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I love the work, I just wonder how many prospective Bridezilla’s would be into this kind of dark mood for their weddings?

Perhaps if you were a Goth Bride!

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OK… I finally got a few of these together.
I got one for crime, and another that’s a moody alley. Happy with thoe (regardless of how they’ll do with the voters.)

But…
I have 3 more and can’t really decide on which to use. So I come to you guys. Of these:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7064/6907891561_e929b5d0cb_b.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7041/6907891575_a3a48dc913_b.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7197/6907891583_d5331e9843_b.jpg

Which most evokes “noir”?

Two are children’s graves, and one’s a bride shot, but I think it’s got the mood just right, but I’m not sure how it’ll play.

Help?

Bride shot! Definitely!

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Sweet! Next gathering, we’ll have to go LFing together. If one large, vintage camera attracts looks and starts conversations, I can only imagine two!

I am pretty sure, in cold light of sobriety I am going to clean it up and flip it, but that would turn some heads. I have to think about. All I really need to do is sell one print and it’s paid for!

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The thing about speed graphics is there are a bunch of different ways you can use them – ground glass focusing, rangefinder, or old school press photographer style (set the focus to 10′ or so, F11 with flashbulbs….). You can pick between focal plane and leaf shutter too…

This may be useful: http://www.graflex.org

I spent some time there before buying…I’ve wanted one for a while…but sinking in the idea of shooting large format…it hurts the head. My inspiration is Press Photographer style (I really want to do street photography weegee style, but that is not realistic).

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Actually…how DO I use this thing? I know the theory, but this is the Holy Grail of Film…large format! If I keep…and I think I will…imagine the possibilities!

Also, people who are good with tools and stuff: as I figure out what is wrong and right with this camera, can you help me fix it? This is a medium to long term investment, plus I want to shoot large format at least once.

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Link or it didn’t happen. Going to shoot for noir right about now? 😉

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330685176339

$99.99!

Wollensak lens, (by the photos) good bellows…now…how do I USE this thing?

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I would like to thank the voters for the Surprise Top Five this week! I’ve worn the hell out of that Church in so many Farktography Threads!

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$1700 body only… but what a sexy little beast…

Am I wrong by my first thought being “I’ll bet that box has an extremely short flange-sensor throw and could mate with almost any lens with an adapter”?

Body only being the operative phrase…I hear it takes Leica lenses…therein lies the rub.

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Addendum to add: The X100 http://www.finepix-x100.com/en is perhaps the best small camera on the market today based entirely on image quality, though the X10 comes close it lacks the ISO and DR of the X100. The XPro1 http://fujifilm-x.com/x-pro1/en/ is..my god…it’s full of stars! It is also so far out of my price range that I would be choosing between it and a 5D and Real Good Glass (TM) and the XPro1, and I would be right back to the Big Ass Bag again.

If I win my lawsuit I will buy the X100, if I win the lottery I will buy the XPro1(and the 5D and Mother Beautiful Glass)

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B: I can’t lug a DSLR around with me everywhere.

I do…I bought one of these http://www.thinktankphoto.com/products/retrospective-30-shoulder-bag.aspx and now I pack it with me every but the bathroom…and it goes to the bathroom with me in bars. If I am not carrying my DSLR I carry my Yashica Electro Rangefinder with cranked up TriX inside. I made the commitment to never be without a camera because every time I am without a camera I find something I want to shoot. (The reverse is not true, unfortunately, I do not find things I want to shoot constantly when carrying a camera) Yesterday at work I was walking a dog and an identically dressed (Johnny Cash black, hats, shades, the works but NOT Hasidics) were walking arm in arm down the sidewalk and I was PISSED I stepped out without my camera, it was a perfect street shot! I know it’s not practical for a lot of people, I can’t imagine toting a baby and my camera, but that’s OK because I would choose the camera over the baby…another reason why I choose to be childless.

One day I will get my Fuji X100 and I will not be forced to carry the Think Tank around…though I probably will.

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I guess the biggest complaint we all have is with the rise of camera-phones and the technological increase quantity has no bearing on quality.

I mean, I went to Italy for 13 days, took a Nikon and a tripod, took 5000 pix, and as yet have posted very very few from that trip. Including use in classroom and sharing with parents and stuff, I’ve shown maybe 100 or so of what I took. I try to keep my quality/quantity ratio balanced so that people think of me as the artiste I (pretentiously) want to be seen as.

Of course, then I come here and every week find out just how wrong my delusion really is. 😉

Still… gotta have pride in one’s work, y’know?

