My Friend Flickr

 I came across this interesting post about Flickr on the Design Observer website in which Jessica Helfand heaps praise on the photo sharing site:

"... Flickr is a digital photo sharing website and web services suite that was developed by Ludicorp, a Vancouver, Canada company founded in 2002. It's a utopian oddity — a culture enabled by a technology that in turn enables a culture — and it's a brilliant example of socially networked software because it's free, its easy, and it makes sense. It also capitalizes on the great strengths of mobile computing, which is to say you can engage in all sorts of computational activities while being, well, mobile. Put simply, Flickr lets you upload photos, then helps you organize them, sequence them..."

I was half way through the article before I noticed that it was written in 2005, early on in the history of the site.  In that same time frame, digital had still not totally steamrollered analog and Helfand pointed to one of the weak points in digital camera design then.

Helfand has produced an astounding number of essays about design issues over the years; I thought her last post on an exhibit about typography, Type is (More Than) Image, was particularly nice.

Verde que te quiero verde.

Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la montaña.
Con la sombra en la cintura
ella sueña en su baranda,
verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fría plata.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Bajo la luna gitana,
las cosas la están mirando
y ella no puede mirarlas.

Romance Sonámbulo
Federico García Lorca (1928)

Jacques Léonard's Camera

 I came across an article in La Vanguardia about a retrospective exhibit of the work of French photographer, Jacques Léonard. What caught my eye, of course, was the much used photo of the photographer with a camera to his eye -- a Kodak Medalist!

I had not bumped into Léonard's work before, but a quick Google search shows he does not lack for fame in Europe.  He is best known for his extensive and exquisite documentation of the gypsy communities of Spain, particularly of Barcelona.

None of the many articles turned up in the Google search results mentioned Léonard's gear, so I turned to Google Bard:

What camera was used by French photographer, Jacques Leonard?

Jacques Leonard used a variety of cameras throughout his career, but his most commonly used camera was the Leica IIIf. The Leica IIIf was a 35mm rangefinder camera that was introduced in 1954. It was one of the most popular cameras of its era, and it was known for its high quality of image. Leonard used the Leica IIIf to document the Roma community in Barcelona in the 1950s and 1960s. His photographs from this period are some of the most iconic images of the Roma people.

In addition to the Leica IIIf, Leonard also used other cameras, including the Rolleiflex TLR, the Contax IIa, and the Nikon F. He also used a variety of film stocks, including Kodak Tri-X, Ilford HP5, and Agfa Ultrapan.

Leonard's choice of cameras and film stocks reflected his commitment to high-quality photography. He wanted to capture the Roma community in as accurate and realistic a way as possible, and he believed that the Leica IIIf and other high-quality cameras were the best tools for the job.

So nothing there either about Léonard's Medalist.  It is a camera that I've always lusted for, but the price and the likely need for professional restoration discouraged my interest.  Had I found Léonard's work earlier, perhaps I would have been motivated to hunt for one more diligently.

Ken Rockwell's Review of the Medalist

Theory vs Practice

I had a fresh roll of Arista Edu 100, so I decided to shoot it in my Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim and process it semi-stand in RO9 (Rodinal) at 1:100 for an hour.  I thought that should give me good control of contrast and tonality.  Wrong.  The pictures were excessively contrasty and the tendency of the vuws to vignette was emphasized.  Here are the best ones from the roll.

The rest had mostly blown out highlights.  I may have not gotten a fair test for my idea behind semi-stand processing.  I'm down to the dregs on my old bottle of RO9 (Rodinal), so there's no telling if the results would have been better with fresh developer.  

TLR

 I found a couple rolls of 2006 Delta 100 in my refrigerator film drawer, so I loaded one in my YashicaMat and took some walks through the neighborhood and along the trails of the riverside forest.  

The last photo was made in the park near our home.  The girl's mother said she liked my old camera and added that her grandfather had been a photographer, possibly using a similar camera.  She said one his nature photos made it into National Geographic.  The little girl was very interested in our conversation; when I asked if she would like me to make a picture of her, she gave an emphatic "yes", and her mother helped her to pose for the camera.