tom_bourely

Neil, it's absolutely true. Let's say so: after the technical step, I must now understand the other side of photography, the remaining 99,9999% of it! Seeing the work of masters for sure should help me to overcome the cul-de-sac I am in, with the side-effect of becoming even a more accultured kind of person, which is not too bad :-) I've seen a lot of images from famous and less famous artists, in the past, but I've never thought a lot about it, and now I recognize the importance of reflecting about, studying the images, trying to light my imagination about the curcumstances that led the photographer to shoot that peculiar image, the decisions and the choices he had to take, and so on.

There’s a lot of expert, sound words here. All yours advices are gold for me and don’t be afraid to give some more. I wanna thank you all for this, and yes I hope this introspective moment about photography (or about life? Can they be disconnected?) will be as a re-entry step into it after too much times of neglecting and hopefully toward a new creativity. It’s true, I’m too busy lately and I am not able to dedicate to photography as much time as I’d like, time to shoot, and also time to reflect about it. In fact, now I’m thinking about it ‘cause I’m attending a staging-training course and while we’re required to be there physically, we’re not required the same presence in terms of attention, so I found a little more time to reflect about photography during these dumb hours of classes.

 

A thing I’m doing is searching and studying images of the same places and themes I shoot (I live in Naples, Italy), taken by other photographers, celeb ones like DAH etc and less celeb but equally talented here on photo.net and on other servers like flickr, fotocommunity etc. I have to say, I’ve discovered interesting things: some times the other photo shed a new light, a new way of seeing places, streets, people I see usually. Sometimes I see, to my amazement, the images of famous worldknown pros are the most full of stereotypes and folkloristic scenes…but that’s another story! In a DAH story about Naples, on the Magnum site, between some of these clicheèd and stereotyped pics, I saw some extraordinarily simple and true images: the girl in the fastfood truck, a family out of their little home, people I’ve seen many times, I’ve bought chips many times from that very girl, I’ve never had the idea of asking her to be photographed. I guess it’s the reason DAH is DAH and I’m a really talentless amateur, but still this switched the lesson that even the most ordinary things can get a new meaning. Given someone can recognize it. Howewer this is what I mean when I say –new ways to see usual things.

 

Another thing, to be done when I’ll get more free time, I plan to join a photo club, or a community, or to attend some classes. I don’t have much faith in technical advices and I don’t seek it, what interest me is the discipline and the dedication I’ll be obliged to follow. I don’t want to become a good photographer. It’s more an excuse to be involved in something that could eventually led to interesting photo opportunities.

 

This is a point to articulate more. I see my best work has been done only when I was following a well defined track of events, when there was something external to photography that followed his course, his story, something that I found important, meaningful and all I was allowed to do was recording it, fixing it on the film. When I was into this, every piece magically took its place, the camera choice was no more a problem. I explain this with the fact I have not talent, going out and shooting art images of separate flash of life doesn’t work for me. I need to be part of a project, to have an assignment giving me the sense and the guideline for every step. Not necessarily a story, a scenario, even a more vague and general idea that strikes my imagination and interests. I see with pleasure it’s the way also a big one like DAH works (order of magnitude better than me, it goes without saying!!), in his case the assignment and the interest being a lifelong one, the spanish diaspora. In the past, I felt really at ease and felt creative for example when I was involved in documenting a tournèe of a Danish theatre group, something I was very interested with and admired. Actually, I was involved at the beginning in the location and arrangment of the crew, then I offered my help for free if they allowed me to shoot, it became a personal project and I had some personal reasons to be there shooting a sequence of events (the setting up, the life of the group, the reharsal, the performances) that went its path totally unaware of us . Technically the pics were awful, it was all wrong but it doesn’t matter to me and I am still happy with them, Later, there was another opportunity, a friend was directing a play, asked me to document it, now I payed a little more attention to technique, figured a rangefinder (Canon 7, got it just for the job, would have kept but died…) and b/w would have been more appropriate, and the results were even better. I’d put it in my portfolio if the dreaded “new girlfriend’s censorship” wouldn’t have performed his magic…

 

 

