From: Carl Weese (cweese@earthlink.net)
Date: 08/30/02-12:17:41 PM Z
Thom,
When Ron Wisner introduced his Pocket Expedition 8x10 camera he told me that
he'd included a Deardorff-style sliding front panel because I'd been nagging
him about its absence in his designs (Moi? Nag?) and that he'd also included
another Deardorff design feature, because Nick Nixon had been after him to
do it. The feature is a gear track that lets you focus, assuming you're
using a relatively short lens, say 240mm, by shoving the camera back with
your thumb--much faster than turning the focusing knob. He said he'd watched
Nixon focus a Deardorff that way while street shooting and was amazed at the
speed.
That said, I think "candid" is a stretch for Nixon's work. Like other
people-photographers working in 8x10, like Sally Mann and Jock Sturges, he
does a lot of directing of his subjects, with a result that has the feel of
naturalness.
---Carl
--
web site with picture galleries
and workshop information at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cweese/
----------
>From: Thom Mitchell <tjmitch@ix.netcom.com>
>To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
>Subject: Re: The Pictorial Nude and Pictorialism Generally
>Date: Fri, Aug 30, 2002, 9:59 AM
>
> Speaking of invisibility, Eli Reed, a great photojournalist and also a very
> large man, whose hands virtually hide the leica he uses, is able to blend
> into the background and appear to be inert. Visible ,but completely part of
> the environment. Lack of movement, patience, traveling light, knowing your
> equipment and waiting for the right moment. Better photojournalists practice
> this especially when they aren't trapped by daily deadlines tasked to get
> "the shot" on a story. I always wondered how Nicholas Nixon was able to take
> "candids" with his 8x10, especially focusing and framing. My background in
> photojournalism draws me to that kind of usage of the 8x10. Anyone know more
> of the mechanics of his work?
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Carl Weese" <cweese@earthlink.net>
> To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
> Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 12:32 AM
> Subject: Re: The Pictorial Nude and Pictorialism Generally
>
>
>>
>>
>> > Carl, let me suggest that when you say you "know" what the small camera
>> > "is for," you err. I don't think in fact ANYONE knows what ANY camera
>> > "is for." That's what the excitement is about.
>>
>> Of course some genius may come along and invent something really and truly
>> new to do with a camera of any size. I'm waiting. I'll steal from her
> right
>> away. And then make it my own.
>>
>> >
>> > As for invisibility... That's a lot harder for a man than for a woman.
>>
>>
>> That's actually a matter of craft--the invisibility. But that's not the
>> right word. My former point was the lack of threatening presence:
>> invisibility is literally impossible but practically you can do an
> amazingly
>> good imitation. It's a learned technique. As you know, I'm not exactly
>> small. But my partner has pointed out that at particular times when I was
>> totally immersed in a small camera project, I'd gotten so into the manner
> of
>> my shooting 24/7 that she'd lose me at the grocery store. Couldn't find
> me,
>> while looking right there. How many other six foot four people was I
> hiding
>> among?....Tina just came and looked over my shoulder at the computer
> screen,
>> and said, "yes, it used to drive me crazy the way you'd disappear at the
>> supermarket in west philly" (that would be 1971). It was a craft skill
> that
>> I'd carefully practiced for years. It helps you make good pictures.
> Snapping
>> away in a crowd is, I suppose, a way to be invisible, but what will you
> get?
>> Snaps of a crowd.
>>
>> I spent my entire adolescence, which would be the decade of the sixties,
>> taking pictures in NYC nearly every minute I wasn't in school. Times
> Square,
>> The Village, whatever. As I grew out of adolescence I realized how boring
>> all that was, even though the pix were selling like hotcakes (and for
> about
>> that much money) as stock through Black Star. Strange to take a psychology
>> class as an undergrad and find the textbook illustrated with some of your
>> own pictures. Hey, I got forty bucks for that! You have to move on. When I
>> realized I was making good pictures, pictures that would not sell as
> stock,
>> I knew I'd grown up, at least a little, as an artist.
>>
>> ---Carl
>
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