“Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither...
“Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.” - Dieter Rahms
What’s In My Bag game.
Leica MP, M3, 50mm Summilux, 35mm Summicron, Iphone 5S, Lumu meter, JCH locked and loaded, Benchmade “letter opener” and my RGruppe pin all tucked into the Hadley
Featured #18: Garrick Fujii
Personal intro. I currently run They Shoot Film, a photoblog that is dedicated to sharing personal images from travels and daily life, and I am a partner at The Grand Expanse, a website dedicated to panoramic film images. I am also a contributor at Film Shooters Collective, a worldwide photography group that celebrates film photography.
About the photographs you are sharing with us. This is a...
Featured #17: Dino Kužnik
Personal intro. I am a 28 years old Slovenian, currently working as a designer in San Francisco and taking pictures in my spare time. I always carry a camera with me as you never know, when the decisive moments will happen and try to capture things, people, situation,… that I find interesting. I mostly shoot film, but am also a digital shooter. Street and documentary photography is something that...
‘Reely and Truly’
Is a new documentary from director Tyrone Lebon.
It is part of the ongoing ‘Reely and Truly’ project which will culminate in a book of photographs, texts and films about the practice of over 30 contemporary photographers to be published by DoBeDo in 2015.
Shot on all available celluloid formats, including 65mm, 35mm, super 16mm, 16mm, and super 8mm.
A few screengrabs:
Featured #16: Koen de Wit
Personal intro. I grew up in small town called Uden, the Netherlands and I’m currently employed as a hearing aid specialist (by lack of a better translation). I’m also a clarinettist, so most of my days I work with sound rather than light.
What did you want to become in childhood? Well, not a photographer, but then again I don’t really consider myself to be a grown up just yet. I did love to draw and spend time capturing imaginary moments. But now photography fills most my nostalgic needs.
Your story with photography. It’s just always been there. I come from a family of four and my oldest bother was into slide photography when I was still very young. In secondary school we actually had a complete darkroom and an after school photography program taught by our French teacher. I remember spending all my friday evenings going trough photography books in the public library. It must have been around that time that I got my trusted Canon AT-1 with only a 28 and a 50mm lens. When I still lived in Uden it accompanied many trips to the woods at sundown, capturing lots and lots of skies, but also just my immediate surroundings at home, my friends, myself and abroad. I switched to Agfa Scala (legendary black and white reversal film) in 2001. Only then, after long evenings of watching slides with close friends and family, the feedback they gave me changed how I perceived my own photography and I started to take it more seriously.
When Agfa Scala was discontinued I switched to Fuji Provia (which recently also has been discontinued, but still readily available in Europe), and found the transition to colour photography to be very hard. It involves a different way of seeing that is still very new to me. But now, being a bit older, I’ve found that it’s the all the different processes and techniques rather than the image that please me most.
What’s been your greatest accomplishment as a photographer so far? That would have to be my self published photo-book “dialog 1998 - 2008”. After switching back to colour and encouraged by Sabine Bolk it was time to make a mark for myself. The 93 photographs of dialog, spanning over 10 years of my own work, gave me quite a spin in retrospect.
Your camera bag, how it affects your process? Ah, the bag shot! The contents vary strongly these days. Ever since Sabine took up an interest in butterflies and tolerates me taking my camera along the 200mm macro FD lens became a regular, but going macro involves a completely different kit than travelling light with just a daypack. So mostly I just overpack like any beginner and gear-head, although I find myself planning shoots better these days which will hopefully lead to having my process affect my bag instead of the other way around.
So depending on the occasion there’s usually the Domke F-2 with at least a couple of rolls of Provia X400, the New F-1 with Motor Drive, Quartz Timer that doubles as a remote, a cleaning cloth and anti static brush, two sets of FN laser matte screens, filters (ND and circular polariser), and a variation of lenses (17mm, 28mm, 35mm, 35-105mm, 50mm 200mm macro, 300mm, extenders 1.4X and/or 2X, bellows etc.) and a tripod. The bare minimum is an F-1 with a 35mm and my Lumu (always in any bag).
Featured #15: Trond Kristiansen
Personal intro. I am 46 years old, a father and husband. I live in the town of Bodø above of the arctic circle i North Norway.
I have MA in Open and Distance Education and spend my daytime working with e-learning systems and course development for Nordland Hospital Trust.
What did you want to become in the childhood? Both my parents worked in the Royal Norwegian Air Force, so naturally I wanted to be a fighter pilot.
What is your story? I was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago I felt the need to slow down and find something that would keep my head buzy in a health way so I took up pinhole photography after seeing Steve Goslings Lensless Landscapes.
At first with a Skinkpinhole and my NEX-5 and later with analoge pinhole cameras. My frist pinhole camera was the 612F from Zero Image.
Pinholing became a therapeutic activity. Shooting pinholes and developing the films and paper negatives is very rewarding. I use the Lumu Lightmeter for all my analog photography.
