JMC lens was/Re: dreamy Nikon lenses
Oh, lordy Peter,
I can't remember where I put an extremely important letter from a lawyer
last week, or the recipe for the cranberry relish I have cranberries
rotting on the stove to make, and I should remember where I read a few
lines on Julia maybe 20 years ago?
When you're as old as I am and have a house crammed with important
evidence from all your goose chases, you may sympathize. For the moment,
I can say only that it was in something biographical about her, that it
may not have been built specifically for being "bad," but had a different
purpose, that the distortion or softness came along for no extra effort,
and she then clung to it.
I'll check one or two sources aroound here I think of (and can probably
find), but... don't count on getting that particular item... (I do however
count on being sucked in near terminally--- thanks a lot !)
Meanwhile, who wrote the book about her and/or the Isle of Wight...I think
the local historical society. There may have been a clue there. I have
the P-F story by Cynthia Larson of her visit there... I'll check for a
clue,
cheers,
J.
On Fri, 18 Jul 2008, Peter Marshall wrote:
Judy,
I'm not aware of JMC having a "bad lens" specially made - do you have a
reference for this?
She did us a fairly long focus lens for some of the pictures, and did
deliberately manipulate (shade) the light, which resulted in longer exposures
(and thus subject movement) but I didn't know she used any special lens,
though it might well have been a landscape rather than a portrait lens.
You can put anything in front of a digital camera. I've taken quite a few
pictures with a Nikon D100 body using a pinhole rather than a lens, and it
works rather nicely with a zone plate.
Regards,
Peter
Peter Marshall - Photographer, Writer: NUJ
petermarshall@cix.co.uk +44 (0)1784 456474
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Judy Seigel wrote:
I've enjoyed this thread, while reflecting that these things (duh!) do go
in cycles... I remember reading Gernsheim's furious contempt for Julia
Margaret Cameron's "dreamy" tableaux, tho he did like her portraits of
famous men.
Somehow the matter came up in a class I was teaching in the '90s, I
mentioned that Julia Margaret had a lens *specially made* to be "bad," and
the class leapt up, almost as one, wanting to know where to get one...
Nobody mentioned smearing vaseline on the lens, tho I've heard about that,
and a friend of mine sticks a magnifying glass in front of some camera or
other and gets a great "bad" image with that (wracking my brains trying to
remember who that was !!!).
But Rudolpho's e-mail makes me wonder what I was wondering already. I
happen to have a Goertz Dagor, and even (think I) know where it is. Can I
fasten that in front of a digital camera... ? I suppose the answer is "try
it," but... any hints?
Judy
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