Dynamic Duo

What is a photograph? For me, a fragment of quicksilver, a lucid dream, a scribbled note from the subconscious to be deciphered, perhaps over years. It is a monologue trying to become a conversation, an offering, an alibi, a salute. Music.

Hey, welcome to the Street Shots Photography Podcast. This is Antonio. And this is Ward. And this is episode 205 for the Ides of April. I'm so sorry, we have to drop the Ides. Middle of April, 2023. I dropped the Ides. Well, but it's tax day too. Oh, tax day for you. Ours is the end of April. Yeah but we're a bigger country yeah but you're a big country that's just like. You know you know what i didn't get mine done on time or sent on time so i have to file an extension.

Not that it's a big deal but you know it's it's maybe i gotta pay a little bit more or something like that but we get to extend for six months till october so i just have to have a an appointment with my accountant to find out like what what am i doing these days because i'm i'm not i don't feel like i'm in business anymore so you know you know i'm just uh i'm just doing freelance work, so there you go uh how are you i'm doing there's warmed up here it was sunny,

so walking the dog after work today it was all very nice yeah you sent that video yeah you guys with the vertical videos already well it's you're like you're being like the young people with the vertical videos that and my my darth vader breathing you can hear on that yeah i heard the darth vader breathing not cool yeah we yeah well we're we're hitting spring but and the the pollen is getting out there and i started sneezing and it's always a wonderful experience uh yeah Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, we were, we, if we were in the Middle Ages, New York City, it would have been really interesting because we had an earthquake and an eclipse within four days of each other. Sounds like the end times to me. It was certainly times that that earthquake scared the out of me.

Yes and for anybody who's living on the west coast or lives in earthquakes yeah, to you you know if you're living in new york this does not happen that often in fact it was well it wasn't in new york city that it happened it was in new jersey and it was i think the fourth most intense.

Earthquake in recorded times in our area so it was pretty bad i mean i guess it was like a 4.8 in new jersey i don't know what that means for the rest of us you know in the in the zone it's certainly not that intense but it was enough to like my building and you've been in this building and i live on the 12th floor and so thing i've been in an earthquake here before too and i think think it was 20 or i don't know 2010 20 20 2011 i think we had an earthquake here the building

was jumping up and down wow it wasn't swaying well and it also started swaying because i'm on the 12th floor so it's almost like you know like a tree it's whipping at the top and you know this building was built in 1962 in new york they didn't design it for earthquakes so i mean there was no no damage but but things were moving around a lot and and and my cat opie he was like he he was like something's up and usually he doesn't get rocked by anything like the fireworks you know the

hot rods with the engines backfiring you know he gets a little bit but he's like you saw him he's kind of like a but he was like looking around like what the hell happened look at this picture i'm like Like, holy crap, what the hell was going on? But he still was okay. But it was just like, yeah, but that, that was, that, that, it was enough to get you old. And then I'm like writing on Facebook, holy crap, there was just an earthquake. Yeah.

Yeah. You were kind of live texting it to me. I'm sitting at my desk at work. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I was like, yeah, well, I had to tell somebody. And I was telling you about the U.S. Geological Survey. Go to the, go to the site and post your observations. Yeah. Yeah. There was actually some, there was some, cause I did post my observations.

And I was watching the, the, uh, the rings sort of like concentric rings of reports sort of move out further and further and seeing how far it went. But yeah, that was crazy. That was really crazy. They filled it from Philly to the Great Lakes, apparently. Like it was, it was shallow. I saw, there was a few reports down in the South too. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. There was like very few, but there was like a little pinpricks of, of someplace down in the Carolinas too. too.

So I guess it's just the way the East coast is designed and stuff like that for the one place. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. That was enough to wake you up. And it's just, you know, anyway, but then, then we had our, you know, everybody was listening to this probably, you know, obviously we had the eclipse. We were scheduled to have clouds on, on Monday.

And actually it wasn't too bad. It was actually not so bad except the clouds finally kicked in after, After, I think we had probably another 20 or 30 minutes of the moon passing, but I ended up the first time I've ever photographed.

An eclipse because i'd never would been ready for it and this was everybody's making a big stink about so i bought the filter ahead of time and put it on my uh my 100 to 600 fuji and i had a 1.4 teleconverter on it so it's about the equivalent on a full frame of about 1200 i think 1200 millimeters cool pretty nice and i had it set up on the roof that we got we got let up on our roof which a few people in the building and we're allowed to go up well we're all allowed to go up we're

not allowed to go up but the super opened it up and we went up there yeah and i had set up my the shooting with the fuji xh2 so trying to get the most amount of megapixels and i just put that filter on it was perfect it was like a 16 or 18 stop nd and it was absolutely perfect and i had the little bent out screen set up and as people were coming up to the roof i was saying hey come here before we put your glasses on take a look because this way they could

see what it looks like close up yeah and then when they get close i'm like they're like wow wow i'm like okay look just touch i go touch the screen like what i go touch the screen and i had the camera set up for uh touching the screen to trigger the shutter so they would they would they would tap it near the shutter sound i'm like you just took a picture like oh really. So it was very exciting so yeah it was i was i was kind of blown away we only had about i think I think we were 90% here. Yeah.