How did you start? My father was interested in photography and his interest rubbed off on me. When a regional airline in my home town closed down their photography activities, and were throwing away their darkroom my dad salvaged it and built a big darkroom in pur basement.
So I was fortunate to grow up with a darkroom all through my teenage years. Fantastic years! Then after my national military service photography as a hobby went dormant for years as I got an education and started a family. As the kids grew older I started photographing again.
It will always be the same people who are inspired by our...
It will always be the same people who are inspired by our philosophy, people who have came to recognize that certain things in life cannot be bought. They have to be lived.
Fstoppers reviews Lumu
Gear Review: Lumu Light Meter For Smartphones from Tony Roslund on Vimeo.
Final Thoughts:
“It makes perfect sense to integrate our smartphones with a device like this. Build a quality piece of gear, then slowly integrate additional features through software. I think the folks a Lumu are doing things right, taking their time to make sure software isn’t buggy (we experienced no issues with ours by...
Featured #14: Matthew James Ortiz
Intro. Art has been my greatest passion for as long as I can remember. Growing up, regardless of where my other interests led me, I always came back to art. I have been fortunate enough to come from a supportive family of creative men and women. Watching them as an adolescent made creating my own work feel very natural and intuitive. That has been very influential as far as my style and approach to image making are concerned.
The craziest thing you ever did as a photographer? I go on a lot of photo adventures with friends and other artists and have gone to great lengths for photographs. I recently hiked to the top of Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park, Utah with all my photo gear on my back. It’s a 5-mile hike that takes about 5 hours to complete. The last half-mile is incredibly narrow with anchored support chains to hang onto while crossing more dangerous parts of the trail. The final peak is 5,785 feet. It was a scary but worthwhile experience! Another time that stands out in my mind is when I explored the Arthur Kill Ship Graveyard in Staten Island a few years ago. It’s a tough spot to get to and a dangerous one if you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Beware of guard dogs, rusty nails, and deteriorating surfaces. No regrets, though!
Featured #13: Justus Kraft
What do you think is the greatest power of photography? It is a very limited medium, which makes it great to tell a story. You can’t include motion, sound, smell, temperature, depth — and yet images tell the most powerful stories in the world. I love, that I can include my own vision, my own thoughts and feelings into photography, without actually telling anybody. That’s where I want to get better and better.
If you could give one piece of advice to fellow photographers, what would it be? Get to know the past and inherit it in your work — styles, techniques, stories.
Don’t just follow current trends, but work your way through the stories of those great people that build up photography as an art form. They can teach you way more than any Photoshop tutorial ever will.
What do you carry around in your camera bag? As a wedding photographer, I don’t like to have a lot of gear with me. I like to move fast, get to know people and not stand in the back row with a large telephoto lens. For my reportage work I mainly shoot digital with Sony’s new A7-Lineup, but I rely on manual focussing lenses by Leica or Voigtländer. I feel like manually changing aperture and focus leaves me in full control over the shot. For my portrait work, I also shoot on film and polaroid. It’s what makes photography real to me, working with the chemicals, doing prints — I really enjoy the handcraft. But I think it’s great to get the best out of both worlds, the digital and the analogue. That’s also why I enjoy the Lumu, because it combines the convenience of such a marvelous piece of electronics like your phone, with such a great technique like shooting film.
Featured #12: Teva Cosic
Today we are featuring Teva, first girl in our #featured Lumu user section! Awesome bag and photographs, check it out.
Personal intro. My name is Teva, I am 20 and I have just moved from my home in Australia and am now living with my family in Sweden. All I have at the moment is my photography, no job, no study, no plans, just life. It’s a strange situation not having anything on your plate, I like to be busy and now I have all this time to spend doing whatever I choose. I have decided to work on creating a personal series dealing aspects of childhood nostalgia, having returned to this country I used to live in as a child and how much it has changed and the somewhat distorted memories. I would also like to travel and meet/collaborate with other photographers and learn and grown as one myself. There is so much richness to be found in life from experiences and knowledge in the world abroad; I don’t want to miss it!
What did you want to become in the childhood? I didn’t want to grow up. But if I had to, I think I wanted to become either an artist or live with the animals.
What’s been your greatest accomplishment as a photographer so far? Deciding to shoot film over digital. After finishing one year of study, it was clear, film was like love with light and I had so much more passion again. I’m all gooey on the inside again now.
What do you carry around in your camera bag? At least one camera, film, my Lumu light and some headphones. (And possibly some snacks).
From left to right:
- Leica m6 | Carl Zeiss C Sonnar T* 50mm f/1.5 ZM
- Contax 645 | Carl Zeiss Planar T* 80mm f/2
- Polaroid 240 Land Camera
- Canon EOS 3 | 85L f/1.2
- Canon 5diii | 50L f/1.2
- Fuji X Pro-1 | Fujinon 18mm f/2 | Fujinon 35mm f/1.4
- Lumu Light meter
- Much Film
- 3 Annie’s Bag