Apr 16, 2010

Digital/Analog

Oxymoron? Sure, but it fits.
Today I did a little test of an idea I've had and forgotten about a few times over the last couple years — shooting pictures through the viewfinder lens of an old Kodak Duoflex II view camera. After editing I then put some together in a diptych or stereo format and liked it quite a bit.
Wyse was a particularly good model for the first set. I pretty much just told him to sit here and he did the rest (and yeah, the one on the right is out of focus on purpose). My set up consisted of the Duoflex (which I've had since Halloween of 1995 when I went as an old time news photographer) on a small Gitzo travel tripod (that I've had almost as long), with a digital camera directly above it, on a larger tripod.

After Wyse got bored with me I moved on to some flowers I had picked for the guest room when my mom was in town for spring break, and an old wooden tiger pull toy I've had since I was a baby. And after fussling with the focus some I even made one of myself that wasn't too bad (dig my lint eye).
My plan is to use this technique for a portrait shoot for the advance of Hello Dolly (opening in a couple weeks). I think the look will work well with the period costuming they're using.

Oh, here's a link to a post by Fla. photog Chip Litherland who shot a series of ports a year ago with the same technique. I was blown away that someone had beat me to it, but apparently it has gotten somewhat popular in some areas of photography (shows how in touch I am with the art these days) even before his, so I guess I'm a bit of a sheep... oh well, I still think it'll look cool for the play pix.
-DKM

1 comment:

Michael said...

These look amazing. I can't wait to see the results.