Focal length that seems like memories?

[jawarden]

That's a cool photo. I like it and it works as a repro of an old type of image that is nostalgic...

Thanks. For me though I think the impact came because it's not a repro of an old technique, but rather that it's the authentic technique, made with camera, chemistry, paper and a light bulb the way my grandfather did it. I think if I would have made a similar print using my iPhone and a digital printer for example it would have made no impact on me at all even if the images looked similar. It doesn't make the iPhone approach any less useful for making the "focal length of memories" though of course, as everyone's different. I imagine my teenagers will have a soft spot for iPhone images when they're my age and nobody uses them anymore.

And to the OP's question about focal length and memories, for me there is something about 80mm lenses on 6x6 format that just does it to me, feeling like history even when I use them today.

 

[peterm1]

Thanks. For me though I think the impact came because it's not a repro of an old technique, but rather that it's the authentic technique, made with camera, chemistry, paper and a light bulb the way my grandfather did it. I think if I would have made a similar print using my iPhone and a digital printer for example it would have made no impact on me at all even if the images looked similar. It doesn't make the iPhone approach any less useful for making the "focal length of memories" though of course, as everyone's different. I imagine my teenagers will have a soft spot for iPhone images when they're my age and nobody uses them anymore.

And to the OP's question about focal length and memories, for me there is something about 80mm lenses on 6x6 format that just does it to me, feeling like history even when I use them today.

No, I get that it was done with original materials and techniques and I appreciate it too. (Though I probably would not myself have the patience to follow through. Which I think makes me appreciate it more that you have).

 

[robert blu]

Thanks Peter for your thoughts (I agree) and for the links you provided.
I always appreciated Saul Leiter's photography for its evocative power.
robert

 

[jawarden]

Thanks Peter for your thoughts (I agree) and for the links you provided.
I always appreciated Saul Leiter's photography for its evocative power.
robert

Ditto. Leiter was a wonderful artist. I keep checking the Steidl web page so see when his new book will be ready. I'm sure it will be a treat.

 

[Archiver]

@peterm1 - that scene from Mad Men was unbelievable. Sooooo good! I truly appreciate that sentiment, as well as the way that scene was written and filmed.

I only discovered Fan Ho a couple of years ago, and came across his books at the end of last December in Hong Kong. His work is truly great.

Saul Leiter has been on my radar to check out for a while - it's interesting that all of these images evoke memories even being very different styles.

Photographically, what makes that Mad Men scene interesting is how they very artfully created images that looked like spontaneous home snapshots, and they all had the characteristics of a living memory. That's something I want to create more. It's about expressions and interactions that convey the emotion, in that scene.

 

[peterm1]

@peterm1 - that scene from Mad Men was unbelievable. Sooooo good! I truly appreciate that sentiment, as well as the way that scene was written and filmed.

I only discovered Fan Ho a couple of years ago, and came across his books at the end of last December in Hong Kong. His work is truly great.

Saul Leiter has been on my radar to check out for a while - it's interesting that all of these images evoke memories even being very different styles.

Photographically, what makes that Mad Men scene interesting is how they very artfully created images that looked like spontaneous home snapshots, and they all had the characteristics of a living memory. That's something I want to create more. It's about expressions and interactions that convey the emotion, in that scene.

Thanks for that comment. Madmen was a classic TV series and this scene is one that has always stuck in my mind as one of the very best of the best. It is just so beautiful and poetic and emotional. I too have wondered how they made those images they used in in it look so real and spontaneous. I wish all TV was like Madmen. And then maybe it would be worth watching occasionally instead being condemned to reruns of Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond (not that they were not good in their day) or God awful unreal "reality" programs that are all so similar, brain dead and sick inducing that they meld into each other.

Fan Ho's work and Leiter's are always top notch. For me they epitomize what photography should be too. Something for the rest of us to emulate and chase.

 

[Archiver]

Okay, I came across an interesting comment on a YouTube video of Super 8 footage. It suggested that Super 8 footage has a nostalgic feeling not only because of the format used during a certain time period, but also because of its organic, very imperfect nature. It gives us a sense of memory because it approximates how we remember things, in imperfect flashes. Here are some old and new Super 8 videos to give an idea of the look.