That's enough. I mean, the sequence that you showed me or you sent to me is pretty cool. Yeah. I've never, I've never, I've never done that before. And I was like, okay, well, how am I going to display these? And so, yeah, I think I did a display of like 10 different, uh. I can't even talk. Phases. Phases. Thank you. Phases. Ah, that's the word.

10 different phases of the moon. But what was fun is that as I was, I was doing it in Photoshop, I was dragging in the layers and then setting up the blending mode for screen so that they would show through the black, which sort of become transparent. And as I'm dragging all the layers, I ended up, I think I had like 15 layers and I actually cut them down.

But i said put all the 15 layers they all i dragged them all on top of each other and it made this sort of abstract kind of did i show you that picture i'll put it in the show notes it's sort of like a bunch of the eclipse phases all sort of yeah one like on top of each other one no no no no the one that's the geometric sandwiched the shape yeah yeah yeah and i looked at i had just dragged them in like that and i was looking and i was like

that's actually kind of cool and i didn't arrange them i just had just dragged them in because i was making this the photoshop up document dragged him dragging around looked at it i looked at the picture i said oh and so i just did save as i think jeez i hope i saved that document but i definitely did save as you know, you know now i'm thinking i might not have saved the document oh boy but at least i got the shot what did you send me anyway what do you just sent well

no no i sent it to but like that was the document that was i was making the sequence pictures that i did in a diagonal right but But initially I had to drag in all the layers. Oh, I see. So as I dragged in all the layers and before I resized them, I made this sort of abstract and that was accidental and I really liked that. And I put it up on Facebook and a friend of mine, who's a meteorologist on a news channel. And it's like, I think it's news 12, but he's now in New Jersey.

He, he texted me and he said, I love this picture. I want to have it on our wall, on my wall. So now I'm thinking I better have the high res version. Look at what you sent me and then recreate it. I don't know what else you're going to have to do. I, I, I am really hoping I have that someplace. Well, at least I have a high res JPEG. I'm pretty sure I have a high res JPEG. Anyway, I thought that was a nice, actually, I liked it because it was a different way to look at the eclipse.

It was just this abstract kind of jumble of phases together. So anyway, sorry, I'm going on about this thing too long, but I, it was quite enjoyable. And I have got this filter that I have no use for, although I could point it at the sun and I tested it up with just taking a shot at 1200 millimeters pointing gear at the sun. Yeah. Great.

Something there's like a risk your sensor risk your eyesight it's all good well it's either gonna work it's not or it's not gonna work exactly it worked yeah that's great hopefully it didn't damage the sun can't imagine it would damage the sensor i mean it's a lot of stops, yeah anyway yeah so that was that was an experience and you said unfortunately you had some clouds so we had cloud and we were maybe 35 percent so i don't

know we wouldn't really have noticed i don't think where i was i just stayed at my desk and looked at webcams and i was like okay that's fine i'm i can keep working so yeah we had a few years ago that was sort of in the 70 70, 80%. You get the aurora down there too. We get the aurora, yeah. And you get the galaxies that you can look up at at night and see.

Yeah, which reminds me. I mean, you've kind of inspired me to maybe get back into some more serious astro instead of just what I've, you know, fell into. Or spur of the moment go out and set up. So maybe I'll be a little bit more, particularly now. Now, the last few years, we've had a roar at all times of the year.

Really? Yeah. So if there is, remember once when it's kind of coincidental when they were, they were shooting that movie or the movie, the miniseries, The Last of Us here, downtown or whatever. And they were, the crew apparently, cause I had a friend on the crew, they're going up and down the highway here and they were driving to Edmonton.

It's about three hours north of here. And it was in May, I want to say. and there was spectacular Aurora and I guess the crew stopped in the stars or whatever. Then the stars of the show went out to watch the stars in the Aurora just by the side of the highway because it was so spectacular. And that was in May and I have a specific memory of hearing that story. So we're coming up on, you know, if we have, there's a lot of sunspot out there.

And I see there were some sunspots on your pictures there. Yeah, yeah. It was cool. It was fun to see other people's pictures because they were, other people were posting their test pictures of the, of that too. And I was like, oh, they've got the same spots. Well, it's the same. I know, I know. But it was like, it was, it's just kind of, you know, that was the thing about the eclipse or even this kind of event is how it brought everybody together.

Like there was this giant kind of gathering and everybody was stopping and looking at the same thing and so like when i see that someone else in another part of the country is photographing the sun and they've got the same spots on it it just felt like i know you know you could do the same thing with the moon right but there was something connective about that experience that we're all seeing the same thing and we're all looking up

and and and so yeah so you know seeing somebody else who's got the same spots on the sun like it just took me you know i don't photograph the sun that often i mean i do sunrises but but but you know pointing the camera straight up at the sun.

