Comments on: Ode To Old Photo Books

By: scalesurfer

scalesurfer — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:05:43 +0000

forever.alone at its finest

By: QuoinMonkey

QuoinMonkey — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:05:59 +0000

sandrarenee, you are absolutely right. One of the joys of using vintage cameras is that they slow you down, make you work harder to get that one shot worth printing. I don’t know if I’d ever want to go back to all manual film work. It was expensive and time consuming. And you had to really learn your camera and have knowledge of the way the camera worked. None of that is necessary anymore. Everything is instantaneous. The barrage of imagery out on the Net can be overwhelming. It sometimes cheapens the craft of photography to have so many images out there shot in seconds with digital cameras or SmartPhones. One of the things we talked about in the photojournalism class was how so many websites and blogs post images that belong to others with no credit or mention of where they got the image. It’s a big problem for photographers and artists.

I love the immediacy and spontaneity of digital. But old school film work was much more zen-like. Deliberate, slow, and still. Not to mention the hours I spent in the darkroom processing black and white photographs. I used to love being in the darkroom. The sound of the water bath flowing, the red light, seeing your images in print for the first time, fading into existance. The chemicals could be a problem; one had to be careful about chemical exposure.

You also bring up a good point about the subjects you are shooting — they had to be still as well. Everything was more intentional. Love your observations. Thank you for sharing them.

By: QuoinMonkey

QuoinMonkey — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:54:10 +0000

Marylin, I have never forgotten you saying that. My mother, too, always urged me on to write for magazines of any type. I do have a couple of stories in mind. I appreciate your vote of confidence! It was inspiring to go and hear a photojournalist speak, a woman who had learned the newspaper business through film photography, and now is taking digital. It was fun to hear her take on the pros and cons of digital, mostly pros on her part. She uses a digital now but only shoots on manual. She applies what she learned about film cameras to her manually shooting with digital. It made me realize that I’ve gotten lazy using a digital point-and-shoot camera. Liz has an older digital SLR that I started working with on the last moon shot on red Ravine. I want to get back to manual shooting again and have part of the art work be the way I use the F-Stop, shutter speed, and ISO (what used to be film speed). I think it will all come back to me if I work with it a bit. More to be revealed!

By: QuoinMonkey

QuoinMonkey — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:48:35 +0000

scalesurfer, it does look like an old Popular Mechanics page! I remember those books. I think they came out with a bound set that my parents had next to the encyclopedias. I love the simplicity and mechanics of old cameras. In the Black & White Photography book under the image of the Twin-Lens-Reflex it says:

A twin-lens-reflex camera has two lenses—one on top of the other. Looking down onto a focusing screen, you view and focus your subject through the top lens. But when you press the shutter button, the bottom lens takes the picture. Twin-lens-reflex cameras take medium-format 120 roll film.

There is nothing as satisfying as the click of the shutter of a vintage camera.

By: sandrarenee

sandrarenee — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 13:46:13 +0000

I just realized, looking at your photo of the camera, that one of the reasons old cameras, or at least my idea of them, appeal is the sense I get of stillness. That stillness is required to see through the lens, stillness required to ensure the transfer of image, of light, to film. I’m not a photographer, so am happy to say I don’t know what I’m talking about, practically. I’m sure my sense of this stillness comes from impressions I’ve gotten of two things. One, the wild clattering and flashing of cameras held, sometimes without looking, to catch glimpses of public events. Two, the stillness of relatives I never knew in old, old studio photos. Their positions weren’t static, but still – the making of the photograph was what everyone was attending to. I get that sense of attention in your photos, QM, a feeling that I’m not just being show something, but invited to look at it.

Thanks -