Old:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1DzO_ocwVo

New:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPtINdYoz3c

Is there a photographic equivalent of this, apart from just really bad/fuzzy/spotty film images?

I think I was drawn to Lomography because many of the early Lomo images have this sense of 'memory'.

 

[retinax]

Okay, I came across an interesting comment on a YouTube video of Super 8 footage. It suggested that Super 8 footage has a nostalgic feeling not only because of the format used during a certain time period, but also because of its organic, very imperfect nature. It gives us a sense of memory because it approximates how we remember things, in imperfect flashes. Here are some old and new Super 8 videos to give an idea of the look.

Old:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1DzO_ocwVo

New:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPtINdYoz3c

Is there a photographic equivalent of this, apart from just really bad/fuzzy/spotty film images?

I think I was drawn to Lomography because many of the early Lomo images have this sense of 'memory'.

Maybe heavy vignette? In our memories, there are no edges of the picture.
Otoh compositions that aren't afraid to cut off stuff also work in a way, the aforementioned Saul Leiter has done that often. This way, the edges of the picture aren't as real either, the imagination can add how to goes on. Pictures with carefully composed edges, like I and certainly many others like them visually, can be harder to connect with emotionally for me, maybe because they simply end at their edges, maybe because the notion of it being deliberately composed stands in the way.

 

[Rob-F]

Actually I tried to conjure up some wide-angle memories and I didn't find many. Most seem to be in the normal-to-long range, say, 50 to 75 mm.

 

[Archiver]

Maybe heavy vignette? In our memories, there are no edges of the picture.
Otoh compositions that aren't afraid to cut off stuff also work in a way, the aforementioned Saul Leiter has done that often. This way, the edges of the picture aren't as real either, the imagination can add how to goes on. Pictures with carefully composed edges, like I and certainly many others like them visually, can be harder to connect with emotionally for me, maybe because they simply end at their edges, maybe because the notion of it being deliberately composed stands in the way.

Interesting that you say this, as I've trained myself assiduously to compose 'properly', so if I see a cut off image, I kind of get a mental 'ick'. But this also means being able to break the rules in a way that works, which is the sign of someone with mastery of the principle. There's a German wedding photographer on the Leica forum who is very good at artistic 'cut off' images, so no heads, arms gone, bodies gone, but the shapes and overall composition are still good.


As for vignetting and the visual field, I get what you mean. I think this is why @PeterM's compositions evoke a sense of memory, as shooting through/past obstructions creates a natural vignette and frame, without necessarily relying on vignetting to create it. It's something I like doing with video work as it creates a sense of visual depth and frame, but the idea of making it seem like the visual field is something I will have to explore.

 

[Archiver]

Actually I tried to conjure up some wide-angle memories and I didn't find many. Most seem to be in the normal-to-long range, say, 50 to 75 mm.

It's funny because I find myself remembering anywhere between a kind of X-Pan double frame to a really tight 4:3 kind of ratio, depending on the subject. As a kid, I trained myself to pay attention to my peripheral vision as well as the central subject when walking, as I wanted to be more aware of my surroundings. But whether an X-Pan ratio image gives me a sense of 'memory' is another thing.

 

[Archiver]

Here's a random image I took that evokes a feeling of memory in me. It's not overly processed or manipulated, and taken with a slower shutter speed than would have been required. It was shot in mid 2021, somewhere between lockdown periods in Melbourne. The sun was setting, and a Vietnamese food truck was open in a car park.

RX0 - Food Truck Memory by Archiver, on Flickr

 

[yanchep_mike]

Here's a random image I took that evokes a feeling of memory in me. It's not overly processed or manipulated, and taken with a slower shutter speed than would have been required. It was shot in mid 2021, somewhere between lockdown periods in Melbourne. The sun was setting, and a Vietnamese food truck was open in a car park.

RX0 - Food Truck Memory by Archiver, on Flickr

I love the Truck, love Vietnamese food, and now it gives me memories. I love the shot.

 

[Bolo Kukus]

Since this isn't posted in an RF sub-forum, I would say I have no preference other than what I decide will give me the best photo at the time. That said:

I took a ton of photos with a 50mm f/1.7 Yashinon lens and was happy. That was before I learned that there was a reason for interchangeable lenses. 😛

So I bought an 18mm Spiratone (remember them?) f/3.5 lens and got a lot of shots I really liked, and couldn't have gotten with any other focal length. Spiratone had a 35mm lens to give away for a certain amount spent on the order, and I got it. Sun lens as I recall. I have never been able to like 35mm. I have some good 35mm lenses that sit on the shelf and cry with each other. It isn't the quality of the lens, just that focal length. But the 18mm? I am still in love with it.

