Author Archives: randcollins

Cash for Clothes: Midnight in Seattle’s University District

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Cash for Clothes

Most of the time, we adjust color subtly, bringing out a nuance here and highlighting  a hue there.  Occasionally, an images has the potential for a wilder palate, with bright colors that call out for us to stick our heads in the paint pot, grab Curves with our hands, and manipulate wildly.

This midnight picture of a University Avenue used clothing display, with its bright window against the nighttime street and garish display of mannikins called for drastic measures.  I shoved Contrast to the max, then twisted Curves like a pretzel, darkening the low values to diminish the street’s presence (unintentionally highlighting the two ghosts who paused briefly during the exposure) and accentuating the colored brightness of the window. Local Contrast Enhancement from Astronomy Tools brought out the clothing detail.  The final product is a picture with something to say!

Taken with the 1950 Voigtlander Bessa on a tripod, time exposure at f/22 on Kodak VC-160.

On Being In the Picture

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The Interview

We spend a lot of time behind the lens. Occasionally – and often because a classic camera attracts attention, and gives us a special legitimacy – we get a chance to become part of the action, and are privileged to be in the picture rather than watching it.

Wandering the streets of Montreal near McGill University, I chanced on one of the professors being interviewed. Sensing a photo opportunity, I brought out my Voigtlander, whose classic Art Deco lines caught the attention of the cameraman. As I caught this image, he saw a fellow professional, and turned to me, asking, “Say, would you mind holding this umbrella for me?”. I found myself standing next to the professor, just out of the frame, holding the umbrella to diffuse the scorching Montreal sun, as he said, “Just a little higher. Now a bit to the left… That’s it! Perfect! Now just hold it there…” as the professor read from her notes.

As the interview ended, I asked the cameraman if he would mind taking a picture of the two of us with the umbrella:

Rand and the Professor

My cameras bring me riches far beyond mere images. The greatest of these is the link with so many people and the adventures that come with them. Some are big adventures, like a magical night with Loretta Lynne’s family; others are small, like a chance encounter on a Montreal street. Yet all become colorful threads in the tapestry of my life, and I am richer for them. The cameraman told us that he recently became a Freelance Cameraman and was thoroughly enjoying his new career. He took some beautiful photos of us, and I knew he was going to be a successful professional photographer.

Photographer’s Note: Carry a notebook! Not only is this useful for recording places and exposures, it also provides a safe place to store names and addresses. Both the professor and the cameraman requested prints, and in the year it took me to review the scans, I lost their cards.

Roots

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Roots

Black and white photography is all about patterns and lines.  Despite their complexity, these roots in one of the remnants of Vancouver Island’s old growth forests caught my eye for the flow of their lines as they intertwine toward the eventual straight upthrusting lines of the trunk.

Natural beauty can often be overwhelming, particularly for photographers.  Sometimes there seems to be nothing to shoot, but more often, there is too much.  This is often the case in my verdant and prolific coastal forests.  Much as an hours’ walk through this forest fed my soul, a sense of frustration grew as I thought that somewhere I should be able to extract a fine art image.  Yet there was always a bush in the wrong place, a fallen trunk in the way – nowhere was there an uncluttered pattern.  At these times, Galen Rowell and Art Wolf run through my mind, and I think sadly, “A real photographer could make something out of this!”  The solution is to find and capture a single element from a complex whole, and build one’s image from that small nugget.  And be patient; give the world time to speak to you about how it wants to be seen.  If you can, revisit the place again and again, in the morning, in the afternoon sun, in the rain, in the midst of a storm when the trees and bushes are tossing about.  Eventually, it will speak to you and you will know what to do.

This is one of the few nature images that I have taken in 6×6 format with the Ensign 820 , and it works well in this case.  It it good to lock yourself into a new format for a roll, and be forced to find images in new places.  XP-2 competently picked up the delicate gradations of line and shadow. Local Contrast Enhancement brought life to the image, followed by minimal cropping of the edges to remove an undeveloped strip on one side.  A significant increase in contrast and a slight drop in brightness accentuated the lighter fine lines of the bark and dropped out distracting detail in the shadows, highlighting the flow of the roots.  Fortunately, the lighting in this forest glade was diffuse sunlight filtered through the forest canopy high above, so there were no highlights to deal with.  On this static subject, I maximized depth of field at f/22 and used a long exposure.

Joe’s Tire Hospital: Flexible Formats

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Joe’s Tire Hospital

The ability to change formats is a desirable feature in a vintage camera.  Obviously, those with interchangeable backs, such as the Graphics, can readily use different formats.  In addition, a number of folding roll film cameras, such as the Voigtlander Bessa, have the ability to switch between 6×9 and 6×6 cm formats. Such cameras can be identified by the two red windows placed at different positions on the back.  Unfortunately, many manufacturers accomplished this goal using drop-in masks that are almost always missing, and templates for remanufacturing these masks are nonexistent.  However, a few camera designers, notably the British Ensign, used built-in flaps that are an intrinsic part of the camera.

Square format, besides stretching film, works well for street and people photography.  With the flaps in, the Ensign 820 yields 12 exposures on a standard roll of 120 film, and the format is ideal for this image of a tire technician bending over his machine.  I am always fascinated by the workers who form the foundation of our little town of Duncan, and Joe’s Tire Hospital has been an institution here for many years.  Joe is long gone, but Ken, the present owner, dispenses good cheer and sage advice on every topic relating to cars and rubber.  While getting my tires rotated, I seized this dynamic image of one of his staff preparing a rim.  The greatest difficulty with this shot was that the lighting, which came from one side through the open garage door and from overhead fluorescent lights, was of marginal intensity for a moving object, but f/8 and 1/50 second (on the slow side for a 100mm lens), plus a steady hand captured a sharp image when he paused over his machine.  Though low level, the light was soft and semi-directional, filling in the complex shadows and creating an image that required very little manipulation.

Le Piano Rouge – Montreal 2010

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Le Piano Rouge

Seizing the moment is critical.  Montreal’s financial and Old Town districts are alive with street musicians, artists, and just plain quirky character of all descriptions.  Wander the streets with you camera in hand, shutter cocked and aperture set for sun or building shade, and be ready!

If you can, make your image tell a story – or better yet, make the viewer begin to tell his own story.  I managed to catch the energy of this busker by being prepared to shoot in an instant.  He was just setting up to play, so an interfering crowd had not yet gathered, and I managed to connect both him and his amused and admiring female friend in the background.  With this connection, the image begins to tell a story, and we begin to wonder about them.  Is she his girlfriend? Or just a passerby who stopped on the steps of Le Piano Rouge to watch?  Will they go inside in the evening to share an intimate dinner from his day’s busking?  These questions draw us in, make us linger, and make the picture greater than the busker himself.

Here, an eye level finder is a must.  Much as I love my cameras from the 19-teens and twenties, the tiny finders of that era, designed for waist-level use, are almost impossible to use accurately or quickly in a situation like this.  Most miniature plate cameras, and and a few of the 1920s roll film cameras, have folding wire finders that can be used for sports photography.  These function well in action situations, and have the added advantage of attracting interested bystanders, one of the most rewarding aspects of vintage camera photography.  Furthermore, most subjects are happy to be photographed by someone with such an unusual camera!

As with most of this Montreal sequence, this was shot with the Ensign 820 with the Ross Xpres lens on Ilford XP-2 at f/11 and 1/200 sec.  The image required only local contrast enhancement and minor adjustments for brightness, contrast and Curves despite the harsh summer light.