More from the Duaflex

 Another sunny December day and another roll of film in the Kodak Duaflex.  This time it is some Arista Edu Ultra 200 of indeterminate age.  The box does not seem to have an expiration date.  I got it some time past from Free Style.   I suspect this is repackaged Fomapan as the pre-soak came out of the tank very blue.  All of the shots were made with a light yellow filter over the lens.  Processing was in Rodinal 1:50.  

See some more about the first model Kodak Duaflex and its designer in an article on my old website.

The Duaflex in Old Town

New Mexico is having an exceptionally warm and sunny winter.  Good conditions for one of my sunny day cameras, the Kodak Duaflex.  I loaded it with Kentmere 100 and took a walk around Old Town.

I processed the film in Rodinal.  That works well with most 100-speed films, but not so much this time.  I had to adjust tonalities significantly in Photoshop.  I am going to try again,  maybe with 400-speed film, along with a yellow filter for the bright sun scenes and processing in HC110.

Sally Mann

I am a long-time fan of Sally Mann, so I was pleased to happen on a link at Photrio to a video of an appearance she made at the Rhode Island School of Design.  She spoke briefly about her latest book, Art Work: On the Creative Life, and she then answered questions from a panel of three RISD teachers.  Mann talked about her long career and her photographic style and techniques, mostly with large format gear.

Mann did a nice job of explaining her creative process.  She admitted that she really often only has a vague idea initially about where her efforts will take her, relying on the pictures she makes to reveal a path toward a theme. She complimented her long-time editor in assembling her projects into book form.

I was particularly interested in seeing that her photography, even though having a spontaneous look, really depends on a lot of staging and direction.  I have three of her books, so I'm a little surprised that I was not more consciously aware of that aspect of her work earlier.  Given the fact that Mann has mostly used cumbersome large format cameras, it is really inevitable that some directorial work is required to produce her images.

I have expressed some distaste for staged work before, most recently in regard to a big show at the Albuquerque Museum of the work of Cara Romero.  I think the difference is that Mann's staging contributes to bringing out the fundamental character and experiences of her subjects, while Romero's elaborately staged and oversized images seem to me to be contrived and lacking in a clear meaning.

Mann's earlier work focused on her family, but she says she now makes no pictures of people and is only doing landscapes. She expressed some positive feelings about the possibilities of digital and said she currently often uses a small Leica digital camera.  At the same time, she also is clearly excited about the opportunity to explore experimental darkroom  techniques such as solarization.

Testing The Limits

While the Anscoflex II offers some control beyond that available from other simple cameras, the possibilities are still considerably less that those offered by more sophisticated designs.  The control features of the camera must also be used with some care and discretion.

What I found while working through the twelve available frames on some Kentmere 400 was that the close-up lens and the yellow filter cannot be simultaneously employed.  So a close-up with the filter compensating for bright sun with fast film is not an option.

I also found with the ruby window removed for improved frame numeral visibility that I needed to carefully avoid exposing the film's paper backing to any hint of direct sunlight.  The first half of this roll of film looked good in terms of exposure, but there were some washed out frames further down the roll.

So a deliberate and thoughtful approach to using the Anscoflex II along with stationary subjects enhance the likelihood of success.  I found that trying to grab shots of our active dog out in the yard was a bit beyond the boundary of success.

Winter Light

The little Nikon EM and its Series E lens gets little love from many Nikon enthusiasts, but it has always performed well for me.

I'm currently using a composite of the above images as the desktop background on my old iMac.

Yashica YE

I learned the rudiments of street photography early in the 1960s with a borrowed Yashica YE.  I thought it might be fun to get one to relive those days. There are quite a few available in Japan, however the uncertainties of what import fees might be tacked on to the price made the possibility seem slim of finding one that I could afford.  Then, I saw one listed in the U.S. at a bargain price, so of course I had to buy it.

The Yashica YE worked well, though the nice qualities of the images are due mostly to the Leica Elmar lens that I had mounted for this first test roll.  It would be nice to find one of the Yashicor lenses that normally came on the YE, but they seem to be priced at about three times what I paid for the camera.

The Japanese camera industry made amazing progress in the 1950s as the country recovered from the devastating effects of WWII.  Nikon lenses became an instant hit after David Douglas Duncan used them in Korea, and the Leica and Contax copies made by several companies demonstrated top-notch craftsmanship.

In the picture to the right the Yashica YE is in the middle, the German Leica IIIa is at the bottom, and the top camera is a Leotax Elite.  The top two are very similar in construction and appearance and demonstrate the Japanese camera companies' effort to one-up the German orginal with the addition of  thumb levers for film advance. While those levers enhanced functionality they also increased the camera sizes, and they introduced some construction complexity which make DIY repairs more challenging.

The Yashica YE actually started out being produced by Nicca as the Nicca 33, but that company was bought by Yashica which continued making the camera with very little changes.  In spite of the good quality of these Leica rangefinder copies, however, they all soon disappeared from view, eclipsed by the appearance of the single lens reflex designs produced in both East and West.