As a you know a you know and seeing it as a star and this ball and whatnot and seeing that someone else has got sort of the exact same framing of it i was like yeah we're looking at the same thing at the same time anyways kind of it was kind of cool but yeah sunspots you know i had a friend who who when we were, when I worked at the image bank, submitted shots of a sun set, and I think he was shooting Kodachrome or something.

And I'm looking at them because I have to loop the pictures. And I think he was using a really long lens. I mean, obviously long lens, but I'm looking at this, this picture of the sunset. I'm like, what is this thing on the sun?

And I thought it was some problem with the film. And of course, as I started going through all the similar shots, sunspots it was the same it was in the same spot and i was looking at it and i was like holy crap he photographed sunspots and it was with kodachrome film so it was really nicely you know it wasn't like overexposed because it was sunset it was going through all the layers of the atmosphere so you can really but

it was a big one it was like it was bigger than the one that i photographed. And i just caught and i called them up and i said you know hey mark you know you got pictures you got pictures of the sunspots and he's like really i'm like yeah he's like you couldn't see see it while he was photographing. So anyway, yeah, very cool. Yeah. Well, you know, the next one is in the States in 20, 20 44.

And well, I feel like I got it, you know, I didn't travel to totality and I actually would have been kind of bummed out if I went upstate New York and it was cloudy there, you know, yeah. So 90% was here, 90% happy, right? There was mixed reviews at Niagara Falls. On the Canadian side, there was the news media was out there. It was cloudy for most of the day. People were coming from all over the world. Yeah. So it was kind of hit or miss.

Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I have no complaints whatsoever. And even the clouds kicked in at the end and I was like, you know what? I got enough. I got the last shot that looked like a, I don't know, just was symmetrical nicely. And I was like, yep, I'm happy. I'm glad, man. It's cool to do stuff like that. Yeah. And it was just, oh, oh, sorry. The other thing, another thing, another thing, you know, the, the, you know, it's so different to look at a camera screen, right?

You're looking at the camera screen and you're seeing it and it looks like a little television, but then I would put the glasses on and look up and that was a totally different experience. like it's just something else to see it in reality than as opposed to looking at it in a camera. So I'm glad I brought glasses and, and I was able to, you know, I stopped every now and then I may try to look up to, to actually experience the event with my eyes and not just through the camera screen.

Because as I've probably mentioned here a zillion times before, I was so many times in my life, I've gone to an experience, some location or place through the viewfinder of my camera. And yeah, and not, not the effect itself. Also, So I did take, I don't know if you saw it, I can't remember if I posted it, but I did take like five Polaroids. Yes, of the people gathered, including yourself. Yeah, including myself. And again, it was because I wanted to have the artifact of the day.

So, you know, these shots, I've got, I think I get five of them. One of them was photographed by my neighbor, but me and Ed, who you met, my neighbor, Ed. Hello, Ed. You're probably listening to this. I don't know. You know, I have to put the date on these things, but I wanted the actual artifact of the day. So these pictures were taken on Apocalypse Day. Wow, what's on your brain? No, there's a meme around that shows a sign that

says it's not the apocalypse, it's the eclipse. Calm down or something like that. Music.

So we have a show, I think we do. We can, we can end right now. No. So when we were talking about what to talk about tonight, I wanted to have both of us introduce some perhaps new photographers that maybe not new, new to us. Well, you know, discovering. Yeah. And so we have a couple of photographers to go and I thought, you know, we could talk about them. A little mini deep dives, as it were.

Yeah. And just introduce the world to these people, especially because I, you know, for the photographer I'm going to talk about, I am embarrassed that I never knew about her until recently. So, and then the photographer you're about to talk about, I never heard about either. A couple of months ago, yeah. Yeah. So why don't you, why don't you start with who you've got your, it's like we've done, it's like we're doing book reports. We're doing the book reports. Right. Right.

So, yeah. So discovery is one of my favorite parts of this hobby of collecting photo books as you see. And in this case, I discovered this gentleman through Ted Forbes. He does his mail day videos on YouTube and he shows books from different people of different skill levels and so on. And he showed. And these are books that, sorry, these are books that people sent in to him. That people sent in to him. Yeah.

And so. Yeah. Yeah. It's just kind of, you know, it gets free books. I mean, good for him. I kind of wish I was, people would just send me books. Actually, that's not, people have sent us books. I should just shut my mouth.

So the gentleman we're talking about is a German, a younger German photographer called Holger Nitzke. Forgive me, Holger, if you're listening. He's essentially a fashion photographer and he specializes in film. He shoots film, black and white negatives for the most part. He does, he has done some color work, but I think he, Most of the work that I've seen of his are in black and white.

So during the, and I had the book that I, that Ted showed and that I have since purchased, it's called Some Squares. And what it is, is the whole upshot of the book was his discovery during the pandemic of the Roloflex twin lens reflex. Oh, it was that recently? Yeah. And so he had, he had all the different cameras and he shot 35 millimeter and I think he's done digital as well, but he, he discovered and really dug in shooting with this twin lens reflex.

