Shoot a Box

 The monthly online meetings of the New Mexico Film Photographers have usually featured accomplished guest presenters invited by meeting organizer, Chip Greenberg.  For the April meeting participants were tasked with showing some of their own work and providing feedback to each other. Not having made many photographs recently I decided to just share some thoughts and images about my use of box cameras over the years.

Ansco Shur Shot Jr.

I had a couple box cameras as a kid but their use then led nowhere toward my later interest in photography.  I only picked up a box camera again about sixty years down the road because of curiosity about making pinhole images.  Five dollars at a Las Cruces thrift store got me an Ansco Shur Shot Jr. which I intended to alter for the purpose fo making pinhole images.

Before replacing the Shur Shot's lens with a pinhole I decided to run a roll of 120 film through it.  I was amazed at the quality of the images which had very good resolution.  That result got me looking around at what other photographers had done with box cameras, and I was inspired to acquire several more of the simple image makers.

The next box was a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash identical to one I had as a child. That camera featured some additional features and a sleek Bakelite design.  I've put a couple dozen rolls of film through the Hawkeye Flash and it made a few of what I consider my best images.

Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash

One of my subsequent acquisitions, a little Ansco Panda, produced even more satisfying photographs.  I addition to making very sharp images, the small size of the camera meant that it had a lens focal length that was uniquely wide angle among the box cameras.  That provided, in addition to a wider view of the world, the capacity to get sharp images as close as six feet from the subject as opposed to the twelve to fifteen feet required by most other box cameras.

Ansco Panda

I subsequently picked up a number of other box cameras including a Kodak Duaflex, a Kodak Brownie Reflex, an Anscoflex II, a Genos Rapid and a Zeiss Ikon Box Tengor.  The ones I most enjoyed using all had brilliant view screens in which the mirrored image was augmented by a thick biconvex viewing lens.

I'm not sure that anyone in our recent online meeting was inspired to run out to find a box camera and begin making pictures with it.  It is understandable that photographers accustomed to using sophisticated modern cameras would hesitate to commit to an instrument with fixed aperture, speed and focus.  In fact, I have fairly often come across reviews of box cameras which are mostly lists of perceived faults, often accompanied by illustrations supporting those judgments.  My take is that is mostly an example of confirmation bias -- people get the pictures they expect.

In fact, simple cameras offer a lot more versatility than is often imagined, especially if you develop your own film. One easy step toward success is to carry two cameras, perhaps with 100 speed film in one and 400 in the other.  It is also possible to push or pull film in the processing so as to accommodate available lighting.  With fast film loaded, filters can provide a wide range of exposure, and close-up accessory lenses can help to achieve tight compositions. In the days when box cameras were in common use, flash bulbs lit up the dimmest scenes. The most common complaint -- soft focus borders -- is easily dealt with by just properly positioning the subject in the frame. 

One of my box cameras has seen more rolls of film pass through it than most of my modern cameras with all their sophisticated features; it is the Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim.  Most people might prefer this little wonder to be called a point-and-shoot, but it has all the features -- or lack thereof -- of the other box cameras in my collection, including fixed focus, shutter speed and aperture.  The 22mm lens provides a unique perspective on the world and the 35mm film images are tack-sharp.

Lost

 I have made a lot of pictures at the Botanic Garden over the years we have lived in Albuquerque.  The years-long reconstruction of the Heritage Farm there was recently completed, and I was eager to see the results.

What a disappointment!  The intimacy and authenticity of the little model homestead has been obliterated.  Where was the Board in the planning stage?  What were they thinking?  It is hard to believe that the architects ever actually visited a small farm.

Now, the place is full of concrete and high wire mesh fences.  The carefully tended vegetable garden is gone.  It reminds me of what I saw happening in southern Idaho where we lived on an old dairy farm.  The irrigation ditches were filled in, the old farm buildings leveled to the ground to make way for gigantic mechanised circle irrigators.  Albuquerque's children are left without a visual clue about rural history.

W. Eugene Smith

 Unable to sleep one night recently I chose to re-read a 1969 Aperture Monograph about Gene Smith's photography. At the time of that publication, Minor White was still the Aperture Editor and Smith was still seven years from his death at age 67. I was then in my thirties  and actively interested in doing photography, but I don't recall a specific awareness of Smith's importance at that time. And yet, I think of him now as having had a formative influence on how I came to think about photography's importance as an art form.

