Wallace Koopmans Artlog

I like the term Contre-jour it sounds more sophisticated than “Back lit” but really it does refer to photographs taken where the primary light source is behind the subject but not necessarily directly behind it as I have done here.

These images have me thinking about how often I use this technique, so I have just gone through some of my images to find other examples.  This is by no means all of them but based on the number of images I had to look through to find them I can safely say I’m not being repititious when I do take an image like this.

UPDATE:  Ok I found another one that I really like.  It’s funny because until I looked at it again I had forgotten how a friend and I had  rushed ahead so that I could capture this and we would still be able to make it back before dark.  Based on the date this was 19 years ago.

If you spent the last month doing what I did then you will know who you are.  Unfortunately I didn’t take the time to speak to anyone afterwords and I would have liked to, now that I’ve had a decent nights sleep and eaten a meal without garlic.  Please email me at wkoopmans@shaw.ca

If your reading this and you have no idea what I am talking about I’m sure I will post something new soon.

You can modify the look of clouds and water with long exposures making them soft and ethereal, but what if you can’t achieve slow enough shutter speeds?  That’s were using multiple exposures come in.  In this case I have used 9 exposures combined in the camera (a Pentax K10D) each exposure taken with a small delay of about 10 seconds in between.  This means that any single cloud will have moved a similar distance as a 90 second exposure, which would be unachievable in daylight conditions even with a strong neutral density filter.  The image bellow is toggling between the multi exposure image and a single image taken just after.

The Yashica Electro 35 rangefinders are wonderful cameras with an electronically controlled shutter and aperture priority.  The f 1.7 lens allows plenty of light for low light shooting, however there is no shutter speed indicator beyond the basic over exposure and slow shutter warning.  If you can live within those limitations it provides  sharp well exposed images.  I shot these images using Kodak professional plus-x.  Kodak describes the film thus ” PLUS-X 125 Film offers a combination of sharpness and fine grain that makes it the ideal film for beautifully printable negatives in moderate-to-bright light.”  I would agree and because it has been used for so many years it has a particular look that many people expect when they view a B&W image.

Here is a detail from one of the images.

I walked past this door as the long shadows of morning stretched across it.  I took a quick shot with my cell phone camera for reference with the thought of doing a sketch and possibly a print later.  So here is the sketch done in charcoal on toned paper.

While having an idea is great, if you are going to share it with others at some instant you have to put it out there.  Well I have an idea and that is to create some images that are comprised entirely of buttons.  The idea of going straight into some monumental work without figuring out how it will all come together is not likely to come close to my vision.   To start off I thought I would do a small scale piece.  So what did I learn?  I need to work on a larger scale.  Each button is like a pixel and the more pixels the more detail.  The other thing is that perhaps I was a bit too subtle with the button in relation to the background.  No not any particular button but the button that is made from the other buttons.  “Fascinating” you say yes “Fastening” I say.

As far as piles of rubble go this one smells pretty good.  It has that aged wood smell of an old building only intensified by the fracturing and the light rain.  This  image  came about when the excavator was going to relocate so I moved to this side and placed my Pentax PC35AF against the fencing.  It’s difficult to ensure the fence doesn’t obscure the lens because it’s viewfinder is not through the lens, but with care and luck I was able to capture the moment that created this composition.

I have thousands of buttons that I want to use to create some paintings, that part is great.  What isn’t great is that I am hindered by the lack of a subject.  I’ve thought about how we have become so disconnected from our clothes and their manufacture.  I was reminded of this while looking at an old photography of my grandmother darning a sock.  I’ve considered also the history of textiles and it’s relationship to women, but am I right to tackle that?   I do have one image in mind that I will likely do to help develop how I will use the buttons and the amount of effort required, which I suspect will be considerable.

Having completed my small water colour rough and having in mind how I wanted the image to look I forged ahead with an oil painting.  In the first image you can see the under-painting where I have laid out the composition and tones.  After that had dried and I found the time to paint (seemingly the most difficult thing lately) I began to paint more directly.  The next stage will be to make a few corrections and to do some transparent passages over the water.  After that I intend to add some small details to strengthen the sense of scale.

I recently had my Canon QL17 with me when  returning from a social function and I had two exposures left on the roll.  The other one is of  me driving so we will just leave that one where it is.  The other one is this one.  I waved at the security guards as I drove past, I think the shirt and tie confused them,  turned around took this exposure and drove away.  I have post processed this image but to be fare that is really to make it match better how I perceive it.  One thing about a camera it doesn’t record  how something makes you feel.  But even someone who doesn’t see this as a cold industrial edifice can’t help but be slightly swayed by the cool tones I’ve enhanced