The Wolf, The Lamb and Harmony in Black and White Through Classic Lenses

 

 

A Renaissance-man friend, who harmoniously navigates between medicine and the arts, sent a picture of a water colour nude painting his elementary school art teacher had given him as a present. He commented “I love the richness and warmth of washes of colors”.

Although I started with water colour, most of my painting is in oil and acrylic. The attraction of water colour remains that of the unpredictable for me. The way colours could run, mix, and escape what the painter intended to achieve. When using oil, especially acrylic paint, the artist remains in full control.

But what makes a water colour work most attractive to me is the harmony that the unpredictables achieve.

So, this morning I was thinking about the science and poetry of harmony.

Of course, as a photographer, I cannot think about harmony without recalling Newton’s seminal work Optiks where in the 1660s, he carried out experiments of sun rays’ reflections and refractions through prisms. This is how we know about rainbows as he identified the ROYGBIV colours (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet). He stated:

“…if the Sun’s Light consisted of but one sort of Rays, there would be but one Colour in the whole World”

But a rainbow, or harmony in colours, is never exclusively a scientific observation. Indeed, Goethe, as a philosopher, suggested that observed colour was not simply a scientific measurement, but a subjective experience perceived differently by each viewer. He stated:

“Colour are light’s suffering and joy”

Interestingly, the discussion of colour preceded both Newton and Goethe, as Aristotle tackled the theory of colour by bringing in religious interpretation. He proposed that colour came from heaven and that all colour came from darkness and lightness or black and white. In some way, Aristotle addresses colour as if a reflection and refraction of the human condition, or perhaps vice versa.

(A good discussion of the above history can be found on this Smithsonian library page “The Science of Colour” https://library.si.edu/exhibition/color-in-a-new-light/science)

 So, with the scientific, philosophical and religious background to the theory of colour and the concept of harmony, my mind migrated to the Hebrew and King James Bibles. I grew up with the imagery attributed to Isaiah 11:6 where the image of peace, calm and harmony is the lion lying down with the lamb.

Well, a little research let me to realize that neither the Hebrew Bible (The Tanakh) nor the King James Bible mention the lion lying down with the lamb. Indeed The Hebrew Bible says:

And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together

And the same lines in Isaiah 11:6 in the King James Bible (1611) read

The wolfe also shall dwell with the lambe, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calfe and the yong lion, and the fatling together

 

… All this brought me back to black and white photography! In the past 55 years I have, a street photographer captured fleeting moments from around the world on miles of film that probably would cover part of the world at list once. I looked for a couple of shots that may represent harmony in the context of this discussion.

The photo on top is from Santa Fe, New Mexico I took with a 1960s Nikon F fitted with a same era Nikkor 105 mm lens. A man was metaphorically describing harmony through his dog, cat and a white mouse. When I saw the scene, the mouse was on the back of the cat. By the time I clicked, had moved on the neck of the cat expressing the hope that a dog, a cat and a mouse can co-exist without fear. In harmony.

 

Then I thought of a photo I took in a 1880s forsaken Arizona cemetery. The grounds were unkept, overgrown weeds and cactus covering the few gravestones half sunk in the ground under the weight of time. There was a wooden cross, lonesome and without any markings but somehow represented a calm to my moment.

Unkept grounds and unwept cross.

I had a 1955 Soviet/Ukrainian Zorkii camera, a Leica clone I have used for decades. The lens is a 1956 Jupiter-8 marked in Cyrillic, ЮПИТЕР-8, a postwar Soviet copy of the prewar Zeiss Sonnar 50mm f/2 for the Contax.

Here is the camera and lens:

 

I like this lens for portraiture as wide open it gives the characteristic Sonnar swirls to the background of the subject in focus.

This time, my subject was the lonesome cross with no markings. And the 65 year old lens gave swirls and light flare that I was not anticipating, as if the running colours in water colour painting.

 

And the circle was completed.

