Experimenting with Pictorialism

Last week I shared photos from my photography class portfolio. I selected abstracts to help train myself on how to see a subject for what it could be, not what it is. And it's helped a good deal to pick a project that changes how I see something. My next project is going to be pictorialism -- intentionally soft-focus images meant to evoke a sense rather than detail.

I don't self-classify as a pixel peeper in that I don't go into other people's photos and see how pixel-sharp they are. I do pixel peep my own work to make sure that I select images that are exactly how I want them to be.

My pictorialism project will take a little while to get fully under way (I need to make some lens holders, but for the interim I have some of the raw parts. I picked up three singlet lenses with focal points in the 100mm-range. They're all uncoated and my thinking right now is to make some lens holders for my 4X5 camera and use it as a bellow unit on my 35mm cameras. Sine none of the lenses have shutters, I can't just use my 4X5. I also need to make an interchangeable aperture assembly. So there's a little work to do, but my first experiments seem promising.

To get these shots, I free-lensed elements in front of my Pentax K-3. Mostly they had about 1.5 to two inches of space between the lens and the mount. All the lenses are in the f1.5 to f1.7 range without any mechanism for aperture control.


Pretty soft, but the image is still recognizable


Lost of ghosting and flare.


So much ghosting!

Vintage 4X5 Lens Experiments

Before Christmas I picked up a 117mm Kodak lens off an old 2A (or similar) folding camera. It covers (with little extra room) a 4X5 negative. Here are my first test images.



Here was my first test shot. The lens is a bit lower contrast than I'm used to, but the sharpness is simply staggering considering the lens is about 100 years old. That's a bi difference in lens design philosophy from back in the day versus today. Older lenses increased sharpness by increasing lens lines per millimeter resolution. So, if I remember correctly, the sharpest lens ever made is around 175 lines per millimeter (by comparison, the Pentax FA Limited 31mm and 77mm are around 165 lines and Canon L zoom lenses are around 120 lines) at the sharpest point in the sharpest aperture. However, older lenses appear softer because they lack contrast and acutance when compared to modern lenses. So modern lens design focuses a lot on greater contrast (which manifests as acutance in images) and create images which appear sharper.


Here's a shot with some lanes movement. The lens goes from sharp to buttery nothing pretty fast. But it's got potential, I think.


For comparison, the same shot (different orientation) but with my Caltar lens.

Goodbye to the Olympus OMG

After picking up an Olympus OM-2N a couple months back, I decided I only really need the one Olympus body. I don't really shoot Olympus all that often (even though their lenses are AMAZING.) So I decided to have one last evening of fun with my OMG and some mirrors.


A fun self-portrait. This took a while to get without blur since the exposure time was between two and five seconds.


Using my dad's old Captain Video robots, a flashlight, and (not at the same time) a candle, I set up a mirror box. The box is taped on the outside so I can take it apart if I want. I used a two-way mirror to allow me to photograph it it from outside. Having the lights in the apartment off helped reduce camera reflections, but didn't eliminate them.





For this and the one below, I used a cigarette lighter to create some spark effects.


I'll actually miss the little OMG. It's a great camera.

Introducing the Dragon Box

For kicks, I took an old card box I was going to throw out and made it into a pinhole camera. Instead of putting one hole in the middle or the end and calling it a day, I put two holes in and decided to try making a stereoscopic camera. 

Here was my test image, a stereoscopic negative of a building under construction.


And the positive inversion. I printed this as a positive, but made this inversion in Photoshop.


This was the first image that got the camera noticed. I took this onto Zone VI fiber-based paper, so I had to press it after development and drying. I had it pressing under glass and noticed a few people looking at it and commenting on it. It definitely hints at what the Dragon Box (the camera's name) can do.


A Photoshop inversion to show the image's positive.


This negative really did not appear to turn out well at all, so I let it sit without much attention. When I digitized it, though, I decided to invert it. That inversion convinced me that this, the second image I took with the Dragon Box is the first solid sign of what this camera can do.




A double-exposure of a high-tension tower. I exposed the shot and then turned the camera around 180 degrees, capturing the same shot in reverse. Yes, this camera has potential. I'm glad I didn't thrown the box away.


And here's the Dragon Box and an explanation of how to make it.

Abstract Psychaedlia

Last week I mentioned that I was working on abstracts for my photography class' final project. Here's one of two videos I made as part of an abstract experiment. Some of the shoot's actual images follow.

I started my abstract paint project with paint on wax paper. I made this one look kings like a bug. It may or may not be a bug that someone stepped on.


