Mug shot (1)

I’m not having any project or mission with my Mag lens still, I’ve been carrying around this lens the most.  Because this one is probably the most typical of my fuzzy homemade lens, together with a good capability of close-up shot (since its used be a magnifier.)  And to explain what and why this lens, often I demonstrate the effect of the lens by taking picture of the person.   Naturally I got a collection of portrait of those people I met in the town.

 

The closer the subject, the better the image quality, still it keeps fuzziness.  So, where ever I click, the product showed my fingerprint. =  That’s I like. —– When people take picture, the result looks all same.  Since, shoot same subject and use more or less the same camera = inevitably the result became same.  That is not a kind I was born to do.  = If I make something, its got to be totally unique, and nobody ever conceived kind (so, it should come to the top of google list, such as “yoshi Zappa” “Art figure St.lucia” etc ) —– (Why people are eager to sell their name is, nothing other than the name makes the difference of the work.) —– it’s hard to be an artist.

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Need lens ?

(Photo above by Gordon Cooper, Church Window, July 2018)

My friend cinematographer Gordon sent me the Photos he took on his holiday in the Cornwall.

While rest of us has been barely surviving in this heatwave, what a lucky guy, Gordon.  He sent photos while saying “Who need the lens” = In deed the photos were taken by the Pinhole which I made for him. —– Yes, exactly like us living without cloths, the camera can take a photo naked = without the lens.  With Pinhole.  That’s true.  I’ve been forgotten the Pinhole —– so, take them out and took some photos around.

(What I don’t like Sony A7R is, their AWB / color balance fluctuates a lot)

I got enough variety of Pinhole = this one was even fuzzier “Concentric Double Density Pinhole” = a smaller Pinhole inside of the other pinhole = create a void inside of yet another void = how can we ?.  (This is a physical and the philosophical problem.   😀 )

The advantage of the Pinhole is, (as long as the camera can co-op) we can take photo without bothering the focus. (= in any distance, image would have the same fuzziness which depend on the size of the hole)

So, the Pinhole convert the image into a constant pattern, almost like a paper cut-out.

And this is the comparison.  Those three photos were not Pinhole but by the Mag lens. Lens will make one focus = other than this distance, the image will be out of focus, which effect gives a feeling of the depth / three dimension.

This Mag lens image has the strong effect of the aberration together with rather messy out of focus bokeh.

On this photo, right amount of out of focus bokeh is giving a nice softness —– if this one was by the Pinhole, it would become rather messy image. = Pinhole is not necessary suit for all the subject. (better suit for bold pattern and that kind of image = in other words, for the some subjects, optical lens would make better image.  Needs lens !

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Brilliant London by the same Mag Lens

When it was bright day, my Mag Lens (which got strongest halation among my homemade lens) would produce just like a blindingly bright image.

And I happen to encounter a kind of health campaign appearing to the pensioner.

Funny paradox was that the people coming out to shout were very healthy talkative people.

Funny character of  Mag Lens is, under certain condition, it produces rather solid image.

So, the difference = brilliant or gloomy was, which kind of the day, I go out.    😀

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Gloomy London = Seen by Mag Lens

Some pictures of the London = According to the Mag Lens view.

When the image is murky and dark, it will be seen as Gloomy, and this is it.   And it happen to be quite close to my own view as well. (Zennists are not so optimists though they are not necessary having a gloomy life = simply it is just not funny.  —– I can’t understand why people excite about kicking the ball or the ball on the line ?  —– What that ball to do with the person ?   We are nothing to do with the ball, do we ?    😀 )

Mag Lens doesn’t necessary make the things gloomy.  The image was just murky = hence if it was dark days, it become awfully gloomy. (I’ll show you the opposite case in the next post.)   😀

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Short Walk (B)

