Lucy

Posted on February 19, 2023 by Robert

the business end of my camera lucida – over a century old

Toronto. The Camera Lucida was often used by artists to view both the scene in front of them and the canvas in their lap. This marvellous little optical device  (Lucy) was invented by Wollaston around 1806. It is forever tied to photography and the idea of the negative/positive process. In the early 1800s a well to do young Englishman enjoyed both travel and dabbling in the arts as an amateur painter. His fertile mind was constantly experimenting with ways to improve the processes he used.

Late in the year 1833, he found himself in Italy by the shores of Lake Como sketching a landscape with the help of his ‘Lucy’. He later wrote in his diary:

“One of the first days of the month of October 1833, I was amusing myself on the lovely shores of Lake Como, in Italy, taking sketches with Wollaston’s Camera Lucida. In honesty, I should say, attempting to take them, but with the smallest possible amount of success. For when the eye was removed from the prism, in which all looked beautiful, I found that the faithless pencil had left only traces on the paper melancholy to behold.

“I then thought of trying again a method which I had tried many years before. This method was to take a camera obscura and to throw the image of the objects on a piece of transparent tracing paper laid on a pane of glass in the focus of the instrument. This led me to reflect on the inimitable beauty of the pictures of nature’s painting, which the glass lens of the camera throws upon the paper in its focus-fairy pictures, creations of a moment, and destined as rapidly to fade away.

“It was during these thoughts that the idea occurred to me: how charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably and remain fixed upon the paper! And why should it not be possible? I asked myself.”

Back home in England, the artist succeeded by 1835/36 in creating permanent ‘sun drawings’ and the negative/positive process to aid him in painting. The gentleman was William H Fox Talbot. The same gentleman was astonished to learn of Daguerre’s January 1839 announcement of the Daguerreotype process as the first successful means to create a permanent ‘sun drawing’.

NB: The above journal entry is included in André Jammes’ 1972 book on Talbot in the Photography: Man and Movements series published by Verlag C. J. Bucher in Germany and shortly thereafter by Collier Books (Macmillan Publishing) over here. It is well worth the read if you are at all interested in Photographic History.

NB: The title of this post brought to mind a Beatles song on the Sergeant Pepper album, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds“

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come to CAPA

Posted on February 18, 2023 by Robert

Hypnotizing – by Bertin Francoeur

Toronto. Taking a breather from historical topics, we move on to modern day photos at CAPA. For many years, the Canadian Association of Photographic Art (CAPA) has been a member of the PHSC. The association is a collection camera clubs, not unlike the O3C.

Members of CAPA are active in the pursuit of eye-catching photography with modern(ish) gear. You can read their latest newsletter here (or read it directly if you are a member).

The photo at left is a composition by Bertin Francoeur of the Trillium Photography Club in Burlington called  Hypnotizing. Bertin recently won Gold for this shot. Well done!

Note – the title of this post is a riff on the saying, “Come To Daddy“.

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closings and openings

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Robert

Nadar élevant la Photographie à la hauteur de l’Art (“Nadar elevating Photography to Art”). Lithograph by Honoré Daumier, appearing in Le Boulevard, 25 May 1863

Toronto. An optimist would say as a door closes, another opens. That is, as technology goes ahead, old jobs and industries die off and new ones take their place. Photography is no different. When it was announced in 1839, a French wag was said to comment that photography made the portrait painter redundant.

In fact photography opened family portraits to far more people. When the only recourse was to have a painting commissioned, few could afford the time or cost. With photography, the far shorter time needed for making a ‘likeness’ and relatively small cost opened the door to many, many more subjects.

This post shows a caricature of the French photographer nick-named Nadar in a balloon in the mid 1800s. You may have come across his name before – in 1858, he was the first person to take an aerial photograph (he used a balloon since the motorized airplane had not been invented).

 

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Morse and Photography

Posted on February 16, 2023 by Robert

Samuel F B Morse in 1857

Toronto. Samuel F B Morse was both an artist (painter), and teacher. Closely involved with the North American telegraph, his name lives on as the co-inventor of the Morse Code.  This a code known to telegraphers and amateur radio operators alike.

Morse is also famous (or should be) to photographers. Morse happened to be in Paris in 1839 after Daguerre made his iconic presentation via M Arago. Being an artist, Morse was fascinated with the concept of ‘light painting’. So much so that he met Daguerre in person and later wrote to his younger brother’s newspaper, the “New York Observer“, promoting the Daguerreotype concept in North America helping to raise awareness of that most famous of photographic processes. Caution: much of the linked article for the New York Observer addresses the later use of the name as a newspaper associated with Donald Trump, not it’s original newspaper name (long ended) which was association with the Morse family.

So the next time you hear/see the name ‘Samuel Morse’, think photography as well as telegraph!

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outta da blue

Posted on February 15, 2023 by Robert

Konica C35 courtesy of Kona Markets, Japan via Ebay

Toronto. After my girls were graduated (about 1999), I bought them each a Konica  film camera with built-in metering, flash, and 35mm f/2.8  lens. One camera was red; the other blue. Both came with a matching case.

One daughter was using hers to capture scenes in Barcelona when ‘out of the blue’ a thief ran up and snatched the ‘camera’ as it hung from her knapsack. Ironically she had taken the little camera out of its case to be more ready for action leaving the thief only the empty case.

These little cameras saw lots of use over the years – sadly one sans case … Konica made many versions of the C35 over the years including the two beautiful coloured ones that gave my children great pleasure. Visit our fairs or auctions and you may find one for your collection (or use if you are into film technology).

