Ralph Gibson & his lenses...

35mmdelux

35mmdelux

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I always thought RG shot mostly with a 50mm. At second look his Machina looks like longer lenses were used, such as 90/135. In a foto of him on his website looks like he's holding a 75mm. Anybody know what lenses he prefers? Just curious...
 
Re: Ralph Gibson & his lenses

Re: Ralph Gibson & his lenses

35mmdelux,

In this interview http://www.bermangraphics.com/press/ralphgibson.htm RG said he usually traveled with the 35/50/90. He mentions possibly taking a 135 with him on a trip he had planned to Alsace. I seem to recall reading somewhere that he bought the longer lens to handle some commissioned work there. I believe I saw somewhere about 7 or 8 years ago that his favored 50 was the DR Summicron, but I don't have any corroborating info close at hand.

Hope this helps...
 
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Very interesting, but mostly I'm tired so I can't read all of these links. And tomorrow I'll look at my profile and come back to them. Great thread.
 
In regard to his opinions on making the most of using one focal length, I recall a magazine interview him from the late 1980's. One of his quotes went along the lines of, "Photographers should learn to tame their glass."

I've always interpreted it as meaning that one's images shouldn't readily give the impression of "Oh, that was shot with a wide-angle" or "You can only do that with a telephoto lens". Rather the subject should captured clearly without obvious effects of the lens used.

Clearly it left an impression on me.
 
thomasw_ said:
I listened to him when he was in Vancouver a few years ago. He was a hardcore 50mm man, even making the case that one ought focus on just one focal length to learn it well, and that having too many other focal lengths would just be a distraction.
Click to expand...

At times even more restrictive than merely using only one focal length. He did one series (Quadrants) that was all 50mm, and all shot at 1 meter. And then he printed them so that the image was life-size (turned out to be 16x20), and displayed them in a gallery in such a way that people would stand about 1 meter away to view it, same distance as the original shot.

Though I don't know if he *only* shot images with the 50mm@1m restriction for a while, or whether he shot regularly and just collected those images later. Personally I have a hard time just sticking to one lens, let along one focus distance...

j
 
dof said:
In regard to his opinions on making the most of using one focal length, I recall a magazine interview him from the late 1980's. One of his quotes went along the lines of, "Photographers should learn to tame their glass."

I've always interpreted it as meaning that one's images shouldn't readily give the impression of "Oh, that was shot with a wide-angle" or "You can only do that with a telephoto lens". Rather the subject should captured clearly without obvious effects of the lens used.

Clearly it left an impression on me.
Click to expand...

I pretty well agree that images that smack of tele/wide look are unappealing. generally images should look like they were seen rather than created IMHO.
 
Turtle said:
I pretty well agree that images that smack of tele/wide look are unappealing. generally images should look like they were seen rather than created IMHO.
Click to expand...

I feel compelled to lodge a disagreement--I think there's a lot to be said about photographs that assert their artificiality, that reveal process. Depends on the subject, I think.
 
RB: "It’s very simple. I carry two Leica M’s. I have two M6’s and I usually take three lenses. A 35, 50, and 90. And one body has color, one body has black and white. I might take a 135 in the case of Alsace because they’ll probably be some landscapes and I’ll want to flatten them. So I will use the long lens."

Well I'll be...great interview. Thanks -
 
RG lenses

RG lenses

Did a workshop with RG in Vancouver about 5 years ago. Ralph uses mostly M6 "classic" (pre-TTL) with the 50mm Summilux (now the new version), and an old 90 Tele-Elmarit. Most of the stuff in his books like Ex Libris was Leica R6 and a macro lens.
 
Looking at his images, I actually am amazed that he chose Leica M with the DR as his mainstay across the years. In most cases, it would have been easier to make these shots with an SLR and a sharp, contrasty lens. It would have made the contrast higher off the bat, and would have permitted more precise framing and ease of focusing close up.
 
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Catching up on 'links to visit'. Thanks for posting this one, a really good interview.



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