Time Travel - post the evidence

[lushd]

I've noticed since I started messing about with old cameras that I have been time travelling more and more. Today I visited London of the 1950s (just like Doctor Who on Saturday!) with my FED 2 and Adox film. I'd love to see other time travelling evidence taken with FSU devices.

 

[Jocko]

You think You've got problems Donald! There's a girl in the Chatteris Co-op who looks just like Billy Piper - and look what my FED 2's been a pickin' up!

Ian!

 

[lushd]

Yes - possibly the worlds first confirmed sighting of a steam powered UFO. I knew the FED could do it!

Come on Comrades - lets see some more ...

 

[Ash]

LOL!!!

You think You've got problems Donald! There's a girl in the Chatteris Co-op who looks just like Billy Piper - and look what my FED 2's been a pickin' up!

Ian!

 

[Jocko]

Yes Ash! And that cloud on the Left looks like a Duck!

Something's afoot if you ask me!

LOL!!!

You think You've got problems Donald! There's a girl in the Chatteris Co-op who looks just like Billy Piper - and look what my FED 2's been a pickin' up!

Ian!

 

[Jocko]

Firstly I want to apologise for ruining Donald's thread. Secondly I want to say that he is right!

I think part of the unique appeal of old cameras lies in the thought that we are going to be able to replicate the style of eras we admire. In my own case, I came to Soviet cameras partly in the hope that I would take Soviet pictures.

I also think that there are places - and faces - which fit a particular historical moment perfectly - and which somehow never lose a sense of that time.

For example, someone pointed out that the actresses Caroline Quentin and Alex Kingston have a look which runs completely counter to commercialised 21st century ideas of beauty, but perfectly fits the 17th century: just think how easy it is to imagine them in the costume of that era. Likewise, I've known people who somehow look as if they've stepped from 1925 or 1960. One of the pleasures of old group photographs is to play the time-traveller game. You will nearly always see a face that doesn't fit - that seems instead to belong to now.

One of the most startling examples - which sadly I can't lay my hands on at the moment - is the only surviving photograph of the British artist and occultist Moina Macgregor Mathers. Her clothes, jewellery, hair - above all her expression and sheer style - would have passed unremarked at any college in the early 80s - you could probably name the bands she enjoyed. But the picture was taken 100 years earlier. Just look. There are many similar examples. The camera really is a time machine!

Cheers, Ian

 

[lushd]

I set out on this adventure with time travel in mind, caused by buying a book several years ago of a 1930s journey around England. I wondered if such a thing could be created again. And so I bought old cameras, used old developer, tried to learn about the zone system etc. I'd like to fool you all one day with a picture taken in the 21st C, that looks like it was taken 50 years ago.

 

[bmattock]

I have been trying something similar, I think. For the past couple years, I've been collecting old camera/photography magazines from the 1910's right up to the 1970's. I find myself most interested in the magazines of the 1950's. I also have been buying old books on portraiture, modeling, lighting, posing guides, and so on. Some of the information is obviously obsolete - such as how to rate flashbulbs. However, the position of the lights and the use of light and shadow is still valuable information - and it conveys a sense of how things looked 'back then'.

I don't think I want to just ape the past - but I see nothing wrong with going back in time a bit to find new inspiration. I'm currently in a bit of a rut, so why not.

I hope you'll find this photo interesting. I took it yesterday on my front porch. The subject is my brother-in-law who was visiting from NYC. Yes, I used a dSLR, but mounted a converted cine lens, a Bausch & Lomb Super Baltar 150mm f/2.7 shot wide-open. I like the 'not perfect' look it gives - even stronger on film, where you can see the field curvature more. I took the resulting file into The Gimp and used channel mixing to take a lot from the red channel and then desaturated it, converted it to monochrome, adjusted levels, reconverted it to RGB and toned it sepia. Well, sounds complicated, but it didn't take very long. And yes, I shot some B&W film during this session as well - I just haven't developed/scanned it yet.

Forward, through the past!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[clarence]

Perhaps we should start a Classic Camera Re-enactment Guild.

Clarence

 

[Jocko]

Perhaps we should start a Classic Camera Re-enactment Guild.

Clarence

That would be nice! I actually think that the real problem with trying to recreate the styles of the past - at least in pictures of people - is that the relationship between subject and camera/photographer has changed. Self-consciousness (in the negative sense) has made the camera seem a threat and intrusion. To take someone's photograph was seen as a compliment - but now?

Ian

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Nice one Bill.

 

[clarence]

I actually think that the real problem with trying to recreate the styles of the past - at least in pictures of people - is that the relationship between subject and camera/photographer has changed. Self-consciousness (in the negative sense) has made the camera seem a threat and intrusion. To take someone's photograph was seen as a compliment - but now?

Posed portraiture would still be viable, all things considered. It was a popular application of photography then, and remains so now. Just like in Bill's picture.

Clarence

 

[Jocko]

Posed portraiture would still be viable, all things considered. It was a popular application of photography then, and remains so now. Just like in Bill's picture.

Clarence

I wonder, Clarence. If you ask a professional costumier what is the most important thing in making an historial costume look accurate, they'll nearly always tell you it's the underwear. The look - the outerlayer - can take care of itself. But the person wearing the costume must feel what cannot be seen - which more than anything else dictates the total effect. Indeed, some movie directors have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure precisely this detail.

