Joanne Dahl - Kodak Ektachrome 800 pushed to 1600

The name Joanne Dahl is in my memory as a vague fog that in spite of it all is somehow sharp one. I have no recollection on how I met her.  I do know that I photographed her in 1990 because there are some slides (fast Ektachromes, ISO 800 pushed to 1600) with that year stamped on them. At the time I was obsessed with the idea of pushing Ektachrome do get strange colours and contrast. But I also photographed her with b+w film on a Nikon FM-2 and with my medium format Mamiya RB- 67.

Another reason for the session was to experiment in not using a studio flash. I was to shoot from the hip with my two Nikon FM-2 unhindered by a tripod. But I did use studio lights for the b+w Mamiya photographs.

Kodak T-Max 3200 ISO - Nikon FM-2

 There are a few things that to come to mind. To begin with it seems that I wrote about her many times here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

I have written here my firm opinion that shooting with multiple cameras gives me more variety as opposed to previously using motor driven film cameras or doing the same with a modern digital camera.

Most photographers who own digital cameras and particularly those with Fuji cameras have the option of setting their cameras to imitate film. I am not sure this is useful as one may think. If you are a young photographer would you know of the results obtainable by pushing Ektachrome 800 one stop? 

Three of those slides here would not have been reproduced well as hard copy back in 1990. There were not readily available scanners and the reproduction materials available in photo labs could not bring out shadow detail. The internegatives used to make prints from slides lost a bit on sharpness. The Cibachrome direct from slide printing brought increased contrast and the ultra glossy look for me was a turnoff. The only really good method (no longer in use) was the expensive dye-transfer which was the darling of the advertising industry. In the 30s and 40s photographer Paul Outerbridge pioneered the colour-carbro which for the first time almost accurately displayed the colour of human skin. 

Mamiya RB-67 Ilford FP-4

So I look at these pictures in this blog and I realize a few things:

1. Joanne Dahl was amazingly beautiful.

2. My attempts at not using a studio flash were not a bad idea and point on what I should be doing now.

3. Film and a good scanner are a good combination. And with a good inkjet printer (I have a Canon Pro1) I can almost not feel a longing for the darkrooms I had or used beginning in 1962.

Mamiya