 

July 28, 2021

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2021

The 4th of July 2021 in Prescott, Arizona

It has been very hot in the Southwest but nothing could stop the gathering of thousands on the city Square. I wanted to capture a few moments of this post -2020 pandemic year 4th of July celebration, but given the heat decided to take my dog for an early walk before the large crowds gather.

This year, my goal was to take photos of the environment representing the celebration, rather than pursue street photography of those present.

So, I took my 1970 Nikon F with same year's 135mm Nikkor-Q Auto lens for a cumulative age of 100 years in equipment between camera and lens!

First, as we were walking downtown, a wild cottontail rabbit ran by reminding me that we were indeed in the desert and that it was already 80 F degrees just after sunrise.

The photo at the top of this page captures the identity of the city -- historically a frontier town of the Territories, where cowboys lived life with seemingly infinite land and big skies. But today, I wanted to capture the 4th of July, so a poster of the Constitution helped me frame the photo with "We the People".

Next, to continue with the theme of identity, I wanted my Nikon F to "see" statues around the square in the early light. Here is part of a Sheriff's statue looking at the boots of a fallen colleague. The writing reads:

                                                            "Lest We Forget"

Finally, the statue of  two soldiers topping the memorial for the local soldiers who gave their lives in Vietnam. Opening the lens wide, I wanted to blur the background but still show the chairs already in place for the day's parade.

By now many of the vendors were opening their tents showcasing sculpture, painting, metal work and food. I found this composition of tonal range and gray shades harmony. A perfect setting for testing my expired B&W 100 film!

We had already walked more than two miles and my dog was ready to walk the last mile and get home where he would eat his ice cubes and lay two feet away from a floor fan. 

So, we passed by an antique store that has been on our daily walk path for now more than five years. But the early light was soft to capture both foreground shades and the eclectic nature of this store. By now I had captured cowboys, Vietnam soldiers, a Sheriff's statue, a woman getting her vendor tent ready, and now a Civil War wagon!

Perfect symbolism for the 4th of July.

But symbolism was not yet to end. Behind a metal fence, someone had piled stones perhaps driven by an artistic impulse. But from my angle and the early morning shades, that edifice, in contre-jour, looked either like a cowboy from the back or three hats piled atop of each other.

Now I was ready to see what would come out of my trusty 50 year old Nikon F that has traveled the globe more than once with me and NEVER stopped performing! In fact it is my only camera, out of a few dozen, that has never been repaired or adjusted after running miles and miles of film through.

Here is my most beloved time capsule of mechanical perfection.

July 3, 2021

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2021

Early Morning Walk in Taipei, Taiwan

Some of the feedback I received from my June 16 posting was about the photo of Taiwanese military police raising the national flag  The readers appreciated the angle and framing of the photo as all pictures on the Internet seem to show the soldiers equidistant from the flag pole.

So, I went back to my unpublished Taiwan photos and found a few that had special meaning to me. That is, they were taken very early in the morning, during my walks before I started work at 7:30 am.

The first two photos have an additional story associated with them. On that trip, sometimes early in the 1990s, I had taken a Pentax 1000 35mm and a Yashica 124 medium format cameras with me. Given the age of my cameras, I always take a backup. 

That morning, I went to the wet market where animals of all feather and skin are sold along with non-meat foodstuff. It was very dark and humid when I got there and the sellers were getting their stands ready. This photo, taken with the Pentax 1000 and ASA 100 film captures that moment.  

On my way out I passed by a small temple in front of which dogs had yet to start their day. The motorcycle represents the most popular mode of transport in many Asian cities, and the combination of shade, humidity that could be felt from this photo, and the dog's posture reminds my of many a morning walk I have taken in that lovely city.

Ok, here is the additional story associated with these photos. The next morning, when I was to reload the Pentax with a new roll of film, the winder jammed and I could not release the shutter. I put it back in my suitcase and used the Yashica for the rest of the trip.