There is psychological underwear too. The cultural conventions of our time and place, the nature of contemporary self-consciousness - those are very much harder to shrug off. I think that no matter how perfect our technique or the antiquarian detail of our equipment, we can never recapture the appearance of the past simply because the people we photograph have been shaped by a different, invisible, world.

Having earlier said that some people "spring out" of old photographs I'm now going to say that the opposite is generally true. I recently saw a photograph of some officers of Braggs' [Confederate] Army of Tennessee. They appear a chaotic shambles - not a garment matches, beards, moustaches, hair - all extraordinary. but their demeanour is the thing. These are men who own slaves and fight battles. They hold - so Du Bois assures us - no greater love than that for their nurse; but they would never set her free. They would die for a lady, but not ask her opinion. They strive to act as chivalrous, cultured Christian gentleman, confident that those they enslave are held in bondage as an act of natural justice, if not altruistic kindness. They are - heaven help us - fighting for freedom! Now look at some re-enactors. Every detail is perfect, but they are plain, ordinary chaps like ourselves. There is no meaningful likeness between the two. Their inner world's are fantastically different. Even if you took a picture using Matthew Brady's camera you would barely need to look to know which group was modern.

Sorry to go on - but this really intrigues me. I think that there is a way round this problem, but that would need another, much madder post!

My apologies, Ian

 

[lushd]

I have been trying something similar, I think. For the past couple years, I've been collecting old camera/photography magazines from the 1910's right up to the 1970's. I find myself most interested in the magazines of the 1950's. I also have been buying old books on portraiture, modeling, lighting, posing guides, and so on. Some of the information is obviously obsolete - such as how to rate flashbulbs. However, the position of the lights and the use of light and shadow is still valuable information - and it conveys a sense of how things looked 'back then'.

I don't think I want to just ape the past - but I see nothing wrong with going back in time a bit to find new inspiration. I'm currently in a bit of a rut, so why not.

I hope you'll find this photo interesting. I took it yesterday on my front porch. The subject is my brother-in-law who was visiting from NYC. Yes, I used a dSLR, but mounted a converted cine lens, a Bausch & Lomb Super Baltar 150mm f/2.7 shot wide-open. I like the 'not perfect' look it gives - even stronger on film, where you can see the field curvature more. I took the resulting file into The Gimp and used channel mixing to take a lot from the red channel and then desaturated it, converted it to monochrome, adjusted levels, reconverted it to RGB and toned it sepia. Well, sounds complicated, but it didn't take very long. And yes, I shot some B&W film during this session as well - I just haven't developed/scanned it yet.

Forward, through the past!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Hi Bill - nice one! I put that about 1970, camera is a Nikon or Canon, it's a still from a shoot on a movie set and the guy modelling is the director, wondering how to light the next shot. The film is a bit "new wave" and daring.

See - it works!

 

[lushd]

If you ask a professional costumier what is the most important thing in making an historial costume look accurate, they'll nearly always tell you it's the underwear.

Now then young man - I do not wish to start wearing Soviet era underwear, although I am sure there is a website for such things!

So what is the photography equivalent of the underwear? My candidates - the lens, developer, film. Mind you, that's the clothes as well. Any ideas?

 

[Jocko]

Now then young man - I do not wish to start wearing Soviet era underwear, although I am sure there is a website for such things!

I don't know about that Donald, but I do know what they wore in the DDR
(see below)! I believe the phrase was "get your Prakticas out for the lads, love".

I just had the packet lying about. As one does.

I'm going to lie down now.

Ian (a good person really)

 

[lushd]

I think I'll have to go and lie down too. It's certainly not the sort of underwear conducive to concentration on f-stops!

 

[bmattock]

If you ask a professional costumier what is the most important thing in making an historial costume look accurate, they'll nearly always tell you it's the underwear.

Now then young man - I do not wish to start wearing Soviet era underwear, although I am sure there is a website for such things!

So what is the photography equivalent of the underwear? My candidates - the lens, developer, film. Mind you, that's the clothes as well. Any ideas?

Personally, I think it is a combination of the above. Don't forget posing, lighting, and backgrounds (for portraits/people). There are 'looks' in photography that are just not done today - this places a photograph in a period of time as well.

[not my photo above]

Don't forget the paper too. How to duplicate the 'look' of DuPont Defender?

If I had to name one thing that was more important than the others in terms of creating a 'look' from a particular era, it would be the lighting for people, and the lens if the photograph were not a studio shot. It is difficult to Photoshop the 'look' of a triplet lens or the fall-off of a Petzval or Rapid Rectilinear. It's not just 'blur', it is knowing where and why the blur will be present, and to what degree.

[not my photo above]

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[lushd]

Thanks Bill - you are right of course about the paper, lenses etc. It's a lot of fun trying to get close and the attraction for me is knowing just how much craft skill went into all that. If I can take pictures others enjoy and get the feeling that some days I am master of my craft then I will be very happy indeed. There really is nothing like taking a film out of the soup and knowing that you've got some good negs and they are that way because you set it up intentionally.

 

[lushd]

Now this bloke has cracked time travel ....

http://www.robbkendrick.com/