Those photos were another product of the same Short Walk (A), hence using the same homemade lenses Helicoid (A) and (B) on the Sony A7R.     While walking through the park, finding which flower is really a chance encounter, and how to capture it, while seeing the character of the optics and the shape of the flower, how to compose it, in which angle and the distance IS what all about the Photography.  In certain extent, it is a game or the match between the two personalities.  In Zen Buddhist term, we are living on the moment to moment life.   And to deal with the Person (subject just encountered) as if there is nothing else exists and nothing else to do is, so-called Mindfulness, and in this mind-set, there is no Ego.   So, this situation is a proof of the No-self or Anatman.   Yet still, in other stance, to see a subject as a subject might be seen as yet another Ego, therefore not aim the subject but to see everything as the everything may be a right view.   Though, in practice, the image of an ultra-wide angle lens clicked random is just a mess —– so, the question is, whether the Zen needs a nice answer ?    Or such answer itself is not Zen ? ? ?  —– Good question.   What a nice day ! —– Ha ha ha,  😀  

Helicoid (A) lens happen to have an Iris, so that, by the depth of field control, flower showed a bit more details, still, take the image of Helicoid (B) (photo right) is a matter of the taste.

Both (A) and (B) lenses, its center of close-up images are amazingly good.

Those two pictures were given a shake when the shutter was opened. (Don’t ask me what for — it’s only for a fun)

I realized that I don’t have many photos of the Blue Bell.  May be their flower is too common, yet only in a short period.  Still, why it makes the difference to the Cherry ? —– M m m ?  —– I might have an unconscious notion, that the Cherry is the Japanese but the Blue Bell is English.   But why ? ? ? —– May be because, I didn’t grow up with Blue Bell but with Cherry.   As the photography is a way of the Self expression, it became a kind of a biography.

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Screen Copy by Fuzzy Lens

The outside is still cold and not much flower, and, I’m not keen to take picture of cut flower = so, just took photo of a flower in my old post screen using very fuzzy Helicoid-B lens.

When I try, I realized that the old screen of XP laptop makes moire pattern, so I changed it to iPad screen. (though, iPad screen makes the color a bit artificial)

Following 4 set of those photos, Left side were the original and the right photos were the screen shot. (All those photos came from Somewhere Net website —– I hope they don’t fuss about the copyright)  (If you Google, you may find the same very easily)

 

Ideally, I should take the original photo myself though, I’m no longer such keen —– (and neither the model herself keen to see dirty old man.  Ha ha ha.  😀 )

I think you may agree, we don’t need to see too much details of the girls.  We are not seeing the woman like an ological specimen.   In certain extent, the beauty of the flower is the same = We only need to feel its atmosphere. (If we go into the details of the flower, often they are rather grotesque. —– after all,  flower is the sexual organ of the plant. —– or, am I a sexcist ?)

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Andreas Gursky Exhibition

I went an ongoing exhibition of Andreas Gursky in Hayward Gallery with my friend’s family.

The 16 months boy said to have started to walk this week.

For the boy,  it was the first experience to be in a huge space and a slippery floor.  And he seemed to be very much fond of that and enjoying.

Gursky’s huge prints are amazingly sharp and detailed —– I was wondered what size of camera he had used ?  —– Then as I discovered that they were composed from many photos etc, I lost interest.   I rather like to see such work from graphic designers.

 Photo above said to be a landscape of Tokyo though, houses standing next by next without hedges nor the gaps.  Of course, no such place could exists. (Think, how people can access to their door ? — Where is the street ?) = It’s mean, the houses in this photo were stitched-up one by one leaving no gap ! = This IS an utter fake.  Not only that, if his image of Tokyo in its “Reality” was like this, I have to doubt his intelligence. —– You can find the lords of straight photos of Tokyo in the Net, not mention National Geographic kind.   😀

Photography is the art of “I’ve seen it and I captured” —– The primary existence is the subject. Once we started to make-up and project our own image, its became a business of the designer or even a painter, not of a Photographer.

It seemed that Gursky’s interest were immense pile-up or swarms of the subjects, hence putting together and repeating many images, were natural approach though it was the commercial graphic designer’s approach.  Impress and overwhelm the others with “immense amount” were noting but a cheap trick, easy exploitation of the digital editing.

It was the snow outside.   (The Photos here were taken by either Canon fish-eye zoom 8~15mm or homemade Helicoid-B lens on Sony A7R.)

