Choice Photography

Personal definition

My main project for 2010 is personal definition through both self portraiture and through new perspectives looking out through my cameras.

my flickr folder called Personal Defintion contains old photos and new photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/canuckshutterer/sets/72157623127424557/

volunteer photog at my local museum

selection of photos I have taken recently at the Huronia Museum

November the dull month

The leaves are down and the snow is not yet here and my photographic eye is drawn nowhere in particular. My return to film shooting is lagging. Mostly taking snapshots of the dog. And all those are digital. I am trying to come up with some plan for a number of photo projects to spur me into action over the next couple of months. Here is the tentative list. • Toronto visit on Friday of this month, shoot in downtown area. • rural small town Victorian era houses, overall and details. • self portraits. • local community events. • scan old family prints. • scan slides I took at Syncrude Project in 1974 and 75. • make a list of all my old cameras and systematically shoot a roll of film per month (?) with them. That should net something worthwhile

film bug biting

the bug is back and I am just about to spring into action all the way.....not sure why but the digicams are not tickling my fancy as completely as they once did. I have a roll of HP5 started in my old Nikon F2 with a meterless head on it. Took some portraits with my non-AI 85mm lens. here it is with the non-functioning metered head: The other possibility is likely going to be my Bessa R, rather than one of my old old rangefinders. Although, two old German SLRs are crying to get out and work: a Contaflex and a Bessamatic. I just have to get butt in gear and then soup the negas. More on this soon.... I hope.

macro magic

Thomas Shahan shoots a Pentax DSLR with some old lenses to produce some amazing macro photos, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/opoterser/

Margaret Bourke-White equipment list

In 1941, Margaret Bourke-White returned to the Soviet Union accompanied by her husband, writer Erskine Caldwell. Bourke-White describes what she decided to take along on the trip.

“I spent the entire month before departure planning my equipment and taking lessons in elementary mechanics so as to repair cameras when I was beyond hope of assistance. … My quota of supplies included three thousand flash bulbs, peanut variety, a large supply of film packs, five cameras, twenty-two lenses, four portable developing tanks, bottle of Dk21 fine grain developer, several papers of dressmaker pins, duplicates of every screw found in all the minute parts of my lens mounts and synchronizing magnets, a synchroscope, and a jeweler’s screw driver and pliers. In addition, I carried twenty-eight paper-bound detective stories.

My husband packed one small suitcase with his old corduroy jacket and a few shoes and got an extra ribbon for his portable typewriter. His professional equipment weighted seventeen pounds. My equipment weighted six hundred pounds. “

In Hong Kong on the way to the USSR, she had a shoemaker make custom leather cases with zippers for cameras, flash guns, reflectors and filters.

Shortly after they arrived in the USSR, Nazi Germany attacked.

from The Taste of War, Margaret Bourke-White

great book by a great LIFE photographer

chimping

"chimping: The habit of digital photographers to review their previous shots while holding their cameras at arms length and go "Oooh ooh aah aahh." Meanwhile, whatever they are photographing continues to go on and they are missing all of it."

(found this, not mine) but I almost lost my coffee through my nose when I read it)

Al Kaplan - The Price of Silver - photo memory blog

I met Al kaplan on the photo.net photography forum a few years ago. He is in his 60s now. He was a pro photographer down in Florida for many years. He is amusing, knowledgeable and helpful. Also an excellent photographer. Knows a ton about Leicas and other rangefinder cameras. He is working on a blog of his photos and memories, many in black and white. An interesting place to browse

http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com/

cameras out of storage

I shot some film the other day - did not finish the roll but at least a start back to film. Not to say I am done with digital. The camera was a Nikon Photomic with a Nikkor non AI 85mm f1.8 lens and the film was HP5. The light meter is dead in the Photomic, so I just shot at 2.8 and 1/60 for some indoor shots

I am also looking to restart using my Cosina Voigtlander Bessa R rangefinder with interchangeable lenses. The lenses I have for the R are (nice sound to that sentence) are the Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f1.5, the Voigtlander Classic 35mm F2.5 and a Soviet 85mm f2.0 lens. It is a fully manual camera with an excellent viewfinder and built in light meter.

my new model

her name is Grace