Three Halloween shots with a 1926 Zeiss Maximar

I think this kid is adorable. Hope you like these.<div></div>

Two<div></div>

Three<div></div>

I think the kid's adorable too... Are you making these plates yourself`Show us the cool camera!!

HI Chuck, Yea and I'm getting pretty sloppy lately. There is a lot of dirt and the last one has a big finger print in

the emulsion at the top. Oh well. Here is the cool camera and the 11x14 prints.<div></div>

Not bad at all for an old plate camera. I give you a lot of credit for making up the plates. I don't know that much about it. Now, for my critique. I think #2 would have been better if you had included both scarecrows like you did in #3. Just my opinion. Oh yeah, I agree, adorable kid. Thanks, Cliff.

Well Stuart, this is the neighbors kid and I was invited over today, to her halloween/birthday party to take pictures. I was lucky to get these, dealing with a two year old model that started screaming the instant her dad put her on the hay bale. The shot where she is looking up, is when I got her to stop screaming by pointing up and saying what's that. she shut up for a minute and looked up. The last one looks like she is playing with the pumpkin, but was really climbing down to get the heck out of there. Kids are tough customers and when you are dealing with a ground glass and changing plate hoilders every shot, sometimes you are lucky to get anything ...She is adorable when she is not screaming though.

You did an excellent job considering you had an unwilling model! I've always thought that all children are adorable........especially when they belong to someone else! Perhaps you could go into detail sometime about what is involved in making up the plates, transporting them, etc. Are the plate holders similar to film holders for LF?

I agree they are cute when they belong to someone else. I guess I'm getting old, my tolerance level is getting thin. They are just like little kittens, very cute to photograph, except when they decide your house is their romper-room and start climbing the curtains and scratching everything in sight. Not to mention taking a stinking dump somewhere you can't find, but sure can smell.

 

I really felt like Rodney Dangerfield in that beginning clip of Easy Money , where he had a Speed Graphic at a kids birthday party. Anybody remember that?

 

I think I have gone into the holders in detail and have posted pictures of them before. The are similar to film holders and they have springs that hold the plate to the surface. There are many places on the net to learn to make plates, so I won't go into that again. After you play with them a while you will likely come up with your own formulas that you like. I call mine, my Calgon formulas, "Ancient Chinese Secret". By the way, I have a yellow filter and a Halo diffusion filter on the front of the camera for these shots.

Awesome shots Cliff. I am glad I am not alone using these plate cameras; however you do it the right original way; I cheat - by using the roll film holders made for them. I try to use them quite often, especially if I am concentrating on landscape. I used a Goerz Tenax 9x12 with a doppel anastigmat three or four weeks ago and the results were quite good. My regulars are the Voigtlander Avus and Vag in both 9x12 and 6.5x9 format though.

Once again, well done with the portraits above and thanks for posting.

Hi Ralf,

 

You have seen many of my posts and know I don't use plates very often. It's a lot of trouble so I usually use sheet film. When you make up some plates they don't last too long, so you need to use them up fairly quickly, so when I post plates I will have some plate shots for a while then no more till I get a wild hair again. I also have roll film backs for my two small 6 1/2 x 9 Maximars, but don't use them except when I have the two cameras mounted on the stereo bar, and am walking around some event taking stereo shots. Most of my roll film goes in the folders that I have posted.

Very nice timeless quality about these, great to see the old Maximar put to good use.

 

Tony

Hi Cliff,

 

I can image the difficult to use such a camera with such a model. I had some old experiences taking pictures of children lying on the floor, to take them to the same level and I think I’m able to say that them where the hardest shots I ever did. Those adorable dwarf devils :-)

 

Great pictures, as usual.

 

The lens is a Tessar or a Preminar?

Thanks Tony, I might try some of the old car shows, a parked car dosen't move so fast.

