Photo Notes A place to talk about making images.

December 28, 2015

Indianapolis Central Library #1

Filed under: Architecture,Fine Art Portfolio,Indianapolis,Large Format Photography — John Siskin @ 4:41 pm
Indianapolis Central Library #1

Indianapolis Central Library #1

This shot was made at the Indianapolis Central Library. This was the second shoot I did at the library; the first shoot was for my book Photographing Architecture. The library has a classic look in front with a new glass and steel portion in the back, really an interesting location. I was attracted by the classic look of this shot, from the entrance to the reading room. It’s easy to see a shot like this, but it’s harder to capture the image. I did the shot with my Toyo 810M, which shoots 8X10 inch film. I did the shot in 2013, really quite recently. The image was part of a show I did at Indiana Landmarks called Buildings: Birth, Decay, Renewal. You can see some video from the show here. I thought this location was particularly suited to the title, because of the blend of new and old architectural styles. Since I did the shot on a half sheet of 8X10 film the image will print to a very large size. There is a print in my office that is 4 feet high.

According to my notes I made this shot with a 270mm f6.3 Schneider W.A. G-Claron. The exposure was at f32 for 8 seconds. I’m glad no one walked through the shot! This lens was originally on a stat camera. I’ve used it in various configuration, on my 4X5 camera, 8X10 and it’s currently mounted on a board for the 11X14 camera. One of the great things about large format photography is that a lens can be used in so many different ways. This is an extremely sharp and contrasty lens that has very wide coverage. I used my Reis tripod, a constant companion with the 8X10 camera, especially on location. The Reis is a wood tripod, or as I like to call it carbon fiber version 1.0.

I offered this shot in the show (mentioned that above) as a 4-foot print and as a VanDyke print. VanDyke prints are an old process that uses iron to achieve sensitivity, but the final image is actually silver. I’ll be adding more about the older processes as I begin to offer them through these posts and on my site. Currently you can get a fine digital print of this image for only $125. The image will be 14 inches tall and mounted and matted on 16X20 board. The price includes shipping in the United States. This is much less than any price I’ve had on this image in the past.


You can buy one of my books at these links

December 22, 2015

Suffix

Filed under: Fine Art,Fine Art Portfolio,Micro Photography — John Siskin @ 4:03 pm

Suffix

I like to explore color and shape. The micro-environment enables me to do this without being involved is shooting things. This image is about color, shape and texture; it doesn’t matter what the subject is! The image has an otherworldly quality, which is what I was looking for. This belongs to a group of images I call Parts of Speech, and all have names drawn from Latin grammar.

This is an image of light displayed by a plastic ice cube captured with some specialized equipment. I used to say fake plastic ice cube, but it’s real enough; they’re made as props. Anyway certain materials can be made to diffract light in interesting ways, and this is much more interesting if you can get really close to the subject. In this case I used a Toyo view camera with about two feet of bellows. I used a Zeiss 63mm Luminar as the lens. The lumiars are a special series of lenses Zeiss made for extreme micro work. This was pretty difficult to do with any film camera, but especially difficult with a view camera that didn’t have any meter. The area I photographed is much smaller than the image on the film, and of course much, much smaller than it is here. The image will print to at least 20X30, which would be more than 100 time life size.

It’s much better to do micro-photography with a digital camera than with a film camera. First the resolution of a digital camera is better than film would have. For technical reasons digital capture is better than even large film, say 8X10 inches. In addition it’s easier to control exposure, because the meter is in the camera and because you get instant feedback. I’ve mentioned various resources for micro photography in recent posts: https://siskinphoto.com/blog/?p=2988, https://siskinphoto.com/blog/?p=2978 and https://siskinphoto.com/blog/?p=2954. I hope you’ll take a look if you haven’t already.

