Inspiration by Unexpected Error
Thursday, February 02, 2017
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| Isis Solarized - Accidental turning on darkroom light when print was in developer |
In my long
career as a magazine photographer which I began in Vancouver in 1975 I did my
best not to mess up my assignments. I knew that because of the big competition
any error (and not coming back with a useable photograph for publication) would
mean the end of further jobs for the magazine or newspaper.
This meant
that I always took two of everything. I firmly believe in Patterson’s Law of
Photography that states, “Murphy was an
optimist.” If I needed one camera I took two. I had two of my favourite portrait
lenses for my Mamiya RB-67 a 140mm floating element lens. Once while taking
photographs of a very chubby Raymond Burr the main spring of the 140 failed
after the Polaroid test. This meant I had to shoot the rest of my pictures with
a 90mm which did not take kindly to his bulk.
But the
fact is that in photography errors sometimes become discoveries of note. If one
is able to determine where it went wrong (and produced an unexpected delightful
variation) one can repeat the mistake.
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| Tanya - acciidental double exposure- Mamiya RB -67 Pro-SD |
The Mamiya
RB-67 Pro SD has many devices that prevent an accidental double exposure. But
also the camera permits one to double expose if one wants to. The double
exposure here which I took with the Mamiya was purely accidental. Somehow in
spite of the double exposure prevention protocols I managed to find a way
around it!
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| Anosh Irani |
Some
years ago I photographed for close to a year a lovely Japanese/Canadian woman.
She would call me when she had some idea (always very good ones) for a session.
One of them involved her shiatsu instructor. I took many pictures of the pair
in what I was told were authentic shiatsu finger pressures. Because I was not
only using my Mamiya but also a Nikon FM-2 loaded with Kodak B+W Infrared Film
(it involves using a dark, deep red filter, and focusing at the infra red mark
on the lens) I was too busy to note that my camera was crooked within the
large ring-flash I was using. My subject was much too polite to tell me of the
mishap thinking that I knew what I was doing.
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| Olena |
When I saw the results I was
immediately perplexed and then pleasantly surprised. The crooked lens had “read”
the edge of the ring flash. That particular trick is one of many up my sleeve
when I want to suggest the idea of avant-garde in a shot. There is a much better shot than the one that I have placed last so that the folks of social media might not note it and complain This one is perhaps less so.
The most important lesson for me is that in-between jobs (when I got them in those halcyon days of the past century) you had to experiment and test equipment and new methods.
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| Shiatsu |
