After The Ball Is Over - With Fujifilm

Did goe to the Great Charity Steampunk Ball at the Government House ballroom on laste Saturday and was greatley entertained.

Also greatly relieved as the image will show. it was the first time that the Moriarty Portrait Camera was put to use in earnest. Some 280 images were recorded with it of ball-goers and general views. About 30 of those images have been suppressed by Government Order but I am confident that the others will give satisfaction.

Readers of this blog may know of the Moriarty. It is a camera that has a Fujifilm lens fitted - currently the 18mm f:2 version - and records images upon an electronic sensor that is 18mm x 24mm in size. Under normal circumstances in the field it might utilise a setting of 400 ISO, though when it is in use in the ball with the associated Nikon SB 700 flashes it is turned to 800 ISO.

The Forbidden Images were taken at 3200 ISO and are free of most defects - really very pleasing images. But you won't see them. Government Order.

The Moriarty connects directly to one of the SB 700 flashes which is set to Manual control. The other SB 700 is hand-held with a restrictor on the front to direct the output. It slaves off the connected flash. Unfortunately it also slaves optically off other flashes but if you are at a venue that has few other flash users, you can manage it well. Just put your thumb over the sensor window at the side and it goes blind.

As you can see, the Moriarty is fully capable of producing Autochrome colour plates as well as daguerreotypes. Of course it must be used in conjunction with and Adobe software program and an Alien Skin plug-in to reveal this but you knew that already.

One necessity for any studio work, apart from the studio and a really big Aspidistra in a pot, is a good tripod. As the recipe in Nadar's photographic cookbook says, " Let it be a  good size and of the best quality. Do not neglect the adjustable head as it will save you many hours of retouching time if the subjects are straight to begin with.". I use an ancient Tiltall but can also recommend the sturdier Cullmann devices as well.

Please note that all the images were taken in sRGB colour space and jpeg. 

Art For The Masses - With Comrade Camera

Ignore propaganda from camera industry. Will tell you truth.

Is easy. No matter how hard they make it sound, is easy. Ignore specification sheet and forum on internet. Stop over-thinking photography.

Look at picture at top of blog. Simple picture - arch in front of Scented Garden in South Perth. Warm day, few minutes to spare,  quick frame of the arch and press button.

Open in Photoshop Elements. Press Alien Skin button. Select abstract and press button.

Art.

Turn round and look at Perth skyline. Repeat.

Art.

Any camera, any card, any computer. Set on automatic and press button.

Comrade Camera

Fine Art - Coarse Art - A Modest Proposal

It is a great privilege to work in the photographic trade in a capacity that brings me into regular contact with artists. Every day I learn something new from reading or seeing their work. Sometimes I like what I see and sometimes I don't, but I benefit either way.

You see, I like to copy them. I am a derivative photographer. I base my work upon that of others, trying to emulate their style and subject matter. Of course I am never at the cutting edge of the profession, but given the fact that I take aspirin regularly, that is probably a good thing - I'd bleed all over the shop.

The best part about being a copy-cat is you can choose original artists who are long dead and whose relatives live on the other side of he world and can't sue you - then you can go to town. Thus my Dutch Masters period as per the leading image. Of course there are costs associated with this sort of thing - I had to find a Dutch girl and a handful of oranges. And the Alien Skin Art 3 program for the computer.

Can this sort of thing be made to pay? Well, it depends upon your marketing skills. Real Fine Art photographers know that it is a challenge to find the clients who will part with money for their images. Even down to the basic kittens-and-unicorns revolving nursery bed-light market, no-one wants to pay for pictures. After all, every Art Director in the world can operate a point and shoot, so where is the skill, eh...?

I have decided that it will not pay in regular terms. But the skills it teaches and the inspiration it provides means that I will be far better placed to produce work that really DOES sell. To this end I practise regularly to select, cut, blend, and smooth in Photoshop Elements 10. All one needs is to get the faces of rich people under various lighting and superimpose them onto embarrassing and scandalous situations. The threat of exposure is all that is needed. One can generate quite a decent little income, as well as some interesting conversations, by this means. It pays to collect the money in small bills.