You went with Spiratone, and I went to Hanimex. In 1974 when I decided to give myself a 'sabbatical' around the Pacific islands and in Southeast Asia, I went shopping (this in Toronto and I was saving like mad for my first lifetime's dream journey on what was a 'medium' salary in Canada, so no great money to spend on luxurious camera gear) and bought, first, a Mamiya 500 DTL with what was then a top-of-the-line 50/1.7 Mamiya-Sekor lens. Also three Hanimex lenses, a '28, a '35 and a '135. Plus a lot of Kodachrome 64 and 25 which I picked up over a six months period in old film bins at various camera shops and supermarkets (yes, they sold films in food shops in those days) around the city.

In mid-'74, suitably overloaded with all this gear, I bought a multi-stop one way ticket to Australia and flew first to Hawaii, where I fell in love with Honolulu and seriously considered staying on there, then Western Samoa, American Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu (New Hebrides) and Tahiti. By the time I arrived in Apia (Samoa), a few disasters struck. First the '135 Hanimex jammed up on me, nobody local could repair it and when I had the opportunity to send it back to Canada with someone who was flying there, I let it go. (It never made it, but that's another story.)

In Fiji the '35 was stolen from my hotel room. Which left me with the '50 and the '28, a lens I liked even if all the edges on my images were unsharp unless I used it at f/11. At that time '28 was a focal length I had never really taken to. During the next eight months (including a four months stint in Sydney where I did casual work and replenished my sadly depleted finances), I did 99.something % of all my images with the nifty fifty. Before I left for Asia a few months later a friend arrived with my Rolleiflex TLR, which expanded my photo making a fair bit. And I found out the '135 Hanimex was MIA. which annoyed me, but in retrospect, I forgot about it very quickly.

That journey taught me many valuable lessons. Notably that when we are limited with the lenses we have, we make do, as we have to.

Ultimately I sent off a few hundred slides to a photo agency in Toronto, and began selling stock.One image, a B&W of a Hindu temple in Bali at sunrise with a flock of monkeys swinging on vines in the foreground, sold 16 times in the next few years, including for a two page color spread in a German magazine (they put in a color tint to simulate a sunset). Considering that now, half a century later, it's all but impossible to even give away images taken in Bali, that was a marvelous time to be out and about with a camera and just photographing as I went along - even with a Mamiya 500 DTL.

On a closely related topic (actually, responding to a post in this thread), two long ago memories for me.

45mm on many 1950s 35mm P&S cameras. Mostly German made, so top build and optics. Many had Schneider or Rodenstock lenses and made top quality negatives. Now and then I print some in my home darkroom, and I always marvel at the quality. Of course films then were so much better, much more silver content.

Then 75mm on many 1950s 120 (6x6 and 6x9) folders. The Planar on my Rolleiflex 3.5 E2, even with a large egg-shaped bubble in it from separation, still produces outstanding images.

Amazing what the photographers of that time could do with what we now consider to be almost basic (if not outright primitive) cameras.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

It's worth considering how many of our memories are actually memories of photographs, seen in our old family albums or grainy super-8 movies. Photography is so pervasively integrated into our culture that it has become inseparable from and seamlessly integrated into the activity we call "remembering". We've arrived at a place, culturally, where memories that look like photos, and photos that look like memories, have become a chicken-or-the-egg conundrum.
As an aside (and this may be just personal weirdness, of which I have an abundant supply), ever since I studied film in college and became more conscious of the mechanics of cinematography, I've been very aware, while dreaming, of zooms, fades, dissolves, slow motion, and all the other techniques of cinematography happening in my dreams, and being very clear in my memory upon awakening. Yes, pretty weird, but remember whom we're talking about. Anyone else experience this?