Back to Baltimore, I called a few camera repair places. The answer I got was the same "we do not work on antique cameras." Antique! It is from 1979 and has a light meter! Anyhow, I put it on the shelf and forgot about it.

A couple of years ago, I got the nostalgic urge to use it again. This time I check YouTube for repair advice.  And there it was -- the most common weak point to the camera and its predecessor the Honeywell Pentax, which I also have and has never jammed for the past 40 or so years. And the repair was simple once you take the base plate off.

Now my Pentax is as delightful to use as in the 1980s when I acquired it.

The following picture is from the same trip but with the Yashica 124. I took it on an early climb of the small mountain behind the Grand Hotel where I was staying. There was something anthropomorphic in the posture of these mops, and abundantly Asian.

All three of this photos represent daily scenes from Taipei. But perhaps I was able to capture them with a personal touch and angle.

 

June 26, 2021

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2021

Unpublished Photos Acquire New Meaning With Time __ Taipei, Porto, Barcelona and Ferrara

It is 104 degree Fahrenheit (40 Celsius) outside and the Southwest is praying for rain. It is a good day to put some order in my studio.

One of my favorite activity is to ope a box written "rejects" on it. These are photos I actually printed under the old enlarger but did not like the result. Often because they do not tell a story or the story has been told in other photos I have taken. I like going back to decades-old photos because during that time the world has changed and even a technically imperfect photo now is a testimony or a testimonial of days irreversible.  For a street photographer that is photojournalism at its best.

I chose four photos that now have a new meaning relative to the moment I had taken them. All four are from the 1990s or 2000, but I have not written the exact dates on them.

A. Taipei, Taiwan. I traveled often to Taiwan as an academic and researcher the entire decade of 2000. Before starting my work days, I used to take my camera and walk the streets just after sunrise. This photo is from the main square and the moment is the flag raising daily ceremony.

Since these days much has changed in the geo-politics of the region. I am not sure if the ceremony continues and which flag is now raised. But this washed-out photo is a frame in a time that has surely changed.

B. Porto, Portugal. An evening shot through the window of a charcuterie. I always used ASA 100 film, so the shadows and some of the focus are unappealing. But it was a time when crowded shops hardly had space for people as all the food was either hanging from the ceiling or piled out in the aisles. And no one wore a mask then....

C. Barcelona, Spain. This is an evening in Las Ramblas. The singers were there for the tourists, of course. As I looked at this underexposed photo, I recalled reading an article about this famous three-lane street in 2020. Residents were almost happy that there were no tourists because of the pandemic and they were quoted saying "Las Ramblas are ours again!". A silver lining in all that befalls upon us.

D. Ferrara, Italy. This photo has a haunting character to it. I took it in the court of the Ferrara Cathedral a magnificently Romanesque style cathedral dating from the 12th century. During all my trips to Ferrara I stayed in a pension across from the cathedral and recall the joy of having espresso on the minuscule balcony every morning.

This photo is of a man dressed as a woman and holding a doll en guise of a baby. "She" had a small pan to collect donations impersonating a homeless refugee. Of course everyone was generously donating till this young boy saw the face covering move and exposing a dark and full beard! I clicked just before "she" covered her face and was asked to leave.

Since that day, thousands and thousands refugees crossed the Mediterannean Sea for Italy, Spain and Greece.

.... I have thousands of reject photos and even more unprinted frames on miles of 35mm and medium format film negatives. I hope the heat and the drought in the Southwest break soon so I do not looking through these next.

June 16, 2021

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2021

 A. Kazandjian, 2021

Increased Contrast to Increase Emphasis -- Photos from Austria and Maryland

A friend who saw my last posting from Jerome, AZ, wondered why the contrast was high in the two photos I posted.(https://liveingray.blogspot.com/2021/05/street-photography-is-back-visit-to.html)

It is always a challenge to print on paper using an enlarger in the darkroom and then scan them to be able to post on the internet. Sometimes digitalization  changes the tonal range of film photography. 

