Keith Carter Technique

At first glance, Keith Carters images appear to be examples of depth

of field studies. However, upon closer examination, his selective

focus is placed precisely where he wants it and is either vertically

or horizontally placed.

 

He states that he uses a Hasselblad SLR. I would assume that this

excludes the Flexbody so tilt and swing is not being used to obtain

this selective dof (Focus).

 

Additionally, his images are silver darkroom prints and not

Photoshopped images. The two Hassy notches on the left side of his

images are in sharp focus so I assume that he is not doing the

selective focus in the darkroom by any easel or enlarger head swing

or tilt.

 

If he is truly using a Hassy SLR, does anyone have any idea how Keith

is obtaining such a look? I can easily accomplish this effect on my

6x9/4x5 view camera, but am baffled as to his technique on the

Hasselblad.

I have never seen his work before today, and just did a google search to find some images; so I am no expert!

 

My guess would be with filters, maybe with smudges of gel on glass. Isn't there a cokin variant that comes with a sheet of glass and tubes of various gels for selective blurring?

 

I agree they are intriguing images. Thanks for raising the name.

I know this has been discussed here before; he's using a Hasselblad (Flexbody I believe) which tilts the lens causing the focus to range from sharp to very soft. This is recorded on the film, therefore the edge of the film, notches, etc. are sharp. It is an "in camera" technique. He probably does a little manipulation when printing (dodge & burn), but the bulk of it was created when the shutter was released.

Here's a guy who's doing a similar thing, but better in my opinion:

 

http://marktucker.com

 

an explanation of his heavily home-modified Hasselblad:

 

http://marktucker.com/plungercam/index.html

Maybe, just maybe, Keith is not using a lens --in the traditional sense of how most

photographers define a camera lens -- on his camera? Have you thought of calling

him and asking him? He lives in Beaumont, Texas.

Keith Carter uses a Hasselblad Flexbody and 80mm lens. the Flexbody allows you to tilt the film magazine back, therefore creating a narrow region of focus. I have elaborated on this technique previously, so please check the archives. it will provide you with some interesting reading. Keith is a wonderfully accomplished printmaker and a very creative human being. check his website to see some of his newest work with photograms.<br><br>

<a href="http://www.keithcarterphotographs.com">Keith Carter Photographs</a>

Michael,

 

if you are still interested in this technique, email me, and I will put together some of the materials I have from Keith's workshop I attended in San Miguel de Allende and Herminia Dosal's sensitive Flexbody efforts.

As has been already pointed out, Keith Carter's selective focus images have been

produced in camera using a Hasselblad flexbody and are not done with filters or

Photoshop. Given the the two stage process of taking a photograph with a flexbody,

it is amazing that he has been able to produce some of his beautiful images of living

subjects. I am sure that Daniel can attest that Keith has super mastered the

technique to quickly execute the flexbody, yet I wonder how many of his shots are

staged ? Rumor has it he can even use the flexbody as a handheld camera ? When

you see his work in person, the other interesting thing is his selective toning of his

silver prints. I was tempted to recently buy one of his recent images two umbrellas,

as his pricing is still reasonable.

 

Some may say this selective focus thing is getting overdone. While Carter and Dosal

use the flexbody, there are few photographers that I have discovered that are doing

similar interesting selective focus with a view camera: Olivo Barbieri: search Barbieri

on: http://www.photoeye.com/indexbookstore.html and Claudio Edinger (Rio

portofolio: http://musariumgalleries.sitebuild21.com/rio/index.html .

 

I have played around with the idea of a flexbody, but I was inspired by Mark Tucker's

work and his plungercam and I subsequently built my own version of his lens by duct

taping a Rodenstock 6x6 loupe to a drilled out hasselblad body cap. The selective

focus that I can create with this lens is unfortunately not a precise as what you can

accomplish with a flexbody or view camera. Yet, my lens can use the incamera

metering of my 202FA and is handholdable for shoot and run selective focus effects:

<br><img src="/photodb/image-display?photo_id=1365818&size=md"

height=752 width=752 hspace=10>

I'd also like to suggest the works of Alexey Titarenko. both Keith and Alexey have portfolios in the photo-eye gallery.<br><br>

 

<a href="http://www.photoeye.com">photo-eye books & prints</a>

Nice work, Lawrence. I read recently of someone else who had duct-taped a

Rodenstock 6x6 loupe to some other component for the same purpose. I'm now

tempted to try it myself. Does the tape allow you to manipulate the 'focused' area? I'd

appreciate more information about how much of the lens cap you had to remove....

Did you just leave enough of it to maintain the security of the lens mount and give

you a surface for tape?

