Wallace Koopmans Artlog

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 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

Living Room Zoom

Here is another attempt at dealing with images that require a scale greater than what a web browser generally affords.  By clicking on the thumbnail you can navagate into the image and pan and zoom.

This was taken with my Yashica setup to create the distortion. http://wkoopmans.ca/notebook/?p=200

The imagery I think is clear even if the image isn’t.  The steps in the cemetery look like a ladder which seems to be there to help achieve some form of ascension, even a tree has been removed to clear the  path.

I haven’t had the time to do much photography lately and my studio isn’t ready for me to paint in yet so I thought I would take a moment to look at some older images that haven’t been published yet.

It was a sunny day with intermittent gusts of  warm air breathing life into  the long grass of the meadow.  Elongated stems laden with blooms swayed and swirled in the midst of this flowing sea.  A rabbit crossed the worn path, heard but unseen, as small birds filtered and crows fought.

It’s an equal struggle to portray my experience in words as it is in pictures.  I cannot convey how  at times like these the wonderful memories of a childhood seemingly spent entirely enveloped in long grass surge.  I’m unable to show how the grass moves moments after the leaves rustle.  So I can only do my best even if it doesn’t’ meet my own expectations.

As for the camera it’s muted leaf shutter seemed well suited to the quite sounds of nature.  There is a severe limitation with a 1/200 second shutter on such a bright day but the inaccuracy of the aged meter led me to over expose anyway.  The lens appears to have some sort of coating but it is likely a single coating and doesn’t do a great deal for the lack of contrast when used with colour film.  Focusing with the range finder patch was difficult when so much of the scene appeared so similar so I resorted to focusing by using the scale on the camera.  As I stated in an earlier post the Super-A has framing lines for the 50mm lens within it’s larger 35mm accommodating viewfinder.  This is a nice way to see outside the frame for items to include or exclude from the image.  It’s an interesting camera and one I enjoy looking at but it’s heft and other limitations will likely force it to remain largely a display item.

After several years in my possession I finally took my Minolta Super-A off the shelf and ran a roll of film through it.  It is an aesthetically and operationally pleasing camera to use.  The viewfinder is designed to accommodate both a 35mm and 50mm lens  so it has bright lines for the 50mm yet provides a good wide overall view for framing a subject.  It has a leaf shutter behind the lens that provides from 1sec to 1/200 second.  Additionally it has a bulb setting which also releases the add on light meter when selected.  While the meter is coupled to the shutter speed through a mechanical gear the aperture is only suggested by the meter and it is up to the photographer to actually adjust the exposure.  The meter adds an additional 135 grams to the already hefty camera but eliminated the need to carry a separate meter.

I haven’t been able to get much information about the camera off the Internet other than that it was released in 1957 as well as the usual info that is obvious when one is holding the camera.  The 10 aperture blades form an interesting pattern that differs from the usual octagon, I would describe it as a 10 point star at f5.6 which gives unique out of focus highlights.  The focus rack is built into the body and not the lens and allows focus down to 3.5feet.  There is a small indicator on the front of the camera just bellow the shutter release that turns red when the shutter is cocked but there is no lock for the release itself.

In my next post I will provide some photo’s taken with this gratifying example of late 1950’s design.

Photography is an illusion of reality,  we largely accept that what we see is a truthful representation of what was seen be the person taking the picture.  In reality though it is a flat two dimensional facsimile.  Even if the photographer doesn’t manipulate the image after the act of capturing it, the image is influenced by the choices that were made in it’s creation.  The photographer may have made camera settings or a lens selection in order to  effect your perception.  This image is an obvious reminder of the artifice but all images are tinged by this reality.

Digital cameras provide the potential for including almost any image modification that are, currently or conceived, of being done on a computer.   As the ability to manipulate the image at the time of capture is expanded we may need to remind ourselves about what is real from time to time.

As far as I’m aware there were very few wide angle capable point and shoot cameras ever made.  Ricoh made several including the R1s that I own, but most point and shoots started around 35mm at the wide end.  And then there is the Pentax Espio 24Ew.  The EW stands for ‘extra wide’, it’s lens goes from 24mm to 105mm.  This camera was released in 2003 right in the middle of the digital camera explosion.  I have to admit I only paid about 1% of it’s original cost making the film inside it more expensive than it is.  When you first start this camera up the lens is at a position somewhere greater than it’s widest so in order to get it where I want it I have to hit the zoom out button.  The lens does some amazing contortions to fit within the cameras 1 1/2 inch depth which then expands to a ridiculous 4 1/2 inches at 105mm.  So how was it?  It does an admiral job,  There is definitely softness at the edges at 24mm, which is really the only focal length of this camera I’m interested in and also vignetting depending on the aperture which it selects and you have no way of knowing what it is.  These limitations aside and considering the difficulty and finding anything this wide in a film point and shoot it does a pretty good job.

“This stuff won’t keep for ever you know!” that’s the little voice that prompted me to pull a pack of Polaroid Spectra out of the fridge.   I wasn’t even sure if it had survived the refrigeration as it is never supposed to freeze, yet the back of the fridge seems to produce some sub arctic temperatures at times.  Well it appears to have survived OK and I received the pleasurable experience of watching my pictures develop, take that digital.  I would like to take some portraits too as I use up the last of this film.

As a parting note the Impossible Project  http://www.the-impossible-project.com/ is continuing to work on new instant films.