tenglish/photography: Week 5

The Blad is Back

When I finished graduate school and got my Master's degree, I decided to buy myself a graduation present. I have, for as long as I've been interested in photography, wanted a Hasselblad V series camera. You may remember it as the camera on the cover of that Elvis Costello album.

So I went ahead and bought one from a gentleman on craigslist. And a week later its shutter broke.

To be fair, I don't think he knew he was selling me a not-quite-broken camera, he just hadn't had it serviced in a while and probably didn't use it much. Caveat emptor and all that. But it was still a big blow; I was given a taste of the dream and then had it yanked away from me.

So I sent it off to Massachusetts, to the best Hasselblad technician the Internet could recommend. One month and several hundred dollars later, it came back in like-new rebuilt condition. I was ready to lock and load.

I shot two rolls on Sunday the 22nd. Here are the highlights.

Roll 1 - Rachel in the Window


Portrait of Maud Cook Thomas Eakins, 1895 - image from Wikipedia

Last week I discussed Thomas Eakins, and attempted to emulate one of his paintings. I decided to keep going in that direction this week while trying to apply the key lessons I learned last week:

Don't get too fancy with your composition. If you throw in a lot of context, you'll probably end up cropping it out later. Focus on faces.
Cool it on including the light source in the photo.

I should point out that, with practice, neither of these rules would apply. Eventually I'd like to get to the point that I can masterfully use these elements in my photos, but for now I need to focus.

I took as my inspiration another Eakins painting, Portrait of Maud Cook. It is another fantastic portrait that uses a directed light source to display the subject in a pleasing, if not necessarily flattering, light. Eakins was known for the strong realism in his portraiture, he didn't try to make people look younger or prettier than they were. But for all that, their direct presentation still leaves people looking attractive. I think that's what draws me to them.

I sat Rachel by a window and set about shamelessly ~~ripping off~~ paying homage to Eakins. Like my Yashica, my new Hasselblad shoots in a square 6cm by 6cm format. This can be limiting when you're doing portraiture, as I've learned, because you have to stay a certain distance from the subject in order to properly focus. That tends to leave you with blank space on the negative.

Thus, these shots are cropped to an 8x10 aspect ratio. I am less upset this week about that, though, because I shot these intending to crop them. All that's missing is about another two inches of that grey wall to Rachel's right.

I'm very happy with the way my new lens handled the contrast on this; coupled with the relatively grainy Tri-X film I shot them on, I think they almost have an abstract quality that is similar to the painting that inspired them.

I really like the photo of Rachel holding her head in her hands, and I'd like to claim that I directed her to do that, but that's a genuine moment. She was feeling a little tired and a little frustrated with me for making her sit by the window for so long while I fiddled with my new camera.

Thus, another lesson. I need to work on not only my technical skills, but my interpersonal skills as well. Rachel lets me take her picture all the time, she's used to me--but some people are going to be nervous about having their picture taken.

My "bedside manner" if you can call it that could stand to be improved. I am usually too focused on the technical aspect of the image and not on whether or not my subject is at ease. I think it comes partially from my personality, which is not terrifically gregarious, but also from my background in filmmaking. Perhaps if I were a documentary filmmaker I'd have learned something about putting my subjects at ease, but as a narrative filmmaker the people with a camera pointed at them all want to be there and more often than not have done it before.

Roll 2 - Campus

After shooting with Rachel, I went to the University of Texas campus to play with my new lens outside. Not shooting people allowed me to both use the native square format of the film and also focus more on textures.