Your style is both folksy and philosophical at the same time. Hermeneutically speaking, there is always a horizon of expectation. In other words, we know what you will find when we get there. You are proposing a way to break through to something unexpected. A new tool takes you to a new reality. You are a interpreter of reality, not a copier. Great job (as usual)!
The tools don't matter argument was never convincing to me. We should avoid consumerism, but those dreamy pictures you create with the enlarger condenser lens need a certain tool. That was such a great idea to figure out how to make that work. Those pictures are truly unique.
Thank you! And I believe it all starts by enjoying you own work. Not thinking about whether I have created something new or am trying to please others. And, if it pleases only yourself as an artist, that's already a huge win!!
Hi Ari, I always find you to be a very creative artist - you always explore new territories and you are not afraid of difficulties or changes that break the routine. And that's right! New tools mean new opportunities that allow you to enter new territories. Experimenting with lenses and chemistry, as well as with unusual lighting and a new look at image composition, etc. etc. etc. I often feel like my photography is stagnant and I need a new approach. Then I take another camera off the shelf, e.g. a 35mm bellows camera without a rangefinder instead of a TLR 6x6, but often it is too little, so, for example, when using a very small amount of light in winter, I underexpose the negative by three stops to push the development that much, but still be able to take night photos. hand-held photos and not being entirely sure of the result. But you are always further and ahead, and I draw inspiration from your actions, but in no way, I imitate. Best wishes
So it seems you are doing the same!! Change the equipment and use them differently to get new kinds of results!!! Thats awesome. And imitation would be the best form of flattery!! ;-)
I’ve been taking photographs all my life and a few years ago started experimenting with vintage lenses and now make my own large cameras using projector lenses. A few weeks ago I was asked why I don't take good photographs anymore? The benchmark for a good photograph for this person and for many was something you get from an iPhone, sharp and well exposed. So aren't we simply moving our audience by being creative with our photography? Keep up the good work, look forward to the next one.
I hear you. But I firmly believe you should first photograph for yourself -- and if somebody else likes your work, that's all just an additional plus. The world is poisoned with overly saturated and pointy iPhone photos of famous landmarks and egoistic people. I do not want to contribute to that environmental hazard! :-)
This reminds me so much of all the crazy handmade lenses I built over the years. I really should finish the current work in progress that's sitting on my desk. Like Forrest Gump said: it's like a box of chocolates...
“I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes.” - Jimi Hendrix Jimi had his Electric Church. Ari, I think you have an Analogue Church.. ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky… ☮️✌️🎸📸
Great comparison with Jimi which is right on with film Photography. On RU-vid you can find isolated guitar tracks with Jimi, looking at pitch and BPM with a metronome. The pitch varies more than you would think and the BPM is not constant. The music is organic and can't be copied. Being Left handed and playing a RH guitar upside down also helps. The imperfections of film, the grain and lack of sharpness is all Jimi like. Digital with 100mp sensors, focus stacked over saturated sunsets for the 'perfect picture' is like modern recordings which are pitch corrected, compressed to the loss of dynamic range to create loudness which in doing so totally removes the soul of the music. Even live performances are pitch corrected. Nothing is real anymore. The rawness of B+W film is Back to the Future for photography ( IMO) . Cheers and regards!
I'm so with you on this. All perfected digital stuff -- both in music and in photography -- suck the life out of them. And everything becomes the same. Sterile, uninteresting, cold, and dead. Or even worse: something that looks like it's alive, but it is actually made of plastic. Like a mannequin. Or like the demo song burned into a cheap keyboard chip.
Absolutely love the dreamy pictures you get with that huge lens. It's got me on the lookout for something like that. They do say imitation is the ultimate form of flattery. ;) And your musings are always very interesting, deep, and informative.
Thanks thanks! And thanks for watching. I got an interesting effect just by combining two cheap magnifying glasses... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dEGXORWi2lU.htmlsi=gmnJDidmpFKyADfD
I think you did become Jimi Hendrix since you added some distortion to your photographs! Haha also loved the renditions of his songs haha. The second picture you took is very timeless and tells time in the photo; does that create a paradox? Thanks for another great video!! Edit: the last picture with the guitar just gave me some inspiration!!!!!!
In the furniture making world if I want to do something new and different I design with no regard for how I will make the piece. When I’m done designing I then must figure out which materials, techniques and tools I must make or use to achieve my design. This is a design first tools later approach. Maybe to do something different you can change the way you experiment? How about deciding on a ‘design’ first then finding the gear developer and film you need. Or maybe listing the assumptions that you make when thinking about a photo and then brainstorm how to break them. If you turn the whole process inside out and upside down you are bound to find a new way of working. Lots of fun for sure. Thanks for making me think outside the box.
