Single Coated

Or that's what at least the first photo on this entry suggests to a good friend of mine, images of those good old times and magazine advertisings of Campari, Cinzano et al...

I was not here in those years but sometimes I think I could have enjoyed them, mainly when one book or magazine or movie from then falls in my hands and I can't stand from having the feeling that everything back then was more simple, less complicated and in some sense, more pure.

Or maybe it's that I'm dangerously approaching 30 and I have the sudden urge to stop the world from turning and get off, just as the great Groucho said...

Well, at least I can keep using 50's cameras, that's something, I guess ;)

We all could agree that night has definitely something special, otherwise a ton and a half of beautiful movie scenes, writing passages, poems, loves, crimes, thoughts and ideas would just cease to exist.

Night imagery has always had such an attractive component, but IMHO, that beauty is even more impressive when it's recorded in black and white.

As somebody said, if a photography is a 2D abstraction of a 3D world, a black and white photo is indeed the abstraction of an abstraction.

And with some night scenes being some kind of abstration by themselves, capturing them in a black and white photo is... well you get the idea ;)

Not really a lot more to say here, so just hope you'll enjoy the pictures and maybe will try to go shooting b&w in your camera while other's sleep.

Good night !

I must admit I like contact sheets, I like the way they put together a sequential set of moments, and to be honest, I even like how they look like.

What it's said about them in Bill Jay / David Hurn book On being a photographer by Lenswork publishing is also true, they can be a magnificient tool and a very powerful memory trigger which can act as a time / space machine and put yourself in the exact place and moment of the ongoing action.

Yeah, I sure like them a lot.

Wanna check ? Some months ago I found this site featuring William Gedney's work including many, many contact sheets, you can visit them HERE (link)

Enjoy the trip !

Some time ago a kind visitor left a really interesting comment on one of my photo on Pbase, it was one featuring one of the back then just introduced Barcelonian tram trains, with their futuristic and sleek look.

What that user pointed out was the camera I used for it, a 1950s Agfa Isolette III folder (in fact the same model that opens this same blog), and how ironic it was that something more than 50 years old was used to take such a futuristic shot. Probably the designers of that camera never thought their 'childs' would be taking snapshots of a back then so distant future...

I had a similar episode last week, when I took my 'last' camera for a walk around the Barcelona Born Market zone. The camera was the one opening this post, a Voigtlander Bessa-I 6x9 folder featuring the highly desirable Color Skopar 105/3.5 lens. I spotted this one at the first Sant Boi flea market, and I really think I got a cracker here, not only the lens first class, but the camera was also in tip top working condition and with spotless glass, not an easy find at all.

What I really found fun while taking these shots is how people reacts when they see somebody pointing them with such an... odd looking artifact. One thing is for sure, they don't take you seriously AT ALL, and that allows for some interesting approaches that would probably awake suspicious looks if done with a, let's say, more normal looking camera :)

So, again, a 50 years old machine gets connected to our daily futuristic present. As if it had been sleeping or frozen for that time and then suddenly was found inside a buried time capsule and put again to work.


And by the way... if you never tried and you have the option... medium format just rocks ;)