But that is not a bad thing if the message of the photograph, especially when street photography is looking for a story as the main goal (at least mine) of street photography is photojournalism not the technical quality of the photo.

So, I looked for photos I had taken where high contrast does give a certain flavor by enhancing the story. I chose four photos from Vienna, Austria and one from Baltimore, USA.

A. The "surprised wife" look, Vienna. This was a night shot with ASA 100 film and a Minolta Autocord TLR camera. The husband is enjoying the lingerie vitrine as his wife seems to thinking "Really?" Given the light reflections on the glass, the high contrast brings forth the surprised look of the woman as she is the only one in focus.

B. Street parade, Vienna. This photo follows the side looks of the previous one. It was early evening and the light was dim. Still, the looks of the man with the sword and the young soldier behind him "contrast" nicely with the cool indifference of the woman next to them.

C. Christmas Market, Vienna. This is a busy picture, so I wanted to make the man in the white coat stand out. Higher contrast brought up some shadows. He seems to wonder how that tree got to be so tall!

D. Bridge over the Danube, Vienna. I like this over exposed photo as I had no time to adjust aperture or speed. I wanted to get the dark silhouette of the man under the bridge. Of course a runner moved in the frame as i clicked and an overdressed woman's slow walk created a great contrast between the three of them. The street art on the side of the bridge makes the Danube calmer than usual.

E. Post wedding gathering, Baltimore Inner Harbor, Maryland. Here the two bare feet women attracted my attention as they seem relaxed after the ceremony. But when I developed the film and printed this frame, I realized that there is a juxtaposition of the two man on the right. Actually one of them looks a bit "devilish" with his posture, shiny shoes and ears that stick out! That juxtaposition would not have stood out without the high contrast I gave to it.

Clearly, what I saw in my viewfinder was not exactly what these photos ended up emphasizing. but street photography is not like taking landscape photos when you have time to adjust all the parameters to capture what you planed. I see a potential for a story, and I click. 

What ends up on film is what I discover when I print a frame. It is that discovery that makes film photography and darkroom room even more exciting.

May 20, 2021

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2021

Street Photography is Back -- A Visit to Jerome, Arizona

 

 

More than a year after many of my cameras stayed idle and waiting, life is getting back to the streets and I am ready to hang an old camera from my neck and walk these streets.

There are a few towns in Arizona where a photographer will, with little perseverance, find a frame to capture. Jerome is one of these towns and I have posted photos from this artsy and funky town before (https://liveingray.blogspot.com/2019/04/woman-at-window-in-jeroma-arizona.html). I took my 1970s Yashica 124 Twin Lens Reflex camera and headed to the mountains.

A few in Jerome stopped and asked about the camera. “Is it digital?” or “Can you still find film?” were the most common curiosity questions they asked. I told them the camera is a must to take photographs but that it does not take them by itself. Like a racquet does not play tennis. And that the old mechanical cameras require a true partnership with the photographer as they do not have any pre-programmed modes for different moments – one has to prepare focus, speed, aperture and framing before asking the camera to release the shutter. And then, you know if you took the photo or not after developing the negative in a darkroom and printing photos on paper under an enlarger. “It takes many hours of darkroom work to see if the shot I took came out ok “.

Most people had the look that said “Why would one do all that when you can use a fully programmed digital camera and see the pictures instantly on the LCD screen?”

… So, as I was hoping for a photo that reflects both Jerome and the times we are in, I saw a lovely woman looking at me. Well, I assume she was curious about the camera. I took a quick shot and walked toward her. We talked a bit about photography as she was intrigued by my anachronistic attitude to capturing moments on film. She told me she still has her first Brownie camera.

Then I saw the motorcycle with an old brick building in the background. I thought how the “iron horse” is a freedom machine allowing the rider to go wherever he wishes. It was a good symbolism for how people feel keen to do after a year of isolation, with or without an iron horse.