PS :  Next day I read the booklet of the exhibition and realized that Gursky applied all those stitch work / digital manipulation for the “sake of reality” and later, he wanted to have painterly effect blah blah (by taking picture of the Turner’s paintings   :-D) ….. though, very simple answer to him was that his image was not pretty,  but just messy = does anybody want to have his photo on your wall, other than a sake of snob ?   😀

To compose the image, Approach from the pattern is easy, because it can be done in logical thinking.   But esthetic beauty only come from the deep intuitive sense.  So, its easy to see why Gursky resorted with those pattern or repeating expansion in mass.  But it IS not the art, but an industrial production.   ( Or was that cynical Modern Art ?)

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Canberwell Cherry by Other Lenses

You may think, the camera was rotated but this swirly bokeh was the lens’ own aberration.

Those two were by Helicoid-B lens 

And those two were by G9 lens

Those photos above were by G10 lens

What I don’t like about this camera was, its AWB (White Balance) changes frame to frame.

And those two were by SZ lens

—– The hardest part in those photography was, to sort the photos without mix-up, not mention the trouble to capture them while holding the camera high above the head and shoot by guess-work. (You know, the Photography is a hard work)   😀  

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Camberwell Cherry by NZ Lens

While passing through by bus, I noticed that a Cherry tree in a corner of the Green was in full bloom.  So, I went back there with my camera together with some homemade lenses. 

(In this photo the red cast seemed to be created by the camera’s image processor — may be non genuine lens may not work well with this camera (Sony A7R)

Cherry itself seemed to be a primitive wild cherry, we called Yama-zakura (Mountain Cherry) in Japan, not the well cultivated Kan-zakura (Winter Cherry), nevertheless Cherry flower is the Cherry flower. (May be from the mountain standard, the climate in the town was warm enough to open their flowers.)

(The photo above left was the other tree nearby — this one seems a Plum flower)

The photos in here were taken by the lens called (or, I named) NZ lens.  It was a Nikon Zoom lens which I utilized its front element, and made it as an individual lens. (Works as a 90 mm F1.6 and able to focus down to 45 cm)  Its macro quality was not too bad though, it got a strong aberration and together with its “Fully open” F1.6 aperture (Think, 90 mm F1.6 is pretty big), it’s creates “Fantastic” fuzzy images like those top photos.  They were shot while using 10 mm extension ring.  And this fuzziness IS very unusual = it looks like a halo in the highlight which spread around still, the details and the contrast in highlight was maintained. = I never seen the image like this.   (If you agree with it.  😀 )  

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Rice Beetle

This is the Rice Beetle I found in the Italian rice after more than 60 years lapse of time.  When I was a child, we were told to pick up and remove the rice beetle from the rice, before the mother cook it.  So, we spread the rice on a news paper and corm it to sort out the beetles.  It was the norm then that the rice was infested by the small beetles, elephant rice beetles.

I don’t remember exactly when its became we no longer needed to look for the insects. Anyhow, when the Co-op rice producer started to fumigate the rice with insecticide gas, the beetles were disappeared from the rice.

Many years ago, when I demonstrated the Japanese cooking to my friend’s family, while seeing me washing the rice, a daughter of the family shouted “Hey mum, he is washing the rice” —– it seemed, that the family has been eating the rice without washing.  Then the Mum started to preach me that the goodness of the rice is in its brown skin and the bran, therefore if we wash the rice, we will lose its remaining goodness etc.  So, I told them the story that there used be a lots of insects in a pack of rice and the reason why they disappeared was because the insecticide fumigation.  To wash off its remaining chemical is far more acute problem than a bit of nutrition. 

To take a photo of this tiny insect, I needed to use x5 magnification.  (Look at its magnified details, I noticed that this carcass got only two pair of legs = its mean the chest and the head was missing. )    Among my homemade macro lenses,  I chose to use the Instamatic Macro and the LED illumination.   Still, it was always the case, improvised Hi-magnification macro is very awkward ( = x5 magnification means the image is 1/25 dark, needs minute minute focus, sensitive to the shake 5 times more etc) — nevertheless it was a fun, especially, this was the record of the very rare encounter = I met this old friend again after 60 years absence.  I was really grad to see that they ARE also surviving somewhere on the earth.  

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