Re: Cruising for snaps...

[Ian Stanley <ian@mos.com.np>]

At 09:22 AM 97-05-06 -0700, you wrote:
> I figure that everyone who's
>ever been to London has pictures of Big Ben, double-decker buses, The Tower
>and Picadilly Circus, but to the best of my knowledge, I'm the only one
>who's got a photo of punk rockers performing outside of Burger King, or of
>blue-and-white lawn chairs set out near the daffodils on a cold spring
>morning. When I visited Yosemite Nat'l Park, my favorite shots were not of
>grand vistas (the sky was uniformly bland every day) but of tiny, metallic
>beetles on the milkweed plants, and of dried grasses which seemed almost a
>series of ocean waves, rendered in gold. Closer to home, I am intrigued by
>the quality of morning light, as it shines through a grove of ponderosa
>pines. Unaltered photos have too much of a soot-and-chalk appearance and
>lack the luminosity that I see in person. I may try again using a blue
>filter and perhaps lowering the contrast through processing. This should be
>most interesting.
>

Hello Jeff,

        I know the feeling off looking for something different especially
here in Nepal.  At times I think that the world must be saturated with
images of Nepal - especially temples, poor children, sadhus, cows and
mountains.  I am constantly trying to find something unique and to find some
order in the chaos.  I find that Nepali tastes in colour, design, lines and
form are quite different than mine.  I am not trying to change or manipulate
what is Nepali but I am trying to find something in it all that appeals to
me and that is usally a small piece of the larger picture.  I find doing
that here is hard work and I find it easier to work at home in Canada than
it is in some of the countries that we have lived and worked in.  When we
travel it is easy to photograph because everything is new and exotic.  But
how many times do we make an image that is good just because it is good not
because it was taken in some far off place??

        I suppose that we all have an image of ourselves as photographers -
I see myself as one who likes to work mainly with large format cameras and
black and white film.  The strange thing is that my all time best selling
image, and which has outsold all of my other work many times over, is in
colour, a cibachrome print made from a 35mm Kodachrome 64 slide, shot midday
in the hot African sun with and Olympus OM4 and 50mm lens.  One of the main
reasons that people tell me they like this image is because it looks like a
painting and not a photo.

        What does all of this have to do with Leicas??  I suppose that if we
are talking about looking I find it easier to work with a rangefinder camera
rather than an SLR as I like to see the full unobstructed image.  I would be
happier with the Leica if it would call up only one frame line at a time -
the lens I am using or select.  I also like working with the 4x5 for that
reason and the upside down image - I find it easier to compose.  Perhaps I
should modify the viewfinder like HCB to get an upside down image with the
Leica.

        I realize that I know nothing about how the framelines work on an M.
I have read articles about having frame lines added but is it possible to
have them removed?  I would like just to have 35, 50 & 90 with nothing else
to get in the way.

        Anyway, I am off to the airport to pick up my wife who is returning
from England hopefully with some new magazines, books and coffee for me.  

Cheers,

Ian Stanley

Kathmandu, Nepal