RE: new year's resolutions, photographically speaking

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From: Joachim Oppenheimer (joachim@microdsi.net)
Date: 01/02/03-07:06:17 AM Z


Anyone interested in portraiture is well advised to study the work of
Philippe Halsman who fashioned 2 4x5s together using the upper one as his
view device while he had his subjects (e.g. Marilyn Monroe, Richard Nixon)
jump up and down, or had cats jump out at Salvatore Dali, etc... Joachim
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Shannon Stoney [mailto:shannonstoney@earthlink.net]
> Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 1:11 AM
> To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
> Subject: Re: new year's resolutions, photographically speaking
>
>
> Jon wrote:>
>
> > Do you disappear under the dark cloth to make your large camera
> portraits?
> > What do you think that does for the "ambience" of the shoot?
> Even covering
> > your face with a 35mm camera changes the dynamic when shooting
> people. I
> > almost never cover my face when shooting people with the Diana
> - preferring
> > to maintain eye contact with them while holding the camera at
> neck or chest
> > level, shooting intuitively. I have found shooting like that
> becomes more
> > like having "a gesture" with those concerned.
>
> I think this is very true. This is one of the things I like about the view
> camera: that you are not behind the camera when you actually take the
> picture. You do have to get under the dark cloth for a minute of course.
> But then you stand beside the camera and talk while you take
> their picture.
> The problem with that for me has been that often people are not
> looking into
> the camera ever; they're looking at me or something else. It's
> nice to have
> someone gaze soulfully into the lens.
>
> The story about the Diana camera was interesting: that people relax more
> because it looks like a toy.
>
> I have a little russian medium format camera, a Lubitel, that you have to
> hold at your waist in order to focus it, and it also seems to be less
> threatening than the gun-like 35 mm camera that you have to "aim" at
> somebody.
>
> --shannon
>
>


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