 

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ol’ two (three) eyes

Posted on February 14, 2023 by Robert

Cover of Stereo Realist Manual c1954.

Toronto. The art of stereo predates photography. Every half century or so this niche art becomes popular once again and companies publish papers and books; make movies; and even make cameras devoted to stereo. Even Kodak jumped in at one point with a 35mm Kodak Stereo Camera (c1954-59). I borrowed one from a PHSC member to try out a few shots.

Mid last century, an expensive and well built 35mm camera called the Stereo Realist was produced and sold by David White Co. of Milwaukee (David White Company has more details shown here). At the time, it was more than a Leica!

When Morgan and Lester of “Leica Manual” fame wrote their manual shown here, covering not only the Realist, but stereo photography along the lines of the many Leica Manual editions with chapters by guest authors. Many of the illustrations are actual stereo photos readily viewed in 3D using the included viewer. The introduction was by Actor Harold Lloyd – a well known stereo enthusiast. In 1976 “Photographic Memorabilia” even reprinted the instruction booklet for the Realist.

Note: The title of this post is a play on the nick-name for Frank Sinatra – “old blue eyes”. Here is one of old blue eyes’ favourite songs, “Strangers in the Night“.

 

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I see, I measure

Posted on February 13, 2023 by Robert

an outing at Craighleith beach in the 1950s – a Kodak moment!

Toronto. Photography by its very nature demands a certain amount of light. Surprisingly, measuring light was not an easy task until well into the last century. From photography’s inception, books and pamphlets gave suggested lens settings and timings for a variety of outdoor scenes. In fact, large companies like Kodak added an instruction sheet to each roll of film well into the last century.

Calculators came along to simplify the decision of exposure. Some meters were invented that let the amount of light determine the suitable camera settings. One such meter was the extinction meter. You looked at the subject while peeking in the meter and used the barely visible number as a reference. Unfortunately, the human eye grows quickly more sensitive in darkness possibly making the reading erroneous.

When selenium cell meters came along, for the first time the amount of light could be converted to electricity to cause a meter to record a setting. Great for daylight, but no value in dim light situations. And the size of the selenium cell was large.

This changed with cadmium sulfide (CdS) cells. In their case the resistance varied with the light rather than any current being created. With a suitable circuit and battery, the light meters worked well into the darkness.

Initially selenium and later CdS cells were used in meters that slid into accessory shoes and connected (usually) with the shutter dial. Setting the shutter would allow the meter to show the necessary f/stop for a given film speed. In time these became built-in meters, automatically changing the camera settings so the camera had to be set to ‘aperture priority’, ‘shutter priority’ or ‘program’ (a pre-selected sequence of shutter and lens settings).

Today smartphones do this automatically, freeing the photographer to concentrate on the subject matter and framing.

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a book for the bug brigade

Posted on February 12, 2023 by Robert

beetle photo from cover of a 1970s Kodak book

Toronto. In the days of film photography large manufactures produced not only advertisements for their products but many booklets, books, brochures, pamphlets, etc showing how to do various photographs using a manufacturer’s products.

Kodak was no different. Their written materials were legion. This soft cover book (available in hard cover  too) from 1977 offers good ideas for creating close-ups and macro shots on film. Originally it was released as two separate brochures/booklets. Techniques include ways to photograph insects and other small objects so the details may easily be seen.

For many years, minicam lenses offered focussing to 1 metre. To go closer, you were offered many accessories from the maker of the cameras or a third party who made and sold accessories. These included extension tubes, supplementary lens, bellows, framing devices, distance gauges etc. Some even included a mirror box to convert rangefinder cameras to SLRs for longer focus length lenses.

I have often enjoyed close-ups of blossoms and insects, etc. like the bug shown below.

close-up of a raspberry ‘bug’ I found in our garden in 2004

You may spot a copy of this book at one of our auctions, fairs, or sales to add to your collection – or offer you  some new ideas if you are one of those ‘niche’ photographers preferring the look of film over digital.

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our February 15th presentation via ZOOM!

Posted on February 11, 2023 by Robert

Toronto. Whether you are a professional or amateur photographer, or a collector of cameras or images, this ZOOM presentation will be of interest to you. To register, go to Eventbrite. Any questions? Contact our programs co-ordinator, Celio Barreto, at program@phsc.ca. Please note, older Eventbrite programs by the PHSC are available here. Just click on the “Past (nn)” button.

NB, the poster below is a jpg file without live links – sorry.

presentation by Ms Lauren Regier

 

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just another name

Posted on February 10, 2023 by Robert

Street Photography by Steve McCurry courtesy of the Street Photographers Foundation

Toronto. The photo at left by Steve McCurry caught my eye. To me the name Street Photographer always meant a lone soul who scoured the city streets to snap photos of willing tourists, or wandered the streets like Fred Herzog recording the look and life in our downtown world.

Note: If you read National Geographic in the 1980s, you saw a cover shot by McCurry whether you recognized him or not. Forty years later I can still remember the young girl with the startling blue eyes!

I was surprised when George Dunbar emailed me the link to the Street Photographers Foundation with its amazing list of well known names not usually considered as Street Photographers (yet their very photos say otherwise). I only recognized Fred Herzog and his work in Vancouver as Street Photography. I knew many of the other names but never thought of them as Street Photographers!

Take a look at the story titled, “The Best Street Photographers of All Time” and see what I mean. And give a vote of thanks to that energetic old timer George Dunbar for ferreting out this amazing site and sharing it with us!

Note: The title of this post is a riff on part of a line in Janice Joplin’s sad 1970 rendition of Kris Kristofferson’s 1969 song, “Me and Bobby McGee” recorded shortly before her untimely death.

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