All tools have a certain property. Each tool has some things it can do well, and in the hands of a great craftsman it can produce something worthwhile. On the one hand, you don't paint with a chisel or sculpt with a paintbrush. But it takes an artist to use the chisel or paintbrush to make art. Similarly, a cabinet full of woodworking tools only creates beautiful artifacts in the hands of a craftsman. I think you are searching for the tool that can follow your visions. If you can't find it, maybe you will invent it. Then you will have your 'scuze me while I kiss the sky' moments. Already, as the results of your searches, you have created art, some of it breathtaking. My favorite image from today was the self portrait.
Thank you thank you! You are absolutely right. If you give a paintbrush to a monkey, you will never get a Mona Lisa. Tools are only useful in the hands of artists, and the "artistry", skill of using the tools, and the actual tools -- all three are necessary!
With that condenser lens, your Graflex surely has its own automatic distortion pedal hidden somewhere inside, absolute unique. If those memories you fear to loose are speedy boat trips on your own while listening to Hendrix, you've already achieved your goal and can move on. You knew how to sharpen your pencil to draw that picture right. But it seems, the memories you want to prevent from fading (or allow to fade?) are twisted and torn between loyalty and disgust, like Hendrix´s relationship with the US national anthem. Hendrix went musically where this anthem betrayed and hurt him, to break through his wall of despair and to break free from the anthems authority. He musically burned the flag. If you to to burn the flag, under which you were raised, to break free, just do it! But please don't set your camera on fire.
A well described analysis of Hendrix mental state. He also passed away only 27 years old -- or was it 29? Young, anyway. How about setting my camera on fire while it's taking a long exposure shot. Like what Hendrix did -- set it on fire while it's feedbacking with the amp. ;-)
27, I believe, is the critical age when rock stars realize their lack of importance and turn self-destructive. Joplin, Cobain, all went at that same age of self reflection, when they realized that they were consumed like a Big Mac and even heroin couldn't fill the void. Hendrix had truck loads of sponsored Fender guitars - and I believe Fender made the guitar burning a reoccurring marketing tool to increase sales. Quite what Hendrix criticized with the anthem, he cries through his guitar for a country going to war, eating their kids for endlessly repeated consumerism. (BTW: Welcome to NATO) Thats surely depressing. You seem to be quite happy with what you can express with your Graflex and your exited - while often amused - audience of connoisseurs is appreciating your photos as influential. Unless you can source a bunch of Czech condenser lenses with a front lens quick release to change your aperture and want to go into history as the funny Graflex burning Finnish photographer, I'd rather recommend to burn the object or places of reflection, rather than the tool. Watching at the pictures from that lens is already somewhat like staring into a fireplace, loosing focus in the subject and thoughts start randomly dancing like flames. BTW: That lens is a good ant burner and would set a haunted house on fire if "accidentally" left in the sun. Cash in the insurance and take the family for a holiday trip. @@ShootOnFilm
Photographers are always somewhat limited by the subject that's in front of them. So you have to think of different ways of portrayal. It's hard. You use a lot of wide angle and distortion. But maybe you will move on to something completely different, like different ways of printing Who knows? All art is derivative to some extent. Even Jimi Hendrix. He lived during a true Renaissance, when a new musical form was born. That doesn't happen very often. Thanks as always for a very engaging video. ❤
Good thoughts. I'd also say that Jimi was a part of creating that renaissance. He was more than just a rider of that wave; he was instrumental in creating that wave. The same goes with Henri and street photography. Now, my question here was: can we create a small "wave", a renaissance if you will, for our own work. Not thinking about changing anything else but our own horizon and work. Absolutelly I will move to something new next. Printing is already on my mind. This was just. a snapshot of things I've done so far :-)
I see what you're getting at. Photographers tend to be a bit solitary in their pursuit but Instagram and RU-vid would help propel a wave, and your channel is part of it. One wave is a return to soft focus and Pictorial ism. Your style is a bit related but quite different. I think you're onto something!😍
Your thoughts about photography are always very interesting to me! To be honest I do not know very much about Jimi Hendrix, because his music is not my music since I like instead the so called classical music. Like Jimi Hendrix so changed even Beethoven his style of music around 1803 by creating his 3:rd Symphony, the Eroica. This work broke boundaries in symphonic form, length, harmony, emotional and cultural content. Kind regards from Sweden!
True! Also, think about Bach. The invention of standard tuning for piano motivated him to create Das Wohltemperierte Klavier -- really breaking into new expression of using all possible keys in your compositions. A new tool, a new expression!