In spite of that perceptual vacuum on my part, I think the weight of Smith's innovation in developing the photo essay form was inescapable. The graphic power, the intimacy and story-telling depth of his picture essays in the major magazines was unprecedented. In part, his stylistic originality owed something to the times; he began serious work toward the end of the Great Depression, and then dove into a vertiginous career as a chronicler of World War II.

 As a war correspondent Smith worked close to the action with the Marines during the invasions of Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. In that last island battle he was severely wounded and was unable to work during a painful two-year recovery.

Back in photography Smith worked intermittently for the major magazines and also for a time as a member of the Magnum Photos agency.  Smith's post war photography focused seldom on extremes of violence and more on daily life events.  In fact, one of the first pictures he made on regaining enough strength to hold a camera was the famous picture of his two children that appeared in the Family of Man exhibit, The Walk to Paradise Garden.

In spite of the wide recognition of the quality and innovation of Smith's photography during his lifetime, he came to regard much of the war-time work as a failure. That was likely due in part to Smith's setting of standards for himself that  were practically unattainable; he wanted the pictures to contribute substantially to the eradication of war.  Smith's objectives and standards were also not consistent with the realities of publishing in the major news magazines for which he worked.  Editors of the big picture-using publications like Life and Time insisted on pre-scripting story lines, and they never used the photographs in the quantities and manner in which Smith would have done had he enjoyed significant editorial control.
 
On giving further thought to my initial awareness of Smith's work I think it likely was connected to  his photo essay about mercury poisoning through environmental contamination by the Chisso factory around the Japanese fishing village of Minamata. That effort probably produced the most direct change in opinions and behavior of any photographic work accomplished by Smith; it was undertaken with the considerable assistance of the woman he married upon arrival in Minamata in 1971, Aileen Sprague.

Aileen and Gene, credit/copyright: Ishikawa Takeshi

The most impactful of the photographs included in the book produced by Smith and Sprague, Minamata, Words and Photographs,  portrayed a mother cradling her severely deformed daughter in a traditional Japanese bath house.  Ironically, long after Smith's death, Aileen in 1997 withdrew the photo from circulation in accordance with Tomoko's parents' wishes.

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Update:

Thanks to the suggestion of JR Smith I looked around the web for more insights about Gene Smith.  I did not find the video JR had mentioned, but I did come across an interview with James Karales who was a darkroom assitant during the time Smith was working on the Pittsburgh project.

Platinotype and Cyanotype Print Making

 

At Albuquerque's Main Library I found a  book devoted to the collection of Paul Strand's work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  In that was the mention of Strand's technique of enlarging negatives from Graflex medium format negatives for the purpose of enabling the production of bigger 8x10 contact prints.  That is the same process Edward Weston used throughout his career, which I had found puzzling as Weston's account is lacking in detail. The book revealed the full explanation, which is that both photographers early in their careers were making platinum (platinotype) prints. Those could only be made as contact prints as production of the positive image required exposure to ultraviolet light, available then only from the sun.

So, platinum printing is similar to the cyanotype process in that both are often undertaken by coating the paper manually shortly before rather lengthy exposure to ultraviolet. There is also some similarity in developing the exposed images.  The cyanotype images are developed simply by washing in water.  This is also true of some platinum prints, though it seems those are more commonly developed in chemical solutions.  Additional processing variations include treatments of specialty papers and additives to the developing solutions including mercury.

Both platinum and cyanotype prints can be rendered in a variety of tints.  Cyanotype prints are most often blue tinted, but they can also be produced with sepia tones by adding a mild acidic solution.

An excellent description of the platinum printing process can be found on the website of the National Gallery of Art.

Strand, Stieglitz, and Weston made their enlarged internegatives on glass plates for the purpose of getting prints.  A simpler process now available is to create a large digital image and then print that out on clear plastic sheets normally used in overhead projectors. I have used that technique with some of my cyanotypes with images coming from my medium format cameras.

The making of platinum prints has always been technically challenging and costly.  The current economic situation can only exacerbate that.  Cyanotypes are still easy and relatively cheap to make.  It is even possible to get pre-coated cyanotype paper; I have found it in a couple museum gift shops, usually marketed as suitable for teaching children about the print making process.

