Photographic Treasures

“Digital macht alles kaputt!”

The old lady complained from the other side of the counter, with the mixture of sadness and anger of the one who knows the enemy is so big that the only reasonable thing to do is to step out and wait for the end.

The place, Foto Bahnhof, close to the train station, is one of the last photography stores in Salzburg. After she told me that they did not have what I was looking for any more, I asked her if she knew about other photo stores in the city where I could find it. She shook her head and started listing stores that do not exist any longer. The last one she mentioned, Foto Mayrhofer, close the the Schranne, closed just a couple of months ago, after its owner went into retirement. It struck me that I was in front of one of the last members of an almost extinguished species. Her clear blue eyes darkened for a moment, as she realised that I had understood the bitter consequence of the syllogism she did not fully state.

The advent of digital photography, that reached the general public in the 90s, meant the last push to the democratisation of photography. During the 20th century, photography evolved to come closer and closer to the point & shoot ideal, fine-tuning automatic processes in such a way that the only actions left to the user were framing and shooting.



The advantages of a digital camera can be summed up in three: immediacy, low cost and storing and compression. Immediacy on review, because the picture appears on a more or less big screen, with more or less colours, instants after shooting. Low cost of operation because shutter opening and closing has a total cost that tends very quickly to zero. Compression because, thanks to clever algorithms, the optical data captured by the sensor needs a tiny fraction of the total storage capacity of the device, which results in a great autonomy of operation.



Technological innovation has countless positive aspects, but its ruthless logic leaves old and sometimes venerable technologies on the side as road kill, because they make no sense any more or, simply, because they are not profitable. For example the CD consigned tapes to oblivion, even though there is already an expiration data for the CD itself, whose symphony's last chords can already be heard under the direction of newer digital formats like MP3 and OGG. Digital photography sensors pushed film cameras to the background, making them museum display items or, sadly, mere pieces of junk that one does not know what to do with.



But not all technologies are equal and when a technology, as it happens with photography, is used as a support for artistic expression, I think that it is healthy to renounce to the multiple automatisms and advantages from time to time, because creativity and inventiveness usually work better when the first difficulties to overcome are technical limitations. I think that artistic creativity needs new challenges permanently, in order not to fall into routine and boredom.



I have worked you through this long introduction just to talk about the new territory that I am beginning to explore, pretty blindfolded at first, but with great hope and motivation. One of the photographic treasures that we brought from New York last year was Marona's new toy camera, a Diana Mini, from Lomography, that uses 35mm film. All pictures that I included in this post until now have been taken with the Diana Mini.



The second photographic treasure, this time brought from Barcelona, is an old camera that we borrowed from Marona's mum, a Kodak Retinette 1A that, after its serial number, was made between 1963 and 1966 and that we let repair and adjust. In spite of the almost 50 years passed, the camera works with a smoothness that a lot of present-day cameras can only wish for.



The Retinette makes you really think: from distance to your subject, which you need to guess and adjust without any confirmation chance, to exposure, for which you have to make use of rules of thumb or the photographic eye that began evolving as we decided to measure exposure manually with our digital cameras as well. I still have not exposed my first film with the Retinette, but I try not to miss any chance...


(this lovely picture of me was taken by Marona!)

It is nothing more than another step on my going back to the origin, back to the basics, that I already talked about in a photographic context. I love this feeling of going back to the origin, because I feel like I am doing real photography. Is it maybe vanity? Is it just that I want to stand out from the crowd? I don't know... But I guess the reason I went to Foto Bahnhof, to ask for advice about used twin-lens reflex cameras, gives a hint that what I really like is when people look at me as if I were crazy, as I take out old cameras (with no screen on the back!) from their leather cases and I start taking pictures with them.

Pennsylvania

In November last year we were walking along West 34th Street in Manhattan, minutes after making our second contribution to the reconstruction of Solomon's Temple. It was on Thanksgiving Day and streets and avenues were still closed to traffic because of the Macy's Day Parade. The view was certainly unusual: pedestrians reclaiming the space that belongs exclusively to motorists all year round.



On arriving to 7th Avenue I looked downtown and saw four US flags back-lit by the sun and, not thinking it twice, I decided to shoot the first picture with the new 50mm lens (new for the third time, by the way...). I like this picture because the relatively dark background lets the flags stand out. A similar effect can be seen in the forest, when the sun creates the illusion that tree leaves possess their own light.



As you can see, those four flags belong to the Hotel Pennsylvania. Months after taking the picture I learned that, without knowing it, I took a picture of one of the many anonymous monuments populating New York City.

The Hotel Pennsylvania main dining room, the Café Rouge, witnessed numerous performances of the most famous big bands of the 40s and 50s, like the Dorsey Brothers, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

Hotel Pennsylvania also claims to have the phone number in longest continuous use in New York: +1 (212) 736-5000. Dialling from the City it would be just 736-5000, and using the usual North American letter code from rotary dial phones, 7 corresponds to P and 3 to E, so it would be PE-6-5000, for PEnnsylvania-6-5000. Which was exactly where Finegan, Grey and Sigman took their inspiration from for the famous song popularized by the Andrews Sisters and Glenn Miller.