Not a question, in fact I don't even know what to ask: I'm in crisis with my photography. It's taking a turn I no more

like. I find no more fun in making images of my town, of my surroundings, like I enjoyed times ago, it seems to me

like they've been already exhausted, it seems to me that my eye can no more find something interesting in them. I

know it's not the case. The problem is in me, not in the places I used to photograph, it's so obvious. Still, I find

myself more and more dedicating myself to photography only on occasions: travels, recurrencies, using a small digi,

a lumix, and taking literally thousand of mediocre and dull pics to selection few, even more ordinary, stereotypical

and low-level. I was a keen Leicaflex, Hassy and Rollei 35 user, everytime and everywhere, now they're in the

drawer...sometimes I lift them, play a little with controls, and put them again in the drawer, while thinking "real"

cameras like them doesn't deserve to be used for really ordinary images of old aunts, or typical tourist shots...when I

took my "true" cameras, the Leica, the 500, the Rollei, I keep thinking what could I use them for...what really good

images feed them with. I automatically associate the Lumix with thousands of ordinary postcards shot, or birthday

ones, often compelled to do so, in a word: bad images, and the mechanical Leica - Hassy- Rollei with more

accurate, more "taken for me" images, with personal work. I don't think I'm giving too much weight to the gear in the

creative process or at least I hope so, but it's true I always need a camera that has something inspirational to me

while using, a camera I'm comfortable with. The camera for me it's a switch to creativity. With the old mechanicals I

feel this, with the lumix I'm not in the right mood even if I shoot millions of images. Many times, I imagine that I could

use the good mechanical cameras (and return to my personal work) only in a far-away travel, seeing places totally

different from the places where I live and where it seems to me all sceneries are already done, already photographed

too many times. Now, ultimately, I'm thinking how to solve this dilemma, and in a pure gearhead the solution would

reside in gear-acquisition: I say to myself "the Leicaflex and the Hassy are too bulky and heavy, for this reasons I

don't bring them so often like I used to do. So, I have the Rollei...but the zone-focus means too many lost shots for

me. I need a rangefinder, light, small and "inspirational" camera..." ok: I was thinking a ltm Leica, but I don't want to

stress the importance if the camera here. The problem is in the fact I know I will buy this camera, I will bring this new

camera in my briefcase for some time enjoying its qualities, I will take some new images thanks to these qualities

(or at least I will believe so), my "creative crisis" will be at rest for some months, and then suddenly I will be again at

the starting point, finding everything boring and dull, dreaming of exotic countries and new cameras, and hating

myself for taking millions of digi shots of stupid things.

cheers

Ah... the envy... the envy...

 

Klinsmann is still crying?

 

:-)

Hello people and esp. Frederick. To be sincere, I've really appreciated the stair images, particularly the 2nd one. I think they convey the feelings of Paris, not like seen from the always-amazed tourist point of view, but just like it can be seen from a normal parisien walking around in a lazy day of autumn... and following rues he has walked many times. Sometimes you don't need to include sistematically a bird who flies across two windows, or a boy with a big bottle... or some other extra-ordinary sights to communicate the essence of a place. Sometimes the everyday sight can be powerful. At least for me.

Regards

Joseph, thank you, really thank you.

Also, he claimed to use only two apertures, and also using them from memory, pretending that he didn't know anything of "technical", and couldn't care less. Probably this was an artist's pose, a sort of joke with critics, howewer it's interesting the reasons he claims.

Like his work shows, Giacomelli was also a master in the darkroom, and also here there are some funny anecdotes, for example he developed his films in tubs made of cement, who seemed to the astonished visitors more apt to wash dirt clothes... and using an enlarger who was literally falling apart in pieces. Reality, legends or "artists propaganda"? I don't know.

Apart from these facts, remain the great value of the artist. I consider him the greatest italian photographer, and I must confess that Giacomelli is one of the very few artists whose work puts me every time in a particular state of mind, I find it perturbating, and I'm not always ready to confront with it.

There's on the net a interview, it's on the Frank Horvat site, Horvatland.com. He explains better what I've tried to write...

Dear Francois, yes, I envy you for attending the exposition of this impressive artist.

I've read somewhere that he had, during his career, a particular relationship with the cameras he was using, quite different from the standard "it's only a tool" way of "normal" pros-artists.

