The Photophile

18 Oct 2009

Hartbeespoort Dam Wall

The western entrance to the dam wall which has a single lane road across the top. The arch serves as a decorative entrance to the wall itself and at the other end the road goes through a short tunnel cut through the mountain. Completed in 1923

Nikon F801s, Nikon 50mm F1.8, Ilford XP2 Super 400 C41 process B&W film, developed and extremely badly scanned by my crummy local lab. Edited with the Gimp.

Hartbeespoort Dam Wall Railing

Nikon F801s, Nikon 50mm F1.8, Ilford XP2 Super 400 C41 process B&W film, developed and extremely badly scanned by my crummy local lab. Edited with the Gimp.

13 Oct 2009

Abstract Art From Film

The bokeh from my 50mm f1.8 Nikkor is just simply wonderful!

Nikon F801s, Nikon 50mm F1.8D, Fuji Superia 200 iso cheap consumer film, developed and extremely badly scanned by my crummy local lab. Edited with the Gimp.

4 Oct 2009

Featured Blog - My Vintage Cameras

One of my favourite blogs is by someone called Kathleen Johnson. She is an avid film shooter with medium format and 35mm cameras, including a Holga. Her "Faith on Film" series is really worth a look.

You can find her blog here: My Vintage Cameras
My favourite photo on her blog is here: Cactus
She has an interesting perspective on blur here: Embrace The Blur
A very interesting technique here: Experimental Methods, Whole Roll: Single Subject

...and shes one of the nicest people I have "met" in Blog Land.

Tell her I say hi!

Potchefstroom Post Office

24 Sept 2009

Life is Fragile

Be thankful every day for health, life and happiness, it all hangs on a very thin thread.

24 Aug 2009

What is a Photophile?

Ever wondered what a photophile might be? I didn't, but I found out anyway:

photophile

a.,n. (organism) loving light.

This is from here: http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/difficultwords/data/d0009983.html

That got me to thinking about photography, and how we capture light and preserve it in one format or the other. Then I got to thinking some more, not something I do too often, and it struck me how we, as photographers, have a great responsibility towards humankind to record what we see in such a way that it can be preserved for generations to come.

We need to capture our moments in time with due diligence and reverence for posterity, with the weight of responsibility pressing us to become masters of our art and "get it right" in the best way possible so that people in the future can look at what we have preserved and feel and experience the emotions, beauty of creation, and frail human spirit that is displayed in front of their eyes.

All that combined with imprinting our own artistic fingerprint into this incredible art we call photography, and we can realise why there are so few real artists of the medium out there that catch the eye and stand out from the rest of the happy snap crowd.

One day I hope to attain to the kind of photography that make the elite few stand tall, people like Henri Cartier Bresson, Ansel Adams, John Sevigny, Roger Ballen, Alfred Eisensteadt, Dorothea Lange, Edward Steichen, etc. Folks who dedicated themselves to the pursuit of that one momentous slice of the human spirit and creation that moves us to feelings that emanate from deep within our souls, and stir us to look at our world with different eyes.

Now you can see why I try not to think too often! ;-)

9 Aug 2009

Used Colours

20 Jul 2009

Horizontal Vines

Nikon F801s, Quantaray 35-80mm zoom lens, 2 years expired Agfa black and white film.

3 May 2009

Klerksdorp Dam

I took these last year and thought I already posted them, but look as I might, I can't find them on this blog... let me know if you find any of them.

12 Apr 2009

Why you shouldn't buy that R10 000 digital camera

I just bought this great Nikon F65 slr camera, complete with a very nice mid range zoom, tripod and camera bag for only R600 (US$59)!

Almost everybody on the planet is going digital crazy and flogging fantastic cameras like this for next to nothing. It was first released by Nikon in 2001, so it has all the latest slr tech built in, like full matrix metering, fast auto focus, full compatibility with the latest VR lenses and iTTL flash units, etc. Get one and you will have gotten the bargain of the year! It takes great pics and will only be limited by your own ability.

The following were taken with the F65, on cheap Fuji 200 ISO consumer film, developed and badly scanned by my local lab:

I have to get my own scanner, the lab over exposes everything they scan... and very crummy resolution etc. as well. I fixed these a bit with the Gimp.

Ken Rockwell has a good review of the F65 here.
Nikon has a page on it here.
Bought the camera here.

My question once again is: why spend R10 000 on a new digital camera when you can get a great film camera for so much less money? The end result, a photographic print or scanned image, will be exactly the same anyway... unless you scan at any lab in the Centurion Mall.