When I developed the negative strip, there were 5 frames I liked out of the total of 12 one gets on a 120mm film shot in a 6x6 medium format camera. The one of the lovely lady at the outset has all the flavor of a vintage photo taken through a 50 year old lens. She is slightly out of focus and that adds to the charm, I think.

The motorcycle shot is perfectly in focus while the bokeh of the photo and the brick building make it a bit surreal. I thought of a fishing boat photo in a harbor at sunset. I always think that these boats are dreaming of the open sea as this iron horse is dreaming of endless winding roads in the Arizona mountains.

A few words about my cameras:

For almost 50 years now I have been using mechanical cameras. A few of them have survived and still work. These are Kievs and FEDs from the Former Soviet Union days. Along the way I have collected more than 40 cameras, all considered classics although many of them like the Leica rangefinder cameras, the Rolleiflex TLRs and the Nikon F and F2 were workhorses for war and peace photographers.

Regarding TLR, which I especially like for street photography as looking down into a camera affects people much less than lifting a camera to your face and looking at them, my favorites are Minolta Autocord and Yashica. I do have a Rolleiflex from 1948 but I am not inclined to run miles of film pellicule through it.

Why? Not because it is not still perfectly capable of great results, but because I have duplicates of my other TLR cameras and have learned the essentials of camera repair over the years. So, out of my 40 some cameras, about 15 are “organ donors”!

My Yashicas are no exception. Here is my Yashica 124 which works like a 21 jewel Rockford Railroad pocket watch. I have now used it for over 30 and ran enough film strip through it to circumvent most Arizona mountains, and it feels like pulling a rabbit out of hat every time I use it. Or, as in this photo, a hare out of a horse’s hoof!

The Yashica 124 has two “donor” Yashicas – a Yashica-Mat from early 1960s and a Yashica 124 G from the 1980s. The Yashica-Mat is quite collectable because the earlier models were equipped with 75mm Lumaxar taking and viewing lenses believed to be manufactured in West Germany. All following models of Yashica TLR cameras have 80mm lenses made in Japan. 

Over time I have taken mirror, focusing screen, focusing hood and a few springs from these cameras and built the 124 to my specs.

I even built a shade for the 1984 Yashica G which is now on the 124!

I am delighted to get back to the streets and towns with my cameras. I am sure there are many human behaviour moments awaiting photographers like me.

 

May 9, 2021

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2021

When Bokeh is a Fancy Name for Intended Blur

 

Film photography is attempting a renaissance as digital cameras have not always been able to produce that visual feel film has reached in a century of trials. And I do not think it is nostalgia although watching 1940s B&W movies often transports me to that place where I do not need to see colour to live art and artfulness.

 

I belong to those who still roll their own film, use only mechanical cameras, who have a Hansa Pro enlarger and who after submerging millions of 8x10 papers in the developing tray, and are like a kid on Christmas morning.

 

Of course a 1948 Rolleiflex TLR cannot do anything a throw away digital camera can do. A 1953 Leica III rangefinder can hardly escape glare and flair. And the meter of 1969 Nikon F Photomic could hardly come close to reading incident light after sunset! Yet, we marvel at what photographers in the 1950s and 1970s were able to produce with mechanical shutters, heuristic light meters and lenses with 7 or less straight blades.

 

One of the signature collaboration between the photographer and mechanical cameras is the creation of blurred backgrounds also known as bokeh.

O the subject of the photo.

 

What is bokeh and why do we cherish it?

 

Simply, it is the purposeful blurring of the background while focusing on a subject. Clearly such a technique is great in portraiture when one wants to “eliminate” the visual distraction any background can create to the printed photo. In other words, it is the manipulation of reality to create an intended reality by making an individual stand out of a crowd, of perhaps a forest behind him or her.

 

Of course, today’s computerized cameras have many settings one can adjust for the camera and its synchronized wonder lens to create a background blur. But when a 1938 collapsible Leica Summar, designed with only 6 elements of uncoated glass was able to produce the dreamiest bokeh I had seen when I started street photography, one has to wonder about the collaboration between photographer and the lens. Not the camera, but the lens, because it is the lens that produces the blur intended by the photographer.

