New York City Noir

Fresnel Results

 

I haven't been posting the past few months and have no excuse other than sheer laziness.  Fortunately, I have at least been working on my photography.

I began using my fresnel immediately after my last post and have gotten dramatic results with it.  I find the fresnel creates a much more dramatic light than I had previously achieved using only softboxes.  The lighting I get now is much more theatrical and works very well with my style.  Bringing it close in gives a very harsh effect that requires burning in on the final print.  Keeping the spotlight further back, and placing it immediately in front of a softbox, gives a much more nuanced effect.  The light is particuarly useful when photographing portraits.

Speedotron 4.5 Fresnel Lighthead

I picked up at B&H today a Speedotron 4.5 fresnel spotlight.  I got it because I'm interested in recreating the lighting for early b&w Hollywood glamor portraiture, especially that of Hurrell.  I thought that the 4.5 would be a good choice for me because my shooting space is rather small.  Also, the 4.5 has a 2400w cable rather than a 4800w.  I think the 4800w, even with the "isolate" switch thrown, would be too overpowering in such a small space.

When I had called Speedotron, at B&H's suggestion, to check availablility, I found out that the 4.5 is being discontinued.  It seems the 4.5 is built on a Lowel 650 chassis which Lowel has already stopped making.  Speedotron only has a few left in stock.

Finally, great customer service by both B&H and Speedotron.

Toning Slavich Paper

 

This past week, I experimented with split toning Slavich paper sepia/blue.  I found that the Bromportrait 80 glossy embossed "silk" surface (above) sepia tones beautifully but does not hold enough of the blue to make use of that color practical.  On the other hand, Unibrom 160 matte surface split tones very well, often more subtly than in the example shown below.

Slavich Revisited

I started printing today for the first time since summer began.  I tried Slavich Unibrom, which is available with a dead matte surface, and got great results.  The only drawback is that paper is very slow and so would be difficult to use with infrared negatives.  Today, I printed Bergger 200 negatives.  Tomorrow, I will try the same paper, but with a silk surface, to print the nudes I did with Angela; those photos were also shot on Bergger 200.  Then I want to experiment with split toning both papers sepia/blue. Both papers are available from Freestyle in LA. 

Using a soft focus filter under enlarger lens

The most important thing to remember about using a soft focus filter under enlarger lens is that it has the opposite effect of a soft focus filter over a camera lens.  When the filter is over the camera lens and exposing the negative, the highlights bleed into the shadows .  When the filter is over the enlarger lens and exposing the postive, the shadows bleed into the highlights, visually more pleasing, to me at least.

Recent Photo Shoots

 

I photographed my friend and great model Li this past weekend. I have worked with Li for years.  She has always been totally professional, as well as beautiful and creative.

I shot six digital exposures of Li on my DX200 as "polaroids," that is, to check the lighting and exposure before shooting the b&w film.  There's only a one-stop difference in metering between the digital and the film.

 

The previous weekend, I photographed with Angela, a very professional and reliable fine arts model from the East Village.  Again, I only shot a few digital exposures before continuing with Bergger 200 b&w film.

Nikon SB900 Speedlight

I bought the Nikon SB 900 Speedlight from Harry at the Nikon counter at J&R today.  True to its advertising, J&R matched B&H's web price.  The J&R staff, in general, are very knowlegeable about the system, which is now almost entirely digital.  I bought the speedlight primarily to use on the D200 but I also intend to shoot with it on the F100, though that camera's not part of Nikon CLS.  

I want to try photographing faces with direct flash to get the same stark effect Diane Arbus got in her photos, the kind of shots that laid bare the perversity below the surface normalcy. Weegee photographed that way too, and the style was perfect for his bullet-ridden corpses.

To get that forceful an effect, though, I'd probably have to take the flash off TTL and move it manually to a more powerful setting.

Cornell Woolrich

It was Cornell Woolrich, with his series of novels containing the word "black" in their title -- Black Alibi, The Bride Wore Black -- who actually invented "noir" back in the 1930's and who was the total master of urban paranoia, always with an innocent young hero and his girl fleeing through the city at night as sinister forces conspired against them. He also wrote Rear Window and Waltz into Darkness. 

In a biography of Steiglitz by Richard Whelan, I came across a great quote: 

"[New York had been] built up now to a pyramidal splendor, crowded, immutable, and terribly, terribly deathlike... It is a city in which man has almost completely disappeared; despite all its metallic precision, it is like an enormous graven image of some very ancient civilization in which all signs of humanity have withered and everything is wrapped in silence."

Harold Clurman, America and Alfred Steiglitz

Customer Service at B&H Photo

Any photographer located in NYC -- or planning a visit -- should be aware of a potential problem while shopping in store at B&H. As far as I know, all items listed as "in stock" on the store's website are, in fact, in stock at the huge warehouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  The problem is that many are not available at the store's 9th Avenue location.  To find out actual store availability, it's necessary to check back day after day and each time navigate one tedious multi-choice voice menu after another

This might not sound like such a big deal.  But photographers working in Manhattan have traditonally relied on a variety of immediate resources if supplies or replacements -- whether it be extra batteries or a new lens -- were needed during a shoot or shortly in advance. 

My own story was that I wanted a Nikon 50mm 1.4 prime lens which is often back ordered everywhere.  If I didn't buy it as soon as it became available,I'd be out of luck again.  On the other hand, I wanted to be able to go in a store and actually hold the lens in my hand before buying it.  Hey, I'm only a short subway ride away.  And there's no point paying shipping charges when I'm already on Manhattan's West Side.

B&H did email me as soon as the product became "available," but I had to call back two days running to find out if it was in the store.  It wasn't.  On the third day, I asked to speak to a manager.  The man didn't call me back until the next day, but he was a gentleman and told me on a voice mail that not only was the lens in stock at the store but also that he had reserved one in my name. I thought that, at least, was excellent customer service.

B&H is probably the most professionally run business I've ever encountered.  Everyone I've ever dealt with there has been honest, courteous and helpful.  I realize its web based business must be immensely profitable.  But I would suggest that B&H remember its in store customers at least to the extent of updating its website to show availability at Ninth Avenue as well as on the web.  I think we derserve that much.  I've shopped at B&H since the 1970's when they were still located on Worth Street downtown and have spent many thousands of dollars there over the years.

Western Skies

The quality of light is much different in the West than East.  The above photograph was actually taken in the late afternoon in sunny hazy skies from an overlook in Santa Fe, and that was pretty much how it appeared on the contact sheet.  Leaving Santa Fe a couple of days later, though, I saw from the highway a thunderstorm over a mountaintop that looked almost exactly like the pic above.  By burning in the image for twice the normal exposure, I was able to transform the sunny afternoon into something more menacing that more closely resembled the scene I had seen from the highway.  It was the detail in the cloud structure that enabled me to do this.

Nikon 50mm 1.4 lens

I picked up a prime lens -- a Nikon 50mm 1.4 -- at B&H last week.  Like many Nikon lenses, this one is only intermittently in stock at the store and I had to wait a couple of months for it to arrive. 

The main advantage to the lens is that it should be considerably sharper than the zoom lenses I have used almost exclusively for the past several years.  At least, I'm hoping that this will be the case.  In any event, the lens was comparatively cheap (about $300), and I should have fun experimenting with it when doing street photography.  The 1.4 aperture should also provide me with enough speed to shoot at night on 1600 ISO film without flash.