Sunday, January 07, 2007

A Portrait of Life

I have been trying to challenge myself lately shooting portraits with my view camera, I can only imagine what Karsh had to go through, setting up his 8 x 10 camera and lights, for me I am keeping it simple, just natural light, just one thing at a time. In this case I used my 8 x 10 Tachihara with a 5 x 7 reducing back and the 270mm Schneider lens, this gives a perspective of little more than a normal normal 50mm lens on 35mm film camera, ( even in this digital age, isn't it interesting that we still refer to 35mm film cameras when trying to visualize a different format ? ).

Although its hard be spontaneous while trying to capture an expression with a 5 x 7 view camera, I like the approach where I can have eye contact and a conversation with my subject, in this case, Mac Tipton is a well known Metchosinite on Vancouver Island, I photographed him outside of his blacksmith shop at his home where he has created many fine pieces of metal work.

1 comment:

Colin Corneau said...

Never mind it being hard shooting spontaneously with a 5x7...it's real work doing in with 35mm!