And so the work that he does, that he creates it's fashion. So we're talking about young female models for the most part on the fashion side. He's also a bit of a celebrity photographer. So not being German, I don't, I don't recognize the celebrities that he's shot, but that's just my problem. And so, you know, so he, and, and his images have that wonderful twin lens kind of throwback feel to them.

And at the same time, they have a modern sensibility. The models are wearing modern clothes, sometimes experimental clothes. They're posed sometimes in experimental ways. I think it's some of the pictures are tongue in cheek because, you know, the poor girl is really uncomfortable. The way she's standing all twisted and contorted and sort of looking deadpan into the camera, like take this picture. So there's some humor in there. It's pretty subtle.

But I really like, I really like kind of the softness of his, of his work. It's the model in their environment. It could be in a muddy field. It could be in the bush somewhere. It could be in a old home. And he just provides these wonderful, I would say like shallow depth of field for the most part, just so that they have that kind of medium format feel about them. And, and I saw the Ted Forbes featured the book. I bought it and I'm very happy with it.

In fact, I sent an email to him thanking him for the book. And when it, when the book arrived, it was during some really cold weather we were having here. And I said, in the middle of this cold Canadian prairie winter, your book is like a breath of spring air, you know? So, and that's what it felt like. Cause it was like lovely kind of moody, romantic, but not in a sappy way. Just a very engaging and relaxing experience to go through.

It's not really kind of in your face. It's very soft and has a wonderful soft aesthetic. I like the way he's processed his images as well. There's good tones. The book is lovely. Did he send the book to Ted? Yes, he sent the book to Ted. Oh, he did. Okay, so he watches Ted as well. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of us will watch Ted.

Yeah, no, I get that. But like, you know, sometimes I don't think necessarily commercial photographers in other countries are watching him, but it's, that's kind of cool that, that, that he sent the book to him. You sent me, what's his first name again? Holger. H O L G. You sent me his, his website and I looked through it and it's funny. We haven't talked a lot about fashion photographers on the show, except maybe we talked about Avedon. Yeah.

You know, Irving Penn a little bit, but, but not really, you know, so much as fashion. And I keep forgetting how much I do like certain types of fashion photography and his really harkens back to sort of an old style that. You know, it feels kind of like the kind of photography I might have seen when I was growing up, too. You know, because he's shooting on film and it's very grainy.

And, you know, the aesthetic is different, but, you know, from the models, because they're modern looking and whatnot. But there's something in the feel of the images on his website, which I also, I dig his website, too, because it is so simple. You know, we'll put the link in the show notes, but it literally is just like a list of pictures straight up and down. You know, there's nothing, there's nothing, there's no, you know, dissolved slideshows or anything like that.

He's, he's, he's almost presenting his images as if they were a strip of film that you're, that you're hanging, that's hung up drying. And you're looking down this sort of line of, you know, two and a quarter, not all of them are two and a quarter, but, but, you know, again, this line of images.

And so it's, it's a nice presentation as well. Well, it has a, you know, he's a younger, he's younger than us, but it's got a feel of the kind of photography that, that, that I grew up with, or at least that I was interested in. And, and I keep forgetting how much I like fashion work. So when you showed me his website, I was like, this is really, it was really nice to look at.

It was just pleasing. And so I can see having a book of his work where it's, you know, not every fashion photographer is worth looking at pictures in a book format, but his have an extra feel to it. Yeah. And it's not racy. It's not in your face. Right. It's very gentle, soft, just, just wonderful. It's very unique. I think his work's very unique.

Yeah. And the, in the website, there's a link to a video, which I also put in the show notes. So YouTube, it's almost like a promo video in a way for him. You know, it's a little slickly made, but it does show him going out and in the field and photographing model. And then one of those pictures is actually in his portfolio. This woman in sort of like this, what looks like, I don't want to say, you know, flat sort of landscape.

And, you know, he's photographing black and white. And what's really interesting about that picture is how he does a full frame. So you see the black edges of the frame and then there's this horizontal black frame where the horizon was sort of cutting through it of that picture. But it was nice to see how he worked with.

The model and you know there's all this pre-prep and getting her dressed and finding the right clothing but like when he's out there in the field with her at least it was for this documentary this little video it's just him and the model right there's no there's no assistance there's no lights there's no it's like this interaction between him and his subject and the background you know and that felt very pure like it was a nice yeah there was no there's no tension in And like you think of,

you know, being on a fashion show catwalk where there's all this, you know, this hubbub and racket and music and all that kind of stuff. One thing I thought was interesting in the video was he was talking about using the twin lens. He can't make direct eye contact with the model. And so the interaction is not between him and the model. It's between the model and the camera. He says it's like a brick in between him and the model.

