A friend gave me his 1970s Olympus OM-1 because it belongs
to a different time. Few people can find film, and even fewer places would
develop them.
I suppose I belong to a past time that has not yet passed
for me. Working in my darkroom provides the same excitement as it did almost 50
years ago. When the picture starts taking shape in the developing tray, it is
still magic.
So, I wanted to try the camera. I have 6 OM-1s in my
collection and all have traveled the globe with me and carry scars from each
trip. This one has been kept almost intact giving the feel of using a new
camera.
On a sunny Friday, went to Sedona, Arizona to wander
around the city getting ready for Christmas. Many were taking pictures of the
red rock formations, the Christmas decorations, and of dogs dressed in holiday
garments. Being a strictly Black & White film user, red rocks are always
monochrome for me, Christmas decorations seem to be non-creative, and dogs
wearing silly hats, well, kind of silly.
So, wanted to find that street
photography moment for which B&W photos give a special character.
On the main street of Sedona, there is a bronze statue of a
local cowboy painter Joe Beeler. It is slightly larger than life and faces the
mountain and red rock formations. It is a perfect tribute to the environment
and its cowboy heritage. The statue has probably been photographed a million
times, but when I was walking by there was a man in a cowboy hat sitting behind
it reading a book.
I immediately saw the scene in B&W, and decided to find
an angle that would make the man as “bronze-like” as the statue. In order to prove
that he was a living soul, wanted to find an indicator while respecting the
identity of the book reader.
At that very moment he turned around to show his white
beard, and that was what I needed.
Technical details:
I used a 50 mm Zuiko lens opened to f11. Since I use slow film, the speed was
set to 1/125 second. With such small f-stop all corners of the frame will be in
focus. So, to give the printed photo a bit of blur and movement I used a 1950’s
Russian Jupiter -3 camera lens instead of an enlarger lens. My enlarger is from
the 1950s as well and it has a Leica 39 mm lens mount so I can use camera lenses
from that era instead of enlarger lenses. While an enlarger lens is flat-field
(meaning it will not distort the photo when printed) using a camera lens
provides distortions outside the center of the frame. Used as such each camera lens
has its own distortion characteristics. The Jupiter lens not only distorts but
also gives a swirling feel to the distorted areas. Only one other lens I have,
the coveted 1948 Carl Zeiss Jenna 7,5 cm Biotar f1.5 gives such swirl to the
actual photo! See the tree in the left upper quadrant for Jupiter’s effect.
Now my two “statues” were surrounded by movement!
December 9, 2017
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017
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