The Kobell (in German should mean: miscellanea) he bought around 55-56 was a very special camera, very very rare now. It was artigianally built in Italy, Milan I think, by a photojournalist immediately after WW2. It was an hybryd beetwen the Leica screw-mount and a medium format: 6x9 format, Zeiss lens, I suppose fixed, and rangefinder, derived directly from Leica screwmounts. Quite a luxus item. It was an effort to marry the compactness and speed of the Leica with the advantages of a larger negative. After a lot of troubles for adjusting, testing etc this journalist built some of them, I don't know how many, for his use, and eventually one of them was bought many years after secondhand by Giacomelli, who (as the legend say) rebuilt, or better dismounted it, trashing what he didn't need and keeping it for more or less all his career.

John, in fact it's just like you describe. Trying to catch the exact moment of the click, it seems to me it is the entire inner ring where iris' leafs lie, that moves. And I've always had this feeling that it was so to reduce friction and to be unaffected by variations in the density of materials caused by different temperatures. Probably this movement is about 0,1 mm... Howewer, it works perfectly.

Next time I've to check the cameras, I'll say the technician to give a look also to this Summicron, in the case is the loose control arm.

 

In the past I had a Contax 50\1.4 MM whit a irregular shape of the iris at smallest apertures, and the Zeiss technician said that its entire line was so by design, because they were trying to make the leafs and springs as light as possible to ensure the fastest stopping-down. I don't know if it was the fastest stopping-down on the market but sure it seemed broke... and I was aware of this when I had to sell it!

 

Speaking of prices, yes, on Ebay or US, UK stores I see that prices for Leica gear are often lower than prices in Italy, where I live. In general, concerning Leica, some more exotic items are more or less the same, but common lens and bodies are often significantly more cost here. Perhaps because here Leicas were and are rarer, and they are still perceived like a "very luxus" item, with a smallest market. Add to this the Euro... and everything jumps up.

 

thank you all, regards

Tom

400 is more or less what I paid... Just for curiosity: this lens seems never opened or bumped. Is there the possibility that an inner element unlocks by itself?

Howewer, until its performance is good like now, who cares.

regards, Tom

When I tilt my 50\2 Summicron-R first version (circa 1970), I can

hear a little clicking sound, from the inside.

But it don't seems to me the sound of glass-against-metal (so I

suppose no loose element, also because I can't see variations in

sharpness).

It sounds like metal against metal. Could be the diaphragm assembly

inside that slightly moves? Or... what? Thanks

 

regards, Tom

ohhhh!! sorry!! I've posted this thread twice. Can we transfer all on the Leica forum one?

My idea was to get a Contax in the best order i can find, and then a lot (not really!) of cheaper Kievs as spare-stocks. Why? Because neurotics like me love to have the chanche to repair their camera even if a bobcat squeeze it. Or, at least, to know that it can be done.

 

By the way, I haven't till bought any Contax, I'm choosing between it and a Leica sm. And repairability is the key of this choose. I think it's the only drawback of the Contax.

Can spare parts from Kiev 3-4 be adapted on Contax II-IIa-III-IIIa,

both made by the same drawings and same molds that Russians

transported from Jena to Kiev?

If so, It should be possible to cannibalize shutters, curtains,

gearings etc from cheap Kiev to service Contax rfdrs and ensure them

other years of use.

What's about compatibility?

Can anyone of you expert explain this?

Can spare parts from Kiev 3-4 be adapted on Contax II-IIa-III-IIIa,

both made by the same drawings and same molds that Russians

transported from Jena to Kiev?

If so, It should be possible to cannibalize shutters, curtains,

gearings etc from cheap Kiev to service Contax rfdrs and ensure them

other years of use.

What's about compatibility?

Can anyone of you expert explain this?

Ah, Jay, by the way, congratulation for the photo, I've noticed and appreciated it in another thread, is so beatiful and, seen now, reminds a sense of nostalgia for the Battles on the tracks, and for the Heroes who made them, against the computer-eccleston-valerian-playing-kids of today...

Sure!! I think his photographic work was strictly familiar-personal, and I don't think there is any place that show it. Howewer, I mentioned this fact as a interesting curiosity for both photo&racing lovers. Instead, what He, the "Aviatore" (flying-man, we called him so in Italy) did in his Ferrari 126... is still in the heart of all racing-lovers... I'm italian, so I'm really happy what Schumi is doing, but the heart is still with Gilles, Ayrton, Nigel... and I think will be so for the rest of my life.