Model and you know in that way he he he prefers that because he wants it to have have a space for interpretation for the viewer and it's great because that's exactly you know that that's kind of the feeling i get it's sort of like something going on here like she is being photographed but she's not you know the model is not having you know staring straight into the lens necessarily it's just sort of you're capturing her in that moment and she's probably not the subject is not also responding

to any kind of you know direct facial expression from a photographer so there's no interaction right you know her often a lot of the faces in his pictures the models the expression is very ambiguous yeah so it has that interpretation but so saying that i'm thinking We were just talking about Avedon, and after reading his biography and how he talked about going from the two and a quarter to the large format camera because of that very interaction. He wanted to look at their faces.

And because of the two and a quarter, he was always looking down and wasn't interacting. And it's interesting to have, you know, they're both really good photographers approaching similar kinds of subjects in spaced in time with different kinds of ideas of how to produce, produce a photograph of a, of a subject using, you know, dealing with the equipment and the interaction between the, between the photographer and the subject.

So it's like almost like, you know, neither one is better or worse, right? They're, they're both really good. And look at the, look at the images that they're producing.

And and this guy is doing it in a way on purpose like this is what he wants to do he wants to have that ambiguity between himself and the in the i mean the the viewer and the model so that they can you know you can interpret it yourself so yeah. Is the book mostly is, is, is like, it's all the fashion stuff. Yeah. It's all fashion. No other, no other things. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't see much on his website of other, of other subjects. So he really just focuses on the, on the one thing.

There's some pictures of trees here just sort of caught along while they're going, while they're walking to wherever their, their location is. It's just to add a bit of mood, but 99% of the images.

In the in the book it's called some squares are are the models and it's a wonderful surprise like i'm i'm very happy very happy to have i mean you haven't talked you haven't talked much about fashion photography either to me so that's why i'm kind of like when you when we were talking about doing this episode and you sent me the link to this guy i was surprised i was like it didn't you know wasn't the kind of pictures that i've that i've heard you talk about

that much i mean Maybe I've, I'm just keeping it a secret, but yeah, and I, I really followed the supermodel era of, you know, Peter Lindbergh and Francesco Scavullo and Sente D'Orazio, all these guys that were shooting fashion and in the eighties and nineties and Herberts, like these were, these were the guys that I, they, you know, for me, they had kind of dream, dream jobs and.

It's not just because it was shooting pretty girls. There was a, there was a kind of a, I don't know, a kind of swagger that these guys had shooting this work. And they're busy all the time. I like the idea of that, of that too. And there was a part of me. Those guys I can see you talking to me about. Like, yeah, no, those are all the, you know, they're the ones that are up there and we're all, we know about them.

And yeah, this guy was sort of off the radar, but you said you found them on, on Ted, on Ted Forrest. But again, it was just a younger guy. So he would have just come up in the last 10, 15 years, right? Yeah. And he's just saying during the pandemic, he's finding, he's finding the medium format just recently. So, I mean, he's been shooting film for a while, obviously.

Yeah. Cause yeah. Well, in the video too, they show him in his dark room in his home. And that was, man, that was nostalgia right there. Watching that sequence of him with the big Patterson. And he had a big Patterson tank too with the deep one, which I had, I had borrowed.

Out i never had one myself so when i had my i didn't like the plastic tanks i hated this but but he's shooting medium format so you know yeah it was kind of easier at the medium format i didn't mind the plastic reels and tanks because i had they were the patterson reels were adjustable so and i was a starving kid so one yeah yeah yeah no i never got used to the the back and forth motion that you have to do to to wrap the film up because i learned on

steel yeah steel reels so even even medium format although of course with steel real here we go that's too old it's the dark room equivalent of driving a stick yeah yeah but the and the steel reels if you didn't do it right you would you end up crinking the uh crinkling the um the edges or the emulsion would stick together i had that happen i never had i never had the emulsion stick together i will say that for sure like i was very good at this grade accident that one i'll

never well that's a bummer yeah but uh and you would see other people do it but i learned from real real photographers. Like I was, I was like, you know, I got this and I could do it in the dark. But the Patterson, anyway, to go back to his video, which I'll post in the, again, I'll post in the, in the show notes. One of the things that was great in that dark room is that he was hanging up the film to dry and then he took his fingers and slid them down the fingers.

And I was like, I used to do that too. And it's dripping. After the photo flows on. And you make sure your fingers don't have any crud on them and you wipe them. I had the, I had the Patterson squeegee too, but I was afraid. No, no. Very often that would scratch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't like that idea because if you use your fingers, there wasn't usually nothing stuck to your fingers, right? And there was soft.

And so, and I was doing it mostly with 35 millimeter film, not with medium format because I didn't really shoot that. But it was the same thing. So watching that video of him doing that for you in the bathroom darkroom kind of thing, I didn't have a bathroom darkroom. Right. But it was the things that he was doing, like pulling up the paper and even the red light. And there was just something about the way they filmed that darkroom scene.

