Jeff Gin - 29 November 2023

The Japanese have an artform where the artist upon placing a pencil or brush on paper cannot lift it until finished.

I have a similar restriction these days that entertains me. It consists in taking only one exposure for a portrait. I have had two sessions like these in in the last two weeks. One was the dancer Julian Beairsto and the other today of my friend Jeff Gin.

Julian Beairsto - 22 November 2023

The method has the following settings on my Fuji X-E3 digital camera:

ISO 200, at f-1.7 at 1/30 second with the modeling light (not the flash) of my small softbox close to my subject’s face. I like to use the digital shutter as opposed to the regular shutter of my Fuji as it does not click. My subjects do not know when I have taken the photograph.

The resulting photograph when I download it to my computer is a pitch black rectangle. With levels and with the shadow/highlight app of Lab Colour in my 19 year-old  Photoshop 8 I get a result that I like because the noise (a digital term) resembles the grain of fast film. In my past as a magazine photographer I have always understood that limitation is a fast way towards creativity.

After that first and only exposure I duplicate it into my Corel Paintshop ProXII and use their cyanotype app.

I was very happy with Jeff Gin’s portrait as it was the only way I could thank him for installing my new P&Epson injet printer. He was able to take two nice prints home.

Why do I have a new printer? For me it is a proof and scandal that Vancouver has become a backwater provincial (in the worst meaning of that word) as only one person repairs Epson stuff in Vancouver. My printer has been with him now for two months.

It further suggests that few photographers print their pictures. They shoot photographs with thousands of megapixels and then show them on their phone. They do not seem to understand the pleasure of holding a photograph in your hands.

Thank you Jeff Gin