I am still a little non-plussed at the recent client - a well-known senior official in the church - who initially expressed deep outrage and shock at the photo-blend of him with Napoleon's mistress but ended up ordering three 8 x 10's and two dozen wallet-sized copies. I think it was the pink ribbon I photoshopped onto him that did the trick.

Nothing To It - With Alien Skin

Those of you who read the post that welcomed you to the nineteenth century...look it up in the older posts...will remember that I advised you to get Alien Skin software to supplement your Photoshop program. It is easier to show than tell, so here are a few examples.


First, a studio shot from the 1860's. I'm sorry the image is so poorly preserved, but it was part of the household effects of Mrs. Olesen in Atlanta, Georgia and was barely saved when Sherman burned the place down.

The second shot is a little more complex. Apparently Atelier Mutze did a whole series of shots intended for the macabre market in Berlin in the late 90's. These were sold at a little kiosk on the Brocken on Walpurgis Night but never caught on with the general public. They went on to much greater success later with their presentation folders of  views of the ruins of Fort Vaux and Fort Douamont tastefully hand-coloured. So far none of these have been seen on offer in the Perth collector's market.

The last is an autochrome taken by M. Henri Crapaud of the star of the Folies Bergere - Mme. Veronica Baudoin. She also can be seen in a number of paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec and was the inspiration for a small war on the border of French Indochina.

We shall bring more of these to your attention as they are discovered.

Welcome To The Nineteenth Century - with Alien Skin

I am not quite so old as to remember the first photographic processes...as being new on the market. I do remember Kodak and Anscochrome films. and once purchased a fresh roll of Kodak Verichrome Pan 616 film but that is about as far back as it goes. I was fortunate to be issued with film in a double dark holder for my first professional job instead of a glass plate and a bottle of liquid gun-cotton.


 But the fascination with the early processes still continues. People still want to do ambrotypes, calotypes, tintypes, lithotypes, and daguerreotypes to feel what it must have been like in the early days. Wise students of history will look at some of the chemical lists and workflow procedures for these early processes and wonder if feeling like the early days will involve being poisoned or burned or dead...lots of photographers suffered just that.


I have found a better alternative for myself.

 Note, I have done some of the early chemical stuff myself - all to no great artistic effect. None of it was easy, none of it was cheap, and none of it seems to have lasted. Even my efforts to find chemical alternatives to the more disasterous processes was not successful - you can do very little with ex-Czechoslovak traffic camera film.

But on to the better way. I invested some years ago in a plug-in computer program by the Alien Skin people in North Carolina called Exposure 3. It was a B/W conversion and colour simulation program that added onto my Photoshop Elements and gave me a number of early process looks to digital images. I recall there were about 8 different things that it did in monochrome and another couple of of dozen in colour.

Well, they have a new Exposure 4. It is way ahead of even their original program. Leave the Kodachrome A and the Anscochrome and the Lomo film colour alternatives for another discussion. Look intot his program on the net and look at the B/W Vintage section. It is the best simulation of early process I have ever seen.

Each process division seems to have about 6 alternate masks and effects, ranging from soft focus to scratches to vignettes or plate holder intrusions. There are at least 7 processes covered - remembering that there are at least 4 orientations for each image, that is 148 chances to make a modern digital image look as if it came anytime from 1839 to 1910. If you also figure that some of those original processes were reverse images, well you can see the possibilities.

Photographers who wish to really wow their friends might also care to look at the website for the Amazon Pickle Works or Dixie Gun Works. They do modern reproductions of Union cases for daguerreotypes. Of course there is also a good supply of antique-style framing in gift and specialty shops.

Oh, can't forget the Autochrome. The program also does a simulation of Autochrome. Move over M. Lartigue!