Not a big deal, but in relationship to the kind of photography he's doing, yes, it was nice. It was a nice flashback to the things that I used to do. And again, I have a little nostalgia for the darkroom. There's aspects of the darkroom I like. it was never i could smell oh yeah i could smell it too yeah yeah i used to have bad reactions to.

To something with my hands because i never wore gloves when i was in the dark room i wouldn't use tongs all the time but occasionally i have this bad reaction where my skin would start to peel off on my hands i never had it was really weird yeah i don't but uh anyway the uh but that whole like there was aspects of the dark room that i like the solitude the the the picking of of the paper the it was just a bunch of things that they were doing in that

and then especially when he was drawing the film and he did that but he did that with the fingers i was like.

Oh and by the way photo flow someone was talking about photo flow in relationship to, inks with with um with fountain pens as a as a lubricant okay so for our listener photo flow is like a oh yeah it's a wetting agent it's like a detergent without soap it's just sun right and nothing sticks to it. And it, it helps the film, uh, breaks the surface tension on the film. So it dries uniformly and doesn't dry. What you used to do was you used to put like, like a teeny tiny drop in the.

The like the the the film had uh it was in a tank of water like and you would just like put like one or two drops in like and it would just flood it over then you take the film out i think it was after you always agitate i'd go up and down in that yeah but you wouldn't do it too much because otherwise you get bubbles yeah yeah and then and then you'd hang it up and then you'd have to sort of you know you can use a squeegee or you know some of us used our fingers and

we just dragged our fingers down the film very nicely and that would help sort of smooth it out. And anyway, so he did that. That was great. It was great to see that. So anyway, Holger Nitschke. Anything else about this guy? No, I think we'll just leave our listeners to discover. I think if you, if you like quiet fashion photography, it's, he's one of the men, one of the guys. And I'm happy to, I was happy with my interactions with him.

He replied to me and which was kind of nice. He sent me a postcard in with my book to, uh, one of his fashion pictures and the personal touch, man. It's, it's very cool. That's cool. I'm glad to know of him and to, uh, and to interact with him. So. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So go check his, go check his work out. If you like, if you like fashion work, I think you'll like his stuff. I, even if you don't, I think there's something very appealing to it.

And the last thing I'll say is I didn't get the sense that he was using film to be like pretentious, trendy or something like that. No, no, I really get the feeling that, that the film was part of what he needed to do, you know? And, and so I appreciated that. I mean, that really came off in the, in the, in the video, uh, as well.

And cause I always get the sense, not always, but I get a lot of sense that people are doing film just because of a whole bunch of other reasons and not for what film is we about, um, which I'm not sure what it really is about, but I can't quite put those into words. Anyway, thanks for introducing me to him. Happy to do it. Music.

You my friend who's your who's your discovered okay so i have a little backstory maybe uh i follow a bunch of photography groups on facebook and you know the way the facebook feed works it just feeds you stuff here and there and and of course i'm finding a lot of photographers who i've never heard of before and into my embarrassment but i've you don't know what you don't know i I don't know what I don't know.

And, and I'm actually kind of happy that I get to, I get to discover new people, even people who I probably was growing up with that I didn't know about. And so somewhere along the line, I'm looking through these, through my, my Facebook feed and these pictures pop up of these empty rooms and, you know, windows open with bed and, and, and shades curtains blowing.

And I was like, who's work at the, you know, whose is this? And I looked up the name and it was a woman named Eva, not Eva, it's Ava Rubenstein or yeah, it is. Her name is spelled E V A, but I think it's pronounced Ava, Ava, sorry, Ava Rubenstein. Okay. And I had never heard of her before. And she was still, she's still with us. Photographer, photographer. Well, actually, you know what? I'm just going to read, let me just, since she's new to me, so I don't really have her history.

So I'm just going to read the back of her book, which doesn't have a name other than her name. So I'm just going to give you the history. I'm cheating this way, but I think it's clear. Born in Buenos Aires of Polish parents, Eva Rubinstein spent her early childhood in Paris, where at the age of five, she began her training as a dancer.

She came to the United States at the outbreak of World War II after studying at the theater department of ucla she danced and acted in new york and appeared in the original company of the diary of anne frank now divorced now this book was in the in the early 70s so this is coming right now divorced she is the mother of three children ava rubinstein began photographing in 1967 receiving initial instruction and continuing encouragement from sean kernan later study

The study included workshops with Lisette Modell, Jim Hughes, Ken Heyman, and the late Dion Arbus. Her editorial, illustrative, and portrait photographs have appeared in major publications throughout the world. This monograph presents a selection of her personal work, which is receiving growing recognition through exhibits and the reproduction of portfolios in photographic publications. This book was produced in 1974, so we're talking like 50... Yep. Sorry. Say it out loud. It's the truth.

Yeah, I know. I know. I know. That's just weird. You and me are in the same thing. I'm looking at 74, 74. I was 10 years old when this book came out. Okay. So this book is 50 years old. It's in great shape for 50 years old. Oh my gosh. Okay. All right. Now I'm depressed. So I was, you know, I. I never heard of her before. And we were talking, I think I mentioned her in the, in our, in our unusual collective and our friend Keith Goldstein, he knew about her.