 

Is a blur, by any other name, a pleasant bokeh?

 

No. There is almost a romantic lexicon to describe a blur. It can be creamy, or dreamy. It can be abrupt or harsh. It can yet be distracting or unpleasant. Finally, there seems nothing more nerve wracking then a “heptagonal shapes in the blur” bokeh!

 

So, this takes us to the difference between a blur and a bokeh. Since the whole concept is an evaluation by the viewer, the subjective nature of the difference is:

                 A bokeh is the quality of the blur, not the blur itself.

 

Hmm.

 

To illustrate here are a few bokeh types from my own works, using various lenses and cameras.

 

A.    Evening market in Morocco

I had a Minolta Autocord TLR as people in the market would ask for payment if they see a tourist lift a camera to their face.

This woman was doing temporary henna tattoos and I saw her creating a design around the belly button of a tourist. I opened the lens to f3.5 and probably at 1/25^th second speed as it was getting quite dark.

 

Verdict. The Rokkor lenses are wonderful and I got the creamy and uniform background blur I intended. But there is a big and inverted “S” sign on the ground behind the face of the tattoo artist. It is very distracting so, the bokeh is of marginal quality.

 

B.     Amsterdam

I had a Yashica Lynx 14E on that day. I loved this fixed range rangefinder although the lens-imbedded speeds changing mechanism is prone to malfunction.

The light at the end of tunnel was perfect to shade the people walking into the tunnel. I wanted that eerie feeling of alien visitors into the background and it did work well with a 1/25^th second speed at f1.4.

 

Verdict. The bokeh is pleasant and it achieved the effect I wanted about aliens entering the tunnel.

 

C.    Baltimore Inner Harbor

I was using a 1954 Soviet/Ukrainian Kiev rangefinder camera on that evening with a Jupiter 12 35mm lens.

This young man was handling a snake and allowing passers to touch it for a small fee. It was quite dark and I wanted to totally blur the background. So, lens open at f2.8 and speed at 1/25^th second.

 

Verdict. The background did blur well, but upon printing I discovered the head of another person behind the hand of the snake handler! And this made the bokeh unappealing and distracting.

 

D.    Lake Anna, Virginia

The Mamiya 645 has been my most reliable “medium format” camera for nearly 25 years. I have traveled around the globe more than once with that simple camera hanging from my neck primarily because of one superb lens – the Mamiya Sekor C 80mm f1.9. It is a fast lens for medium format and one that has amazing bokeh.

 

This photo proves it. It was taken for symbolism of an empty nest and time burning away. I do not recall the speed setting but the aperture was f1.9.

 

Verdict. It is a smooth and creamy bokeh. More than that it balanced the foreground with the background with detail, definition and contrast.

A photo I like a lot.

 

E.     Signal Mountain, Johannesburg, South Africa

Again travelling with the Mamiya 645. Signal Mountain is a spot where folks go to watch the sunset. As I was climbing up, I saw this lovely woman typing on her laptop. The last rays of the sun were filtering through her dress.

 

Verdict. One of my favorite street photography shots as I hardly had a second to click. The filtering light was perfect for an f1.9 aperture. The image is both sharp, she is perfectly in focus and everything else is left to the imagination.

 

So, is bokeh a big deal in photography?

 

In my case, it is more a reward (when it is pleasant and pleasing) when using a mechanical camera and a lens from yesteryears. Then, it is truly a testimony to the skill of the photographer in recognizing the limitations of the lens and in framing the shot to maximize the goal of isolating the subject.

 

But at the end of the day, it is for the viewer of the photo to decide. Is it a blur or is it a blur of quality that makes you remember the photo.

 

Till then, there will be harsh, unpleasant and distracting blurs!

 

 

 

April 26, 2021

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2021