Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Yuliya at the computer Mamiya RB-67 Pro-SD 90mm lens Fuji FP-3000B Instant b+w film August 1, 2012

I have been thinking and writing about this a lot lately. It is about the paradox of discovering old new tech in a world that functions on new tech of the latest (today’s) variety. A few days ago I posted a picture of my granddaughter Lauren  here and because I had the blog linked in facebook many (more than the usual one or two) people commented on how striking or nice it was.

Yuliya at the computer May 2008

I took the picture in a back lit large transparency display at the Vancouver Planetarium. I correctly understood that if I placed Lauren in profile the resulting image possibility was one of relative low contrast. This happens to be the one situation in which my iPhone 3G (and other iPhones, even the better and more advanced ones) excels at.

The image above reversed to become a positive in Photoshop

The image is a result of an iPhone capture. But because it is with the oldest model is it still high tech or yesterday’s technology? I did not use (anathema!) Instagram to improve the picture. Relatively benign tweaking in Photoshop (my version is 8 years old) sharpened it a bit and helped me bring in a bit more shadow detail on Lauren’s face.

Then on another day I will post in my blog (with a link to it in facebook) and nobody will notice the picture even though the level of lighting and old time, but very good old time technology came into the taking. I find this fascinating.

The image above with contrast enhanced

Only in the last three weeks did I find out that the Fuji Instant print colour peels (to call them that as there is no technical name for that part of the Fuji (roid) which you peel away from your instant print) will with a pretty straightforward procedure provide me with a strange but pretty decent negative. In a distant past I used to scan the Polaroid peels with success. The image on the peels was permanent. The image on the Fuji peels fades away in minutes. To scan them you must place them face down (and sticky wet they are) on the bed of my Epson V700 Photos scanner. After that I threw most of the peels away! What a loss in retrospect! Fuji makes a 3000 ISO instant film (FP-3000B) that is a wonder to use with my Mamiya RB. Unfortunately the negative peel cannot be bleached to produce a clear negative. I have tried that.

The image obove cropped

Fortunately! Yes, fortunately the negative image on the peel is permanent. I will walk you here with the transformation of a peel that I took today of my friend the professional dominatrix, Yuliya Kate. She came to my house for a re-shoot of her red shawl series photograph. When I took it she had a cold. Normally I do not do re-shoots of this type. But can one deny a woman who orders you around? No!

I will have the Ektachrome 100G processed tomorrow and I will put up the picture to replace the one here. I do agree with Yuliya, that the second time around pictures (judging from the colour Fuji instant print) is better.

The image above reversed (mirror image) to reflect view I saw in my camera I processed the image with Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 in Time Machine - cyanotype

But with Yuliya here I suggested we reprise one of my favourite pictures of her where she sits full nude by my computer. I love this picture. I asked her to wear something for the picture. At first she resisted doing the picture. “Why do something again?” My answer is that you cannot and that I love the variations that come into play and the undeniable fact that time does not stop. People will look different. What you see here is the transition from the one Fuji Instant b+w 3000 ISO negative peel. I did shoot b+w Kodak Plus-X and Fuji 1600 ISO colour negative film with a pair of Nikon FM-2s but those images will have to wait. Meanwhile there are these. Notice how the negative solarized a bit so that lower part of her body is still a negative. It’s these variations produced by obsolete high technology of the past that excite me to keep taking photographs and not wanting to cruise the malls, watching the news or otherwise wasting my time.

And besides, after taking our pictures Yuliya and I sat in the garden (sunny it was) and we drank very cold Italian  Moscato and did away with half of a very large and very sweet watermelon.

The dominatrix smiled and so did I.