He's, he knows a lot of photographers. Both you guys, you guys should be talking about stuff because you guys know all these photographers that I don't know. He actually said that he has this book or used to have it on his bedside. He'd look at it now and then. And so, yes, I'm happy that I'm learning about her.

And that i just got this book in the mail today so it was kind of cool to get it just as we're going to talk about her and but what what drew me to her photograph is really the photographs that drew me and then i was like who is she and these photographs of these empty rooms and. Like she does other things she had portraits and she does news as well but the pictures that that that I saw were these sort of empty spaces, right?

But very, very kind of, there was something about the way she was photographing these spaces that very much pulls me in to him. And like, there's a kind of a lingering presence that she's capturing in these photographs is black and white. Obviously it's not digital and she's shooting on film, but there was something I I've been raised at resonating a lot with these photographs of empty areas, spaces and stuff like that. And we were talking with, we haven't done a show

about liminal spaces yet, right? No. There was something we were talking about with our brother in light, Dave Spiduck, which we haven't gotten into. Space in between where people move. Spaces in between, yeah. These are not liminal spaces. I don't think these are sort of like the before or after liminal space, but there's something that's drawing them in. But anyway, I've been attracted to this type of image. And I was like, where have I seen these before? Where have I seen something

that's similar? And it occurred to me that a while back I found a painter, a Danish painter, and a strange way I found this Danish painter. His name is Wilhelm Hammershøi, and he was born in 1864, and he's Danish. And he produced these paintings of these sort of empty spaces, not necessarily always empty. I mean, often there was actually a figure in the space as usually his wife.

And the quick story was, was I found his, his imagery through a poem that he wrote about grief, uh, somewhere along, cause I've been collecting poems about grief. It's just, it's, it's one of the ways I'm processing my own grief about Elizabeth dying. And, and I've been finding, I've been finding a lot of wonderful, some great solace in what people are writing about grief. And he wrote something. It wasn't a poem. It was just a paragraph about... Sorry. You hear that?

Skaters? What is that? I don't even get it. Don't get me started. Anyway... It was, it was an interesting little paragraph about dealing with grief and people. And I was like, who is this guy? And I looked up his name and then I saw his, his paintings from the late 18 hundreds into early 19 hundreds. And these empty spaces, sometimes they were empty. Often the image was vertical of a room with open windows. And sometimes with doors that led down like multiple rooms, oops.

I'm holding a fountain pen and it's just started to leak all over me. Oops. Yeah, I know. I was just like, I better not get it on my shirt. Anyway, I just want to make sure that, sorry, this is happening in real time. It's making sure I'm playing with this pen. Let's, let's take it out of play here. All right. Sorry. But now look at my hands. Working man's hand. You've been in the pen shop today. Yeah, I know. I just don't want to touch my shirt with it. Sorry.

This is happening all live. I'm not cutting this out. Anyway, so his images will have like this, uh, figure in it, which is often his wife in an empty room with an empty table. He's open doors leading someplace, or sometimes there's nobody in the space. And, and I was saying these Rubenstein pictures are, are very similar.

They have that same kind of feel. And there was something that I was resonating with about these empty spaces in the sense, of you know my own situation with empty space right where there was once somebody here and now there's nobody but the space still is there and that's kind of what i was seeing in her in her images at least of these of these these spaces that she was photographing so it really caught my eye and you know i was kind of surprised that i've never heard of her before and you

know she's in the time period of like when i'm growing up and learning about photography and even there's there's was a couple of youtube videos of her talking at through um art art museum in kalamazoo and i didn't watch i didn't watch it yet but you know she i know she's i know she's still alive and she still talks about her photography it's really nice but she's a contemporary of of ralph gibson and and mary ellen mark right they sort of hung together for a while or right i don't know about

i don't know about mary ellen mark but i know he's she's got a photograph of ralph gibson and, uh, somewhere I've seen it and it's, it's, you know, he's, he's looking nice. But again, the circles that she's around, you know, I, I didn't know that she had worked with Sean Kernan and Sean Kernan actually wrote the, the intro to the book. And I've taken a couple of classes with Sean Kernan and I really like his work.

So I can see that, you know, how, you know, they would connect, but it's so interesting when this world is so small photographers, you know, sort of all know each other because of, because of these things. But anyway, it's just this, you know, her, her portraits are, are, I like them, her nudes.

There's some interesting nudes that she's done and she's probably got a few more pictures that I haven't seen yet because I haven't done full research on them, but it's this open, it's these empty spaces and, you know, putting her work next to Hammershaw's work together, I can see that they probably kindred spirits in some way. Although the story about Hammershaw is really interesting of the kind of person he was. Because I have a feeling there are different kind of people personality-wise.

