ORIGINALLY POSTED: 10 Apr 2008
**
It took a while to get these done... and upon receiving them, they said their scanner was down after my rolls.
I guess my scans killed it or something...
But they really were sincerely apologetic about it and didn't charge me for the scans... See? Good people!
So, in an effort to see them, I worked on a few and so...
...many apologies for the quality of some of the scans - you'll notice the contrast is quite a bit off... and the lab apologized as well... in Greek. If you didn't know, my lab is on Akadimias St. in Athens, Greece.
But, at least its something to look at - it is still like Christmas every time either way!
And it reminds me every time of the joys of film. It is like reliving moments long past...
...some people live in the letters of their friends and family. I live in the photos I take and find a long time later.
Why a cat? Because this cat is no longer with us. It is fascinating to see the rugs there behind her and sit in this same room on the same rugs - minus the cat. See? A moment that shall never again be relived...
Writing can't do that...not to my mind, it can't. Writing can explain it and writing can make an effort, but humans possess eyes and to understand something fully, we must see it to completely comprehend it.
To truly experience a place or a time or event, a human being must have seen and smelt and felt and tasted that event. Right? Well, since we can't smell the event - which scientists say is the closest sense tied to memory... and we can't physically feel the event - because not everybody can actually be there... how else can we do it?
Can you write ALL of an event? All the tiny nuances of a place... the things in the background, the shirts people were wearing, the scenes at the heights of emotion?
What can you write about the peacefulness of reading a good book at a coffee shop?
Past the obvious, you can fill the page for hours - but in the 1/125th of a second that captured this frame, it says all that needs to be said.
So, I take photos. The writing that goes with this frame doesn't have to describe the scene... it can describe the following conversation about the book or Sarabeth's mindset while (or after) reading it. I can take a photo and let it speak for the scene... I can concentrate on the human aspect of it.
That's why I really loathe sunsets and touchy-feely nature scenes that anyone with a digicam and Photoshop can fabricate by over-saturating the heck out of it.
Gag me... with half the cheesy sunset photos on desktop backgrounds around the world being nowhere close to the real thing. This may be a spoiler to all you sunset-loving people out there, but you can almost do that with any slight amount of color in any sky anywhere - usually purple water gives it away...
But this isn't a rage-on-sunset photography blog. It is just to say - a sunset goes as far as the photography... and no further. I love photographs that either tell a story or have a story behind them.
A day of boredom while we were all snowed in. Remember the snow day last month?
Yep, some of these photos go back pretty far. Even more fun to see...
...because seeing these images make me remember taking them. I had forgotten about them for so long!
Snow dog...
...difficult exposure for some Fuji film. Especially on an M4-P with no meter...
...my meter is my brain... meter for the light side of the dog. Oh well... close enough...
Real life is full of tough lighting conditions. The light here was coming from below where the woman is looking... Probably 1/60 @ f/2.8 or so... maybe?
The VC 50/1.5 Nokton has a beautiful side. f/1.5 is a bit difficult to focus because it can be excessively narrow, but wide open next to a window in broad daylight?
It was a shot... maybe it sucks... I kinda liked it though...
And at the same coffee shop, Ben contemplates his place in the world...
...so contrasty. But it works. It tells the story. This is how I saw it. From my seat against the wall in a dark coffee shop in a small town in southern Greece...
I remember this day, someone asked me after I took that picture, "Can I see it?" I handed the camera to them. They looked at the back...
Its almost funny to see their reaction.
Film photography is quickly becoming a lost art and that is a sad thing. When cameras without batteries sit on shelves and people look at them in museums like the Stradivarius violin I saw in the Academia in Florence, Italy - to me it looked like a caged animal.
Fine pieces of equipment that are built by hand like Stradivarius violins and Leica cameras and even classic Ferrari's - they are all meant to be used. If you were to apply an emotion to cameras or violins or cars that are not used, I think they would be closest to the lions in the concrete prison cells at the zoo...
If that Stradivarius violin was taken out and used now, it would sound like hot death because it hasn't been played in 50 years. It is always nice to see the Ferrari with 200,000 miles on it - as rare as THOSE are - because I know the person who drove those 200,000 miles knows how to drive a Ferrari. The Leica camera - all brassed and scratched - that has had multiple shutters in its lifetime... the owner of that camera knows how to use a camera.
"I wish I could play an instrument that well," as they hear a beautiful piano piece come over the speakers.
"You can," I say, "you just have to play the piano as much as they have."
It blows people away when they look at the camera and realize it has no blinking lights, no meter, no battery... and I'm not sure why. Part of it may be the fact that a Leica M4-P is older than any of them and it still works like a perfect watch.
But often they say, "I wish I knew what to do with a camera like that."
Well, stop saying that and go do it!
It is exactly the same as playing a piano well: go do it. Go do it a LOT. And after you've done it a whole lot, go do it twice that more.
I don't think I've taken half the amount of photos on film I wish I would have while I've been here.
But I love doing it. It is my release from the world and it is a stronger connection to the world at the same time.
I usually love contrast... but not too much...
Contrast between light and dark...
Contrast between emptiness and crowds...
Contrast between going with the flow and swimming against the current...
Wait for it.
Wait for it.
There it is...
During a sidewalk political rally for a few politicians, I got in the middle of it.
Oops...
So, get out there and take photos, my friends.
Make mistakes. See what works. See what doesn't.
That is the best way of learning anything anyway.
See some of you guys soon. I'm all done with classes and finals and everything else. I'm not sure if I'll have time on the 16th to post up photos from this coming weekend, but I'll be in the Greek Islands for a few days. After that I'll be in the rest of Europe for a few weeks.
Hmm... makes me remember I've gotta charge the ol' batteries tonight.
Stay tuned.
~Noah D
No comments:
Post a Comment