 

[Richard G]

Memory is a very complex thing. My actual memories in film that matter are mostly of my children who I followed with an M6 and 35 Summicron. I like the notion mentioned above of participation behind a 35. But Peter’s focal length independent view fits better with my sense of this. Although I do find the Pentax 55 rather special…

That C Sonnar 50 has magic, even at f5.6. If Bergman had been on this forum I reckon it would be the 90 Elmarit M for him. There is a longing and emotional bite of that lens, sharpness just right.

Then there’s the older uncoated lenses. With internal haze…

Then there’s the film, Tri-X and Ektar. Too painful to talk about Kodachrome, sorry.

Then there’s the shutter speed, 1/15s and 1/30s. But even 2s and 4s. I asked my wife and son to sit very still for a 4s shot. Amazing the effect of that stillness and cooperation.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

Then there’s the shutter speed, 1/15s and 1/30s. But even 2s and 4s. I asked my wife and son to sit very still for a 4s shot. Amazing the effect of that stillness and cooperation.

There's a fascinating look to old Daguerreotype portraits. The exposure could span minutes; even with the subject's head in a clamp, microscopic movements of the facial muscles, and even the act of breathing, caused a barely perceptible partial blur that lent the image an eeriness and intensity very different from the instantaneous capture we're now accustomed to. Perhaps something worth exploring with a very strong ND filter...

 

[besk]

Since this isn't posted in an RF sub-forum, I would say I have no preference other than what I decide will give me the best photo at the time. That said:

I took a ton of photos with a 50mm f/1.7 Yashinon lens and was happy. That was before I learned that there was a reason for interchangeable lenses. 😛

So I bought an 18mm Spiratone (remember them?) f/3.5 lens and got a lot of shots I really liked, and couldn't have gotten with any other focal length. Spiratone had a 35mm lens to give away for a certain amount spent on the order, and I got it. Sun lens as I recall. I have never been able to like 35mm. I have some good 35mm lenses that sit on the shelf and cry with each other. It isn't the quality of the lens, just that focal length. But the 18mm? I am still in love with it.

I had that 18mm Spiratone lens! I used it when nothing else would work.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

I had that 18mm Spiratone lens! I used it when nothing else would work.

For many of us, just saying "Spiratone" is a deep dive into nostalgia.

 

[Archiver]

It's worth considering how many of our memories are actually memories of photographs, seen in our old family albums or grainy super-8 movies. Photography is so pervasively integrated into our culture that it has become inseparable from and seamlessly integrated into the activity we call "remembering". We've arrived at a place, culturally, where memories that look like photos, and photos that look like memories, have become a chicken-or-the-egg conundrum.
As an aside (and this may be just personal weirdness, of which I have an abundant supply), ever since I studied film in college and became more conscious of the mechanics of cinematography, I've been very aware, while dreaming, of zooms, fades, dissolves, slow motion, and all the other techniques of cinematography happening in my dreams, and being very clear in my memory upon awakening. Yes, pretty weird, but remember whom we're talking about. Anyone else experience this?

This is a very pertinent observation. Captures from any given era are visually defined by the contemporary imaging technology, and looking at imagery created with that tech evokes a sense of that time - I recently saw a YouTube video where someone used an early 2000s camcorder to shoot current 2024 Japan, and the effect was like looking into a time machine.

Similarly, we associate the jerky, imperfect but oddly beautiful look of Super8 film with a specific time period, and with memory. People in their late teens and twenties are now looking at the 2000s digicam aesthetic as being nostalgic, and in years to come, smartphone photos will have that same sense of nostalgia.

That intersects with, but is not a complete overlap with, the sense of memory in an image. Images which evoke a sense of memory are usually not technically perfect - they have some sense of that slightly hazy or 'not real' quality, often a bit blurry, perhaps black and white, perhaps muted in colour, or maybe saturated but in an 'organic' way.

Over the years, I've loved the photos by Lars Wastfelt, who shoots primarily with a Zeiss Ikon and the Biogon 25mm f2.8. His family photos always evoke a sense of memory to me because they are usually unposed, they capture context and time, and have many of the visual qualities that I associate with memory.

Lars Wästfelt

“I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed” elsewhere: instagram.com/lawa lawa.tumblr.com hyperlinks: simply photo this joy+ride hei-astrid NIDO - Das Familien-Magazin 8/2010 Lusikka vol.1 Lusikka vol.2 REVISTA IGLÜ #2 the raw book REVISTA...

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