 

Also, (has this been mentioned?) a company called Zoerk makes an expensive lens

accessory that allows similar effects.

 

Thank you all.

Thanks Derek.

 

I think it was me that you recently read about duct taping a loupe lens, as you had

commented on my chateau versailles picture last month. However, Mark Tucker was

the one who invented the concept and design of his "plungercam": http://

marktucker.com/plungercam/index.html . In his history page he describes the first

version had the loupe duct taped to the camera and eventually he went to a rubber

funnel barrel. I believe Frank Ward who knew Mark also played around with this at

some point: http://www.amherst.edu/~fmward/plungercam.html .

 

Intrigued by Mark's images with the plungercam (check his Chicago/Atlanta pix), I

went and bought a Calumet (made by Rodenstock but cheaper: $129 USD) 6x6 3X

loupe. I had to break the plastic apron to get the loupe lens and barrel out of the

apron. I then shortened the plastic barrel attached to the loupe. For the body cap, I

completely drilled out my Hasselblad body cap right to the mounting flange using a

Dremel tool and sanded it smooth. Then using black opaque duct tape, I made a

funnel like barrel to attach the loupe (approx 2" diameter) and its metal/plastic barrel

to the body cap (approx 2.75" diameter). In version one, the barrel was about 1" from

the end of the body cap to the loupe lens. I doubled up the duct tape, so that no

sticky tape was exposed that could attract dust etc., except where I was fastening the

tape to the outside of the body cap and to the loupe on the other end. I used more

duct tape to secure the loupe in the duct tape barrel. To focus this sucker, you would

either push or pull the loupe lens in or out towards the film plane. Unfortuanately,

with this set up I could not focus easily on anything more than 10 or 15 ' without

having to push the loupe all the way in towards the mirror box of the camera. A

few times, the mirror would hit the lens on its way up, which made me

uncomfortable. On the advice of others on photo.net, I purchased an antique Zeiss

Distar 3 diverging push-on filter (51mm: $15 USD) which increased the effective focal

lens of the lens so I could now focus at infinity without pushing the loupe all the way

into the camera's mirror box. So, I duct taped the diverging lens on top of the barrel

containing the loupe. I also had to make the duct tape barrel longer (close to 2" long)

to adjust to the new focal length of the combined loupe and diverging lens. As well,

as advised by Mark I got a 55 to 62mm step up ring which I duct taped to the Distar

diverging filter so that I could use color filters or ND filters. As I like 400 film, the ND

filters are essential for taking outdoor pictures in bright light as the aperture is

probably around 2 on this thing. Usually I need 0.6 or 0.9 ND to take pictures in

bright light with 400 film. Now with this 2nd version, to focus I first push or pull the

loupe out so that it is focused on the area of interest. Then to adjust the degree of

selective focus, I can tilt the camera body (film plane) relative to the loupe (while

maintaining the position of the loupe manually), or I can tilt the loupe plane or raise

or lower the loupe relative to the body until I am happy with the positioning of the

area of focus and the degree of blur etc. Then, when you shoot you have to maintain

the positioning of the loupe to keep the area of interest in focus. Examples of it's use

are in my surrealBrussels folder.

 

The only thing is I learned on a trip to Brussels, that the duct taped lens can be a

problem at airport security and I was almost not allowed to board the plane with it

unless I was willing to unwrap the tape. Ironically, they told me I should have packed

the item in my checked baggage as it was suspicious ???? Now, I always pack it in my

checked bags.

 

Email if you have other questions.

Don't know if i'm ambitious enough to try that myself. Perhaps i'll just sit back and

admire the results of others....

 

Your comprehensive instructions, though, are very much appreciated.

folks,

 

best way to learn these techniques is to buy a view cam and begin composing on the ground glass as michael hinted. then introduce some radical moves and refocus. it's not as hard as you think, in truth, it's quiet a bit easier than the opposite(scheimpflug). 'selective focus' wreaks faddish to me and definitely smacks of assbackward logic considering the equipment used.

 

not inspired by sally mann,

 

me

<p>I'm guessing that no one on here has read Michael's question. He has already said that he assumes that it excludes the Flexbody, which everyone is referring to. He even said that he can easily achieve this with his 6x9/4x5 view camera. I have the same question as to how he did this with a Hasselblad SLR, Keith Carter mentions in a video of his that he had purposely broken lens made for him to achieve his center selective focus, specifically the images with the vignetting at the edges. My question is still what exactly did he do to the lens elements in order to achieve this. You can even see the lens on his video, it does not look like it belongs on a hasselblad, but instead a 35mm or another type of medium format camera.</p>