For the "celebrity" series: the great Gilles Villeneuve, the forever-

regretted Canadian F1 driver, was a keen photographer. Mountains and

travel were his favourite themes. In his days, he was himself one of

the most photographed celebrity.

Adieu, Maitre

Dear Martijn, yes, I'm a neapolitaner! In Naples there are not many pro-labs able to develop slides and negs. Lots of minilab, but few prolabs. In exchange, once you reach one of them, you'll find the quality probably more than adequate, cause they run really a lot of work. Probably Greenspun thinks we are still sauvages, living on trees, eating ourselves....

 

In the town I can suggest the lab "K2", is located near (50 meters) the railway station, a.k.a. Piazza Garibaldi, and it's also near (20-30 meters) to the two biggest photo-stores of Naples, SBRESCIA and VELOTTO. Anyone, people, coffe, hotel, stores, in the station-Garibaldi Square is able to address you to them if you ask. This lab is one of the best, despite the appearence, and is also the most used by pros. They are very good also on 120, still very used by pros here (Hasselblads, not pre-ww1 gear like Greenspun could think...) for weddings etc, until 6x7.

For slides and black-white, there is another one, but in the periphery. It's name is BIANCO E NERO, is located in Fuorigrotta, a little difficult to reach by buses or metro.

The third one, is also more in periphery, is COLORAMA, located in Pozzuoli (the birthplace of Sophia Loren...), but I definitely suggest You to do not try to reach it, you can probably spent a whole day searching it.

 

My advice could be: if you can reach K2, you're in good hands, and don't worry. Speak with them, ask pro-treatments, and you'll be fine.

You can also put your rolls in the hands of a photo-retailer: aforementioned Velotto and Sbrescia are fine on this, they obviously send them to K2. But every store, if you ask pro development, will send your rolls for you to K2 or Colorama. Another really really good retailer is DE CESARE, located inside the Galleria Umberto, near Plebiscito Plaza, Royal Palace, Municipio Plaza... that's the "city" of Naples. They have a lot of accessories, vintage, rarities, and will deal very friendly with your needs.

My advice is to talk alot with photo-salesmen (Velotto, Sbrescia and De Cesare best), and with people in your hotel. Tell them your needs, specify you want professional treatments, and don't worry cause they'll do their best to satisfy you.

I hope this helps, regards

Hi, I'd like to collect your advices about the:

1) reliability

2) failure rate

3) serviceability

of RTS 3. Let�s start!

Thanks

Tom

Thank you people, fully answered. In the meantime, I've searched some lomo-pics, and I noticed that, strangely, the polaroid produced for fun by my pro-pack camera are similar to lomo ones, for colors, resolution, vignetting. But the polaroid lens is plastic... at least I can have them in 60 sec! Howewer, I'll continue to use a lot of other Russian cameras, I'm planning to have a Moskva 5 folder 6x9, all... except the lca!

Lomo Lca fans talk alot of certain special saturation of its minitar

lens, which should assure brighter and more pushed colors etc. Now,

what's the reality? Really can the Lomo lens, by design, have more

saturation than Zeiss or Nikon ones? Or it's only marketing? Someone

did a "neutral" optical comparison beetween Lca and others Deutch or

Japanese P&S?

Hello, a general info about lens' repair. I've a Contax Sonnar 180

2.8 Ae (W.Germany made) that need service, to clean a fungus in the

second element from rear. I want to send it to a repairer in my town,

not at Zeiss AG factory. Anyone can suggest if I'm doing right? I've

heard that W.Germany Contax lenses should be opened only by Zeiss

people (Japan ones not? Why? I don't know!). It's an easy job, or he

can damage something? In this case I'll prefere to wait some months

and send it in Germany (now I'm in Italy). Thanks to all

Thank you people, I've choose the 180. It's a W.Germany, older AE version, not MM. Is there a specific issue concerning fungus in this lens? Yes, for studio work I'll continue to prefere the f-a-b-o-u-l-o-u-s planar 85\1.4, using 180 mainly for location work.