@@ShootOnFilm Same tool which had been used for years . . .. the only thing that changed was the tuning and an entirely new expression was created! A bit like loading up some IR sensitive film perhaps?
...if you hear J.sBach there are often Moments, in which he've added one tone, which changes the whole following direction...its like one "polluting" element in a mineral, which changes the whole olor of it...
Absolutely!!!! Here is one example: The bar I circulated is from the Kleine Präludien und Fughetten, #3. That single bar breaks the "system" and sets the entire piece into a different trajectory! tinyurl.com/4t97bv22
Arguably, Henri and Jimi were "early adopters" - in sectors where available tools were advancing w/new capabilities at a frenetic pace. They each had the good fortune of finding themselves in very exciting times for their respective tools. But also, they were each quick to seek an answer to a similar question - "What can I do with this NEW tech?" While it might be tempting to argue that nothing is "new" in analog photography I dont think that is a completely accurate statement. Further, we have the good fortune to ask (and answer) the question "What can *I* do with this VERY OLD AND NEW tech?" Arguably, the re-use of old techniques however tried and true end up in a very different place. My color prints shot on Portra 160 today are NOTHING like those I printed from the Vericolor III I shot back in the '70's. However similar it may appear it is nonetheless a very different pallet and tool. Exciting times!!!
So true. Even in analogue photography, we live in the most exciting times ever. So many marvellous cameras are available at reasonable prices. All kinds of exciting films are available. Also digital adds better ways to distribute your work than ever before. Printing (like in my zine) makes self-publishing possible for everybody. Etc etc. So you can undoubtedly find your own avenue and a lot of new stuff in analogue photography!!
Hi Ari, I agree with your Bresson and Hendrix story. But, when you use the distortion all the time it becomes a gimmick. Although there are different levels of distortion. My point is: when do you use certain gear, what do you want to say. And that’s the creative part. Your big camera looks a bit like a speakerset of Jimi…. Always watch your stories, that’s what they are, good stories.
Wondering how you took those selfies with a pinhole. Have you made a video in which you explain how you operate the pinhole camera. Normally you have to open it and close the pinhole by by hand. I haven't seen selfies with a pinhole, so for me you are a first one in this respect.
I use film that gives me a long exposure time -- minutes. Then, I can easily step to the camera, open the shutter, and then go back and pose 🙂. For example Fomapan 100 has such an aggressive reciprocity failure that 30 sec measured requires 6 minutes exposure! Here i use both cameras on my boat: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DnbfvgPCrP8.htmlsi=UATR8haIz_T-gurf Here is more about my pinholing: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Yl_TBuI_yOo.htmlsi=DqSsodwpgSbs5CNe
You are right and not right. My way is to use flaws of the camera, any cameras have flaws and I use them. And of course photography is musical. My photography is close to Joy Division band. By the way your channel feeds me with cleverness
Haa!! It's about 2-3 minutes exposure time. You can easily walk to the camera, open the shutter, and then return to the image! That rapid movement won't show ...
@@ShootOnFilm ah ok! You must be using a slow film. My 4x5 pinhole camera is f175 and exposure times are usually less than a minute even on cloudy days with a red filter.
@@mixschrecks3839 Fomapan 100 -- reciprocity falls down from a cliff ..... 30 sec measured is almost 6 minutes!!! www.magnaimages.com/post/foma-fomapan-100-reciprocity-failure-charts
Thought provoking idea you've got here. Looking for a wah wah equivalent for the photographic toolbox. Hehe. Btw your speedboat just for cruising only or do you have another one for fishing?
Long exposure -- shake it well ==> wah wah? ;-) I don't fish. I do know why, but I never got into it .... the lake is full of beautiful pike perch, pike and even salmon.
Some of it is curiosity. The 'what if...?'. What is I do this, or, what if I do that? Personally, I have a tendency to do what I've always done. I'm more curious when I'm home thinking about something than I am when I'm actually out trying to create something. Pushing boundaries stimulates thinking and creativity I think.
So this is why gear DOES matter. In that the gear choice dictates the shooting philosophy and therefore the photographers creative approach and mindset. Photography being a synthesis of a technology and creativity. Same as a pencil and paper. It's hard to make a photo with a pencil and paper or a drawing with a camera. Wrong gear choice.
Just burn the camera after shoot, easy haha. But yea, I'll think about it - experiment more, play less safe... change something in recipe to get different enough picture.
But, you already doing that and clearly your pictures have diverse character, so...is this video clickbait? Are you pulling our pants? Rubbing our noses? Are finn's all like that? 😂