I recently read that the Hotel Pennsylvania is threatened by demolition: its current owners, real estate company Vornado, want to replace the 22-story hotel with a 67-story office tower. It is clear that in Midtown Manhattan even monuments are not safe from the real estate voracity...

The Time Machine

Sometimes you don't really need a time machine to travel back in time, you don't need to risk uneasy encounters with flesh-eating morlocks or being inadvertently trapped inside a mountain.

All you need to do is go for a walk on the river side.

New York Impressions

3rd Ave


J Train on Williamsburg Bridge


Hotel Pennsylvania


Reclaim the streets


Chrysler


Joy


Rock Atlas


Domino sugar


Tim Burton

Prime Sickness

I've got a confession to make: I am sick.

It all started almost three years ago, as we got our dSLR. The dandiest feature of such a device is the interchangeability of lenses. At first I was quite happy with the kit lens, but after a year a mid-range telephoto zoom lens followed, in order to get a closer look to things.

During our stay in New York City, I could not help but pay a visit to B&H, kind of the mother ship for all photographers, either hobby or professional. In addition to a little camera gear, basically lens hoods (because size does matter! :D) some filters and memory cards, I got myself a 50mm prime lens, which ultimately confirmed my sickness: I am crazy about photo lenses and camera gear.



There are a couple of great things about standard prime lenses. First of all, they have far better optical properties than a zoom lens. The reason for that is very simple: the designer of a zoom lens is forced to meet a number of trade offs to deliver an acceptable quality in all its focal range. A prime lens, having a single focal length, can be optimized to get the best possible image quality for that particular focal length.

In addition, the optical system of a prime lens is plain simple and elegant, and yet works perfectly. This is something that I've always been fascinated about, like the functioning of a bicycle: so simple that everything can be understood at a glance and yet unsurpassed when it comes to energy efficiency. Due to this simple lens system, prime lenses are very fast (that means, they let lots of light go through), which is great for night photography, but also great to achieve hair-thin depths of field.



But to me, the greatest thing about a prime lens is that it has no zoom. Don't get me wrong, I find zooms are great and for some purposes totally irreplaceable, but I think zooms make us lazy as well. Why bother getting closer to our subject if we can get something similar just by turning the zoom ring? Being bonded to a fixed focal length, on the other hand, means that our photographic creativity is pushed forward because we have to move forward or backwards to get a nice picture composition, to apply the rule of thirds or whatever.

At first it felt strange, and my fingers often tried to turn the zoom ring when using the 50mm lens. But I quickly got used to it, and learned to use it and love it! Because it feels good, it feels like I'm doing real photography out there, it's a little like returning to the origins, back in time, when there was no digital, no reflex mirror, no memory cards, no USBs, no chance to look immediately at your pictures, no histograms, no program modes, no autofocus, no GIMP.



A prime lens is just the right lens for this time of year, when diminishing chlorophyll amounts make place for wonderful brown, yellow, orange and red pigments that have been waiting patiently all summer long to make their triumphant entrance.

Farewell Ms Chlorophyll! Welcome Mr Carotene and Ms Xanthophyll!

Traffic Lights

It's funny how everyone has myths and fetishes. For many it is woman's shoes, others prefer Broadway musicals and some loose their minds for music boxes or cheesy souvenirs in transparent balls where thousand glittering little stars simulate snow...

In my case, I'm crazy about taking pictures of traffic lights.







What is wrong with me?

Vecchi porti

There are places in the world where peace of mind is easily achieved. Places where the sea embraces tenderly the people that settled at her shores centuries ago. Aged cities. Old harbours. Wise people.



Cities, like Trieste, where I feel like I were home, even though, until this last weekend, I had never been there before. Towns, like Muggia, that lull me gently, in a way I never felt up North, in Central Europe.





Aged buildings, shabby walls, familiar people, broken windows, laundry, narrow alleys, street lamps, all those things that you miss when you are living in CandyLand, where you still look for the stage machinery behind the scenes...





The charm of towns and cities of a modest past, whose History does not include great wealth that would have allowed frequent reconstruction of its buildings, but left their loveliness untouched and let them keep a genuineness that the others, those keeping up with the last architectural tendencies, lost long ago.



And of course the Mediterranean, which welcomes us once again, this time with a new face, but always the same, always the one whose water caressed my skin so often. The sea and all her rig that are, without any extra effort, main characters of the best pictures in the world.





By the way, I found those ears again...

Euro-impressions

How ya' doing? ;)


Don't you feel much safer now?


Swedish hats...


...and Russian and Greek ones!


What is that on his head?


Going in


Looking down


I swear it's the last time I bring granny to the fan zone!


I wasn't the only one...