In time, I gave up on the shapes and simply began letting the paint do the work. The results proved much more unpredictable and interesting. 


In the video and for these I put store-brand vegetable oil in a plastic tray and placed drops of oil-based model paint in it.


The point moved through the oil like a bad idea through a mob -- quickly and unpredictably. When it touched, it would spread out along the oil's surface like a slick, but the paint's additives turned gummy in the oil. So the paint on the surface, which was gummy, stayed in place while the paint under the surface moved away from the surface paint.


Here are the other two videos in the series:

This post -- this is about how this week is going to go. There are a number of very strong abstract images this week.

Macro Abstracts

This semester I took an intro to photo class. I may have mentioned this before. My final project is going to be 10 abstract photos. The film shots are still at school, but here are the test shots I took with my DSLR. For this, I reverse-mounted a Nikon Series E 36-72mm zoom onto my Pentax K-7. This resulted in some fabulous image magnification. In fact, I did a video exploring different lenses for macro use. Here's that video:

I like the Series E 36-72 for reverse macros because the zoom allows some focus as well as a range of magnifications. However, though they did not show up on the digital images, on the film cameras I used for the project (Pentax H3V, Minolta SRT 102, and one other I'm blanking on right now) the lens showed three astigmatisms on each shot with lighting coming in from the upper left (such as the film versions of the next photo.)

Astigmatisms reveal themselves as two lines that don't touch arranged at a 90-degree angle. So tracing the lines paths reveals an intersection with a 90-degree angle, but the intersection itself is never directly visible. When I digitize the film photos, I'll share some with astigmatism lines.



How much of a macro is this? That's a a 6-24 screw.


That's an unfinished land development as seen from an airplane. Lots of boulevards and cul-de-sacs.


Actually, these two are both a leaf. Here the lighting shows leaf mold where the vein slipts off.

Last month's nearly full moon.

Domo Aragato, Mr. Roboto

Similar to Tuesday's post, these photos resulted from an assignment in my Google+ black and white group. The assignment, transportation, I decided to do with some of my dad's American Flyer train cars. To accompany them, I used some of his Archer and Captain Video plastic robots. For fun, I decided to bring in a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash. Next week, I'll have some more shots from this still life experiment.


Captain Video robots taking pictures of themselves. The original toy robot selfie.


The large robot is an Archer molded plastic robot. The smaller ones are Captain Video aliens and robots.


A black and white one, which seems much more ominous.

Flowers Simplified

I may have mentioned before that I'm part of a Google+ group for weekly black and white photography assignments. A few weeks ago we had a plants and flowers assignment. I picked a few individual buds from neighborhood plants and tried a low-key take on the project. Pollen was a problem, but the overall effect worked well.


For this shot, I illuminated the trumpet with my cell phone's flash light. That gave the flower a bit of luminescence that works well.





For this, I made the yellows dark and green lighter. That resulted in the pollen grains standing out on the leaf and flower petals.


A simple, single sprig.


Flower inside flower.

Driving my Nissan GTR* and Crashing my Ford Mustang*

* -- Radio-controlled


Fun with an ND 1,000 filter
To get this shot, I set the camera's ISO to 100 and set the variable ND 1,000 filter to max. I left the car parked for about 20 seconds and then reversed and advanced it quickly.


More fun with an ND 1,000 filter. For this, I zoomed my Samyang 18-28 from 18 to 28 over the span of the exposure.


This wasn't me driving. I let the girlfriend drive the Ford Mustang, which is a LOT zippier and harder to control than the GTR. And she plowed it into the wood chips. It was fine, though, and in the coming months I'll have some exciting video footage of the RC cars.

High ISO Macros

I hadn't used my macro set up on a film camera before last week. MY macros set up is a Pentax Macro Bellows II and m Vivitar 135mm 1:2.5 lens. This yields very nice enlargement with sharp details from a decent distance. So I took out my Pentax K2 (recently back from being repaired... again) and the macro rig. For film I used Ilford P4 pushed to 1000 ISO and Kodak Double-X 5222. I don't recall which of these images are which, but here are the results:


A flower growing by the complex's dumpster


Another dumpster-collocated flower


A mushroom top about the size of a dime


Leaf -- exposed for the leaf


Leaf -- exposed for the background


Macro at f2.5


Macro at f11 or f16


Another flower


A mushroom about the size of a pencil eraser (the kind on the back of the pencil)


Mushroom hiding behind some leaves