I’m thinking about offering a workshop about shooting micro images. This would enable us to go far beyond what a standard macro lens can do. Most macro lenses go far enough to make the image the same size on the sensor it is in life. There is an interesting, and very affordable, toolkit that will enable you to go so much further. It’s quite possible to shoot 80 times life size onto the senor, and then multiply that by the size of the print! I hope to have detail of this workshop in the next two weeks. Please let me know what you’d like to see in this sort of workshop; anything from a one day demonstration to a couple of days with a microscope included! I’d like to do this during winter, when it’s good to have indoor subjects to explore. Keep an eye on my workshop page for updates.

As I’ve mentioned this blog is part of a series of entries about my fine art images. I’m doing this series as part of an update for the fine art pages on my website. I hope this series will make my images more accessible, both on line and as prints. If you’d like to buy a digital print of this image, mounted and matted on archival cotton rag board, please use the PayPal link below. The image will be about 16 inches wide mounted on 16X20 board. The price includes shipping in the United States, for other countries please ask first.


You can buy one of my books at these links

December 21, 2015

El Matador State Beach #2

Filed under: Do It Yourself,Film Technique,Fine Art,Landscape Photography — John Siskin @ 5:45 pm
El Matador State Beach, California #2

El Matador State Beach, California #2

I like the texture and presence of the rocks in this shot as well as the action of the water. The shutter speed, about 1/30th of a second showed the water coming over the rock in an interesting way. The rest of the water shows a feeling of movement, which is good for surf. The camera is positioned quite close the rocks in the foreground which gives the image a more exaggerated point of view. I can do this because of the very wide coverage of this lens. I’m still playing with ways of presenting this image on line since horizontal panoramic formats seem to suffer on this blog format. I really liked shooting at El Matador State Beach because of the rocks and caves. I’ve added another image from El Matador here.

Part of being a creative professional is staying creative. I suppose that’s obvious when you say it, but it’s a challenge to do. I see through the eyes I’ve always used, and I need to continue to see fresh and new. Of course craft will make a beautiful image, and craft is essential for my professional work, but there is more to being creative than achieving great craft. One way I change my seeing is to change my tools. If I choose to shoot with my usual kit I go down roads I’ve seen before, but new tools create new paths. Often this is because of what a tool CAN’T do. So if I have a huge camera I’m forced to look for static subjects. You can’t shoot children playing with an 8X10 camera. Over the years I’ve built cameras that allow me to walk down different paths. I’ve been especially interested in shooting extreme wide angle views. Of course I could always do this with 35mm film cameras, but the combination of wide angle vies with the lower resolution of 35mm film was not satisfying. I’ve found that using extreme wide angle lenses with my digital camera is much better. I’ve also used other tools to achieve this point of view; one of the most successful is my super wide camera. This camera uses a special Nikon lens, with very wide coverage, and medium format film (6cm wide). I’ve written about this camera before: www.siskinphoto.com/camera3a.html. I’ve included a picture of the camera below.

Superwide Camera

Superwide Camera

As I’ve mentioned this blog is part of a series of entries about my fine art images. I’m doing this series as part of an update for the fine art pages on my website. I hope this series will make my images more accessible, both on line and as prints. If you’d like to buy a digital print of this image, mounted and matted on archival cotton rag board, please use the PayPal link below. The image will be about 16 inches wide mounted on 16X20 board. The price includes shipping in the United States, for other countries please ask first.


This image, and many others, is also available in my book B-Four. You can look at the book at this link, and order it as well. I hope you’ll take a look at the book.

You can buy one of my other books by clicking on the titles below:

 

December 18, 2015

Parrot Feathers #2

Filed under: Fine Art Portfolio,Micro Photography,Micro Photography — John Siskin @ 12:54 pm

 

Parrot Feathers #2

Parrot Feathers #2

This image has wonderful color and depth. I like the pattern of the feathers and the contrast. The dark feathers near the top of the images help to give a relatively flat subject a sense of depth. It interests me that, although the lines lead away from the center of the image, my eyes keep coming back into the image. Most micro images don’t have a specific orientation, especially because I’m usually shooting straight down. I noticed that I didn’t like either landscape presentation of the image, but I do like both portrait presentations. I’m including another version of the shot upside down. This upside down version was the way the computer first presented the image.

