D800/macro lens negative scan is made up of 30 images stitched together in Photoshop. This is time consuming and meticulous, but given the results, well worth the effort.
Output on these files is truly impressive. The Epson 6400 dpi scan will yield a 300 dpi print at 104 inches wide, but certainly with soft resolution of details.
The D800/macro lens scan at 300 dpi will yield a print which is 80 inches wide at 300 dpi but certainly with far higher detail.
I have made 13 x 19 and 17 x 22 prints from these files and they are truly stunning.
I have a large collection of negatives both in colour and black and white from the 80s which I am re-processing via digital means and in ways I could never have dreamed of at the time these images were taken. As much as this can be seen as a cliché, I am seeing my own work all over again and in the process appreciating it as I never have before.
Seeing what is possible with large format films and scanning, I am seriously considering getting back to making images using large format film.
Seeing my old work again after decades is like reuniting with old friends. Not to discount the current and present ones, but to remember the past with the exciting potential that our current tools can provide in ways we never thought possible in the past.
Old dog... new tricks.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Future of Image Making?
Watch this video (many thanks to Peter Stranks for sharing)
Stills pulled from 4K video footage. Finding the perfect moment. But when does the "decisive moment happen?" In post? In the future will we be shooting video and pulling stills?
Consider where we have come in digital photography over the last 10 years and where we will be 10 years from now.
Micro Expressions: exploring motion image photography from untitled film works on Vimeo.
Stills pulled from 4K video footage. Finding the perfect moment. But when does the "decisive moment happen?" In post? In the future will we be shooting video and pulling stills?
Consider where we have come in digital photography over the last 10 years and where we will be 10 years from now.
Micro Expressions: exploring motion image photography from untitled film works on Vimeo.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Interactive gigapixel image of Everest
This is a great interactive image of Everest and area. The two billion pixel image, which you can view and interact with by panning and zooming here,
is comprised of nearly 400 separate shots taken with a 300mm lens. The
panoramic photo was captured from the Pumori viewpoint near Mount
Everest, and as well as examining the dramatic Khumbu Icefall in the
center of the frame, you can zoom in and see people roaming around the
Everest Base Camp below.
link to image>https://s3.amazonaws.com/Gigapans/EBC_Pumori_050112_8bit_FLAT/EBC_Pumori_050112_8bit_FLAT.html
source: http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2012/12/19/incredible-interactive-gigapixel-photo-of-mount-everest-makes-you-feel-like
link to image>https://s3.amazonaws.com/Gigapans/EBC_Pumori_050112_8bit_FLAT/EBC_Pumori_050112_8bit_FLAT.html
source: http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2012/12/19/incredible-interactive-gigapixel-photo-of-mount-everest-makes-you-feel-like
Monday, December 17, 2012
24x360 degree bullet time light painting by Patrick Rochon
24x360 from Timecode Lab on Vimeo.
24x360 is a purely artistic and experimental project using lightp painting and Timecode 360 with 24 cameras.
The project was born after a very intense year mounting ans unmounting our rig in various live events.
We then finally sat down at our Montreal studios to create inspiring 360 degree bullet time light painting. link to stills series >>>http://www.iso1200.com/2012/12/24x360-degree-bullet-time-light.html
ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHER: Patrick Rochon is an award-winning Light Painting photographer with over 19 years of experience. First prize winner at the Nikon photo contest in Japan, Patrick has done Light Painting photography for various fashion and rock magazines, CD jackets, DVDs, posters, internet and other promotion materials. Clients also include Toyota and Honda. Born in Montreal, Canada, Patrick has lived mainly in Tokyo, New York and Paris for 15 years.
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