Recently, Jonathon transacted with me for a pinch of Fujifilm FP-100C45. I found his portraits of his lovely wife; he found my Strangers & Not So Strange project. Handshakes were made, and I received an invite to this site, with a request to post about my recent portraiture.

Back in mid-March 2008, I was coping with depression over some personal struggles when I turned to my RB67 for relief. I had been shooting FP-3000B past my Sekors for some time, using it to grab pub shots at night, but the camera had been dormant for weeks. I set out on a Sunday afternoon, my bag containing the RB67 with Pola-back, a couple of packs of FP-100B, and a solitary pack of expired FP-100C. I had sworn off color, was none-too-fond of the FP-100B, and figured it would be a good chance to rid myself of the stocks.

I made my way to the pub, found some friends at a table near the front, at streetside, the pub possessing these terrific folding glass-paned doors. The light is always lovely there, if the skies are cooperative--a doable 1/8th at 5.6 in hand, most days.

The 100B was quickly dispatched, nothing very exciting there.  I loaded the back with that pack of color film and pulled a sheet. "Hmm," I thought, "now that's interesting."

 Color hadn't looked so good to me in many months. I worked my way through the pack, ended up with a handful of nice prints and a minor crowd cooing over them.

 Inspired, I picked up more film the following morning. That afternoon, I made my way back to the pub. More goodness was had.

I continue to return to my fishing hole, some 200 proofs along now, and I don't think I've ever felt so good about my photography. The consistency of the work, the repetitive nature of it, has given my mind something to look forward to, an exercise perhaps.

The full set as it grows can be viewed HERE.  I will include a few more frames in this post.

 Greetings, then, to the community.

CE Nelson
nelsonfoto.com 

 

I'm not uploading this to 'fish for compliments', but to serve up a better looking j-peg which'll give a better sense of what the Turner Reich can do.  Understand the tiff version of this shot looks several times as good as the J-peg, and the print looks a lot better than the tiff. 

After doing the shot which I originally uploaded here, I left the set-up in place, and put my camera up, and then decided to shoot some slightly different angles, and to shoot some versions w/Ilford FP4 which I'll get from the lab early next week.  If the FP4 serves up a quantum jump in transfering the values and nuances of the TR, then I'll try to upload those shots.  But bottom line, j-pegs just don't do justice to what this lens can do.  

I keep talking about this lens because of how good it is, and we're talking if memory serves me right about we're talking about $75.00 and change,  so it definitely re-affirms the great fun I've had, anybody can have, coming up with a lens like this, MADE BETTER by Jim Galli.  

I've spend some money on more famous lenses, don't regret it, and I'm happy I've got those lenses, and I know I'm preaching to the 'choir', but I gotta say, classic lenses are the best thing to ever happen to me as a photographer.  The best thing about it is the fact that how much the lens is worth, has absolutely NOTHING to do with what these lenses are capable of,  and this lens is capable of a lot. 

I want to thank you Jim, for what you did for me with this lens, and thank you for all your adventures, and experiments, which all of us should appreciate, particularly since you do all the work, while we get to sit back, and watch all these tests.

     I changed the title, because the previous title was 'yucckkky' and stupid, so go ahead and 'wop' me, but the image deserved a better name.  I'm still dancing w/this lens, she won't let me go, so let the dance continue.  This is an 'itty bitty' glass curio, sitting on brushed aluminum, and I've leaned a 59 cent magnifier against it. 

      The shot speaks for itself, the bottle's on my favorite surface, brushed aluminum, which can be used both as a background and a rough mirror reflection of the subject matter.

      This lens is all about understated elegance.

       Take care

    Maybe my scanner didn't feel like putting out yesterday, because this image is a better scan.  Oh well, my scanner's almost as old as I am, and can't be expected to put out a max effort every day.  

    This is the Jim Galli modified Turner Reich on my Toyo AII, to get close enough I had to put on the 4 inch extension sleeve to give me the max 16 inches which I needed most of to get this.  Exposure was wide open(F6.8), shutter was 'one thousand and one'.