Parrot Feathers #2, reverse orientation

Parrot Feathers #2, reverse orientation

This is the second image of the Parrot feathers I’m putting on the blog. This image was made in the same session as the Parrot Feathers #1. Please check out this link for more about how these images were made.

I have a lot of small things I use as subjects for micro photography. As I mentioned in the entry for Parrot Feathers #1, each time I work with very small subjects it’s like a journey. I may have ideas about what I hope to see, but I’m always open to surprises as well. I know that many people enjoy working with macro lenses outdoors, but I’m often surprised at how few people want to go even closer with some more specialized equipment. This equipment is not that expensive but it can be difficult to find. You might want to check this article I did for Photo Techniques, it has more information about micro photography: www.siskinphoto.com/magazine/zpdf/microscope.pdf. You can access many of my articles about photography at: http://www.siskinphoto.com/magazinearticles.php.

As I’ve mentioned this blog is part of a series of entries about my fine art images. I’m doing this series as part of an update for the fine art pages on my website. I hope this series will make my images more accessible, both on line and as prints. If you buy a print of this image you can choose to display it in any orientation you would like. If you’d like to buy a digital print of this image, mounted and matted on archival cotton rag board, please use the PayPal link below. The image will be about 13 inches wide mounted on 16X20 board. The price includes shipping in the United States, for other countries please ask first.


You can buy one of my books at these links

I’m going to be using my blog to add information about images to the fine art pages of my site. This part of the site isn’t functioning yet, but it will be. These posts will enable me to put up information about the shot and to add details about buying prints. I think it’s very useful to talk about the details of creating specific images. I hope to hear from you about this-use my e-mail to let me know: john@siskinphoto.com. Of course I hope you’ll also want to buy some prints. I’ll be offering more types and sizes of prints in the future.

 

December 16, 2015

Parrot Feathers #1

Filed under: Fine Art Portfolio,Micro Photography — John Siskin @ 5:04 pm
Feathers #1

Feathers #1

I love the saturation and pattern of these feathers. The lines of feathers can be very evocative. The glowing gold in the shot is really striking.

This image was made with my current digital camera a Nikon D800. This is a truly fine digital camera, and one of the finest overall cameras I’ve ever used. The files are truly spectacular, in size, color and sharpness. In addition the camera is easy to work with. I paired the camera with a Nikon PB-4 bellows for this shot. The PB-4 bellows is the only bellows Nikon ever made that allowed movements, both shift and swing. These movements allow the photographer to adjust the position of the lens relative to the sensor, which gives control over framing and depth of field.

Shot with my Rodenstock 80 f4. This is an enlarging lens. Many kinds of lens will work well with bellows, but of the best all around lenses are enlarger lenses. You’ll need an adapter that goes from 39mm (Leica Thread) to T-Mount and T-mount to your camera mount. Both of these are available at B&H and other photo retailers. I’ve attached a set-up shot. I used a desk lamp to light the subject.

Nikon PB-4 bellows and enlarging lens.

Nikon PB-4 bellows and enlarging lens.

I love working with equipment that allows me to see microscopic detail in a subject. This equipment allows me to go on a voyage without leaving the studio. For more on macro/micro photography check out these posts:
https://siskinphoto.com/blog/?p=424
https://siskinphoto.com/blog/?p=415
https://siskinphoto.com/blog/?p=405
https://siskinphoto.com/blog/?p=394

If you’d like to buy a digital print of this image, mounted and matted on archival cotton rag board, please use the PayPal link below. The image will be about 13 inches wide mounted on 16X20 board. The price includes shipping in the United States, for other countries please ask first.


You can buy one of my books at these links

I’m going to be using my blog to add information about images to the fine art pages of my site. This part of the site isn’t functioning yet, but it will be. These posts will enable me to put up information about the shot and to add details about buying prints. I think it’s very useful to talk about the details of creating specific images. I hope to hear from you about this-use my e-mail to let me know: john@siskinphoto.com. Of course I hope you’ll also want to buy some prints. I’ll be offering more types of prints in the future.

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