Indeed, and learning what to keep and what to throw away is an integral part of improving. One of the problems with instant sharing of photo visa vie these apps is the discarding of the editing process! The photo moves from from finger to world without a moments pause and it shows in the results.

When I started shooting again after my long hiatus I would shoot hundreds of shots, often shooting the same image over and over and then go home and pick four or five and post them. When I was shooting for Noir the other day, I shot fifteen exposures, and picked seven of them and will post one. I planned the shoot for two weeks prior, sketched what I wanted, the lighting design and then shot. (I still screwed it up mind you! But I screwed it up far less). In editing I was able to pick and fix what I wanted.

Instant gratification almost always results in shiatty images. These apps remove thought, selectivity and correction from the process and spew the results over the landscape that a Frat Boy after a game of beer pong.

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http://freeversephotography.com/freeversephotoblog/?attachment_id=3167

Yugo: This was the shot that originally inspired me to submit this theme, so absolutely dark, and depressing places are an excellent fit for this theme. I broadened the idea to open it up, largely inspired by some of orionid‘s work (http://www.flickr.com/photos/orionid/4168388832/in/set-72157622864788437).

For folks whose mental state doesn’t lean toward the dark and morose, environmental shots like dark alleys, scary rooms, the brooding closet doors, creepy old cars, strangers, men offering candy, dangerous women, liquor, guns, war vets and Newt Gingrich all are quite acceptable in this theme.

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I wonder if videographers and filmmakers hated camcorders like we hate iphones? I guess there was probably SOME hate, but the advent of camcorders was not spewed on the landscape like Instahipstashitomatica.

Let me be honest, I care not about the iphone…I hate the farking Apps. A guy I work with downloaded Adobe Photoshop onto his Droid today and all I could think was “WTF are you going to Photoshop on a friggin’ phone?”

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If you take a good photograph, I don’t CARE what you took it ON. Someone with the basic understanding of the principles of photography can repeatedly take a good photographs on any photographic medium. My problem with iphone photography is simple, it does not encourage ANY sort of composition. Pull it out of the pocket, turn it in the general direction and wave it until you see what you want to see. At least with a camera the very act of using it, of at least drawing a viewfinder to your eye FORCES you to make to some compositional choices. (Move forward, move back, step left, kneel) while the iphone just goes wherever your hand is pointing framing everything at chest level, two feet from your face and within the screen. (Much of this can be said of a contemporary P&S with their large LCD’s and tiny or non-existent viewfinders). Since it’s inception the medium has guided shooters to at least frame a shot within the device, in an inadvertent yet natural composition (which is why 95% of all snapshots are landscape, when people learn they can shift to a vertical portrait view and do so, they have taken the first step toward learning composition!) now every iphone shot is in a thin vertical portrait view because that is how people hold their phone. (REALLY annoying in video mode as all the action is happening off screen and you see a thin stripe of what the shooter was trying to capture!)

Finally the advent of filtering software has created a class of Filter Zombies who use the same effects for every photo and then spew them onto the web in an endless litany of insipid, identical shots never once considering alternatives or individuality. Ironic how software made to highlight the individuality of your photos from the mainstream (ooooh, look, this picture of Biffy the Dog looks like it was taken with Lomolga! My Dad had a Lomolga when he was a kid! I should show EVERYONE this!) has resulted in millions of photos with the exact same settings, and the exact same lack of inspiration and composition.

I don’t hate the medium, I hate the result, intended or not. Yes, this sort of thing has been going on for years. When I was a teenager, I took shots just like the InstaHipShitMaticIphonographs on my 35mm, but I learned early on that no one actually wanted to SEE them. Thanks to the iphone, I get to see EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM from hundreds of people as they spew across my FB news freed.

I don’t hate iphone photography, I hate (some/most) the people USING it.

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I don’t know how to phrase this without sounding like an idiot, so take a minute and let the “staplermofo’s an idiot” waves wash over you. Meditate, distance, rejoin.
Good.

If my memory of 90s raves serves, these kids are probably drug addicted, intermittently homeless, etc. They’re having fun, they’re brightly colored; it’s only dark if you put it in context.

Like, does it need to convey darkness such that I could hop in my time machine, grab some guys from 1900 and 2100, show it to them and have them agree “that’s dark.”?

I like open themes, and I like to see what people’s perceptions on the darker side of human nature involve. The bad part of us isn’t limited to grey scale visions and bleak visages, let your psyche run amok.

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