 A few of my cyanotypes:

TMAX

 I haven't felt like paying the price for Kodak TMAX for the past five years, but I did recently find a roll of expired TMAX 400 in a refrigerator drawer to load into my Minolta X-700.  The thirteen years past the expiration date did not seem to significantly affect the results.

New Mexico Museum of Natural History

Albuquerque Art Museum

Tiguex Park (west end)

Rio Grande

Bosque

Tiguex Park (east end)

Good bye to cataracts

Analog Innovation

 A video by Joe Van Cleave illuminates the creation of BIG INSTANT COLOR PRINTS by Ethan Moses.

It is exciting to see this happening right now in Albuquerque.

View the video Now.

Update:

We went to QueLab to see the portraits Ethan had made with the 20x24 camera.  He demonstrated the process for us by making two portraits of me, and immediately processing the image while we watched.  The first image was a little underexposed, though I actually liked it better than the second.  It was a real thrill to see this actually taking place as we watched.

Where am I? -- Where I am.

My photography has slowed lately, and stopped for the past week due to life circumstances.  Reflecting on those facts I decided to look a little closer at the reasons.

The slowing has taken place over a period of several years, partly due to some decreased mobility.  Most of my photography has been done over the last twenty-five years in the course of walking around, snapping some pictures of what I found and then sharing them online. So, less walking and fewer pictures.

The sharing part is probably as important as the pictures; my photographs are most often accompanied by words.  I have maintained this blog, Photography and Vintage Film Cameras, and before that a website since the turn of the century.  I have also contributed pictures and some comments to several online photography sites including Photo.net, Flickr.com and Rangefinderforum.com.

People sometimes advocate for keeping words and photos separate.  I have no real objection to that idea, but it just is not my choice.  I got to reflecting on that fact recently while reading Edward Weston's Daybooks, a journal he maintained about his ambitions and accomplishments throughout most of his photography career. Weston reused some of the entries from his journal to accompany his photos in exhibits and in articles and books. Mostly, though, he seemed to be trying to explain the creative process to himself and to create a context for his photographs. I have tended along the same line, though I have more often thought of the writing and photographs as being integrated into a single product, not usually with a commercial objective.

Not all of my photography has been primarily ambulatory.  A lot of my involvement with picture making has been motivated by an interest in the history of photography, often expressed in a focus on the instrumentation which has evolved over over the past two centuries. I have acquired a large collection of film cameras and have been motivated to attempt to get the best pictures each is capable of producing. I have not spent much money on any of my old cameras; the limitations on the size of the collection are more to do with storage and exhibit space in a small house.

Pictures of people, including portraits of friends and family, have also been a source of inspiration for my photography.  Such pictures represent only a small percentage of my production; they are a concrete expression of my way of conducting social relationships and they rank high in the reward I get from them. I find myself now wishing I had focused more over the years on portraiture and social documentation.  In fact, those kinds of pictures are probably better suited to my current circumstances, so perhaps my efforts will bend in that direction now.

Photography's place in society has undergone some changes over time.  Weston and some others of his generation had something of an obsession over getting photography accepted as a form of fine art.  That concept has had its ups and downs, though is probably mostly accepted these days. To me that issue of status has seemed not of great interest and seems mostly self-serving.  I have always been more interested in the discipline's capacity for illustrating and explaining nature and society, and as a vehicle of self expression.

Attitudes toward photography are revealing of trends in social and political relationships. It seems that people in recent years have become more critical and even paranoid about the practice of photography in both private and public realms.  I encountered a good example of this recently one morning while making some pictures of trees in a nearby park.  Half-way though my walk I was approached by a fellow about my age with a small dog.  

"Why are you taking pictures of people and their dogs?", he asked loudly.  "I haven't made any pictures of people and their dogs", I responded.  "I saw you", he said "what's that hanging around your neck?"

"You are wrong", I said as I walked away. 

I briefly thought about pointing out that the law was currently on my side regarding photography in public places, but it seemed a futile effort.  My impression is that this is more a phenomenon in Western cultures as I don't see much evidence of it in Japan and the East.

Another gauge of people's attitudes toward photography is an effort to censor or suppress the exhibit of pictures perceived as somehow inappropriate for public display.  Sally Mann's pictures of her children have periodically been targeted by such initiatives; recently she and a Texas museum were threatened with charges of pornography. That attack was short-circuited by the state's justice system, but similar efforts are ongoing.  It is of a piece with the resurgence of racism, misogyny and xenophobia which I had hoped the country was moving away from.