 

Thanks Luis, The lens is a Dominar. You are right about shooting kids. I had the tripod set down to about 2 feet and I was on my knees hunched over to get my loupe on the GG. Life gets hard when you get old. you don't bend well and can't see anymore. Then it is hard to even think about what you are doing when everyone behind you is asking questions about the old camera, the kid is screaming to get down, and you still need to get a light reading, focus, change the GG to a plate holder, set the aperture, pull the slide, look back up and ... wait a minute where did that kid go?

I don't know anything about making pictures from a plate camera, but these are great, and have a classic timeless look about them, especially #1and #3.

Very cool timeless shots Cliff. I'm impressed you were able to wrangle 2 year old toddler and 90 year old camera and make

your own glass plates! #3 is timeless. Love the depth of field that 11x14 gives, really looks like something from 1890!

This lens really has a great glow to it. Outstanding portraits that are sure to be family momentos for some time to come!

That lens has a great way of imaging. Thanks for posting the pics.

 

Any chance of getting to meet the gal in the background? According to my ex wife she sounds perfect for me.

Thanks Craig, Russ, and Patrick.

Steve, I don't think you want her, I think she "Stuffs" her bra !!

Wow, I posted #3 in the photo critique and only 17 people even looked at it. And only one rating given as a 4. I guess I should get a point and shoot and go out and rip off a memory card full of snapshots that everyone would like. I guess pretty abstract colors are more pleasing to the modern senses.

 

Very few have an appreciation of what goes into a photograph like this. I think this is the only forum that people have actually tried out some of these things and know what is involved. The real difficulties that the photographers of the past had to deal with. I don't think that many even know anymore how long it takes to make a print, with all the washing and toning then rinsing again, a half hour here, and hour there, etc.

 

I guess its' time to scrap all of this stuff and stick to cameras with a USB port.

I think Ansel Adams would be hard pressed to get a 3 on this photo critique forum, what do you think?

To be quite honest Cliff, I don't even bother looking at the pictures on PDN, way too much photoshopping for my taste, it's really just photo-illustration.

 

I know, I know, I'm just an old fart who is out of touch, but I know what I like... and that's real photography like your images.

 

Keep shooting with the old ones if that's what you enjoy, doesn't really matter a jot what others think!

 

Tony

Incredible that these images came from home made glass plates.

Hi Cliff,

 

Agreed on Ansel Adams, especially if he posted his early impressionistic work here. Easy to imagine the negative comments...

 

I dunno whether to be more amazed at the great images of a precocious child, or that you made the glass plates yourself. Either achievement is stunning. To manage both - wow! No sarcasm intended, but I'm as impressed by what you've done as I am by a guy making his own bow and arrows from trees and flint, and bagging a deer with it.

 

I wouldn't worry much about nobody critiquing these images. To those of us in the know, they stand on their own merits. I think regardless of how they were made, they're gorgeous.

 

And 30 years from now, when that little girl is all grown up and a mom herself, and her young family is looking at these pics, I'm guessing she'll say "All I can tell you is it was a very old camera, a neighbor man came over, and that's all I know. But for some reason, these pictures he took just really grab me - they remind me of my great-grandma's photos when she was little."

 

I do hope that the little girl's parents were appreciative of your efforts, and the resulting art, as we are.

 

You've done good work. I'd pat you on the back if you were geographically close.

Thanks Guys for the encouragement. I don't think I'll ever change my ways. I have always been a traditional kind of guy in everything I have ever done.

 

Doug, it is very interesting about the Bow and Arrows. I made my first Bow when I was 13 in shop class from two billets of Yew. It was a long bow. I always used a long bow or a recurve bow in all of my Bow hunting, and made my own arrows too. My favorite was my old workhorse 60lb Fred Bear Grizzly, but with my health conditions now, I can't even string it anymore. I never used flint on arrows, but I built several muzzleloaders over the years and knapped out alot of flint for the locks. In fact when I was 20 years old, I shot one of my handmade rifles at the international muzzleloader shoot in Frendship Indiana. I didn't win anything, but I placed 12th in the world competition with my little rifle. Thank you for your comments. I think you have a much better grasp of the old cameras than most people, with your own experiance with stereo and pano cameras you know what is involved.