But certainly Kindred Spirits in the ways of looking at spaces and ambiguity in these spaces. And the thing I liked about Rubenstein's work is those spaces really have a feel of, I don't know, like human beings were just there. Okay. So I was, I was about to ask you, what is it, what is it with you and these open spaces and curtains blown in and that sort of thing and light streaming in through windows? I mean, I'm teasing a bit, but what are you getting? How does it affect you? you?

Well, first of all, it's something that I don't see that often. I mean, living in New York in my apartment, you know, these are the kind of thing, well, Hammershoy's images are of apartments in Copenhagen, so.

But even still, like, you know, I didn't grow up with curtains and, you know, there's something that, is that i have a longing to see and that i don't see ordinarily so there's there's there's a bit of that there's a bit of like nostalgia in the sense of like i feel like i've seen this stuff before but i just don't know where maybe it's just imagination or it's how i i picture what a home should be like you know the void of actually both what's interesting with both of their Their images,

a lot of their spaces have nothing in them. Like there's very little clutter. There's, you know, there might be a couple of things in the room, like a vase or a bed or something like that. But there's often nothing in the room. And, you know, growing up the way I did with and even the way I'm living now with a lot of stuff, visual clutter in my vision. And so I look at pictures and paintings like from those two.

And, and it, there's sort of a fantasy of like, you know, visual, uh, you know, something missing that clutter. I hate to say clutter. It's not the right word. So it sounds bad.

Just something for my eyes to rest. Right. There's, there's very few elements in the, in, in, in these images. And they say a lot. That's the thing. It's like, there's so much that's said from so little. So I think there's some fantasy part of it that I wish that I could have more of like, you know, I look around and I would love to take a picture of like, like these, this photographer and, and, and painter, not pictures, although his photo, his paintings are very photo photographic.

I would love to do that. That's the kind of thing that I like to do. And, and I don't, I can't, I'm not able to do, I can't just look around my house and like, I won't have curtains and soft things. And there's just something very relaxing about it. I don't know. I'm not being very articulate. Yeah. Interesting. Now, it's reminding me of the pictures of the old farmhouse from when I went a couple of years ago, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Where I used to live. And as you're saying this, I'm thinking about that experience of time travel, a kind of nostalgia, a kind of sadness. I don't get that from Rubenstein's work at all. No, no. They're open, empty, void spaces where people used to live. Well, your pictures or hers? Yeah, mine. No, mine. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. And hers don't feel like there's a used to live there. There's like someone was just there where someone's about to be there.

I don't know. It's like the opposite of liminal spaces. It's like the other ends of liminal spaces. There's something in between. The, you know, things about the empty rooms are, they're almost like, uh, I don't know, like a canvas, like a canvas for memory and emotion. Oh, okay. It's like, well, I, that just hit me like, yeah, absolutely.

Oh yeah? Well, tell me what, how did it hit you? Well, no, it's kind of an insight, same as, as, uh, Nitschka's brick between the, the subject and, and, and the photographer, the, the interpretation that the viewer gets to interpret something because of that part of his process.

Process and here like you're talking about like a poetic quality of the images that you know these open spaces are like what do these walls here can you hear the wind blowing all that kind of stuff like what's the sensory thing going on with people in this space even though there aren't people in this space like yeah okay i get it now yeah yeah and there's like a there's also a timelessness it's actually both hammer shoy's work and and rubenstein's work

there's a i think the pictures are universal timeless well let's talk about her pictures instead of hammer shows we can do a show on hammer show it'd be interesting to talk about him but that you know like it's like a sense of. Well certainly there's a sense of love in her images okay and you know i don't know if that That being, and excuse me, like, I don't mean this this way, but like there's the, you know, the feminine part of the photography is like, it seems to be very visible.

And, you know, sometimes you see that in her kind of work or that kind of sensitivity in male, you know, photographers or artists as well. I like to think of, you know, Christopher Nolan, some of his earlier work when he would show sort of these flashbacks of a character like in Memento or something like that. I'm trying to think of another movie.

Memento i think was the one that that had the most but he had these sort of sensible, oh and steven soderbergh too has has this kind of sensitivity to the past through flashbacks and and there's something about those kind of things that i'm attracted to that also to me resonate with with rubenstein's work there's like a there's a continuity between them of course you know the other ones are moving moving images and hers are still but there's something about her imagery that that,

you know, feels like it's moving to me. You know, the drapes are moving in the breeze, and I can imagine them continuing, like I'm looking at the still frame, and I can just imagine I can see these drapes still moving or something else. Anyway, there's something so great about looking at such, I would say, simple imagery, very well crafted, that it's got a lot of depth to it. There's not a lot of stuff in it but there brings up a lot of stuff and so it does feel.

Like more emotions and and fantasy and concepts and stuff like that so that's kind of what and there's also a bit about of solitude too there's like a there's yeah this lone part it's not like it's a crowded space it's very lonely and again i i look at it the part that i'm also resonating with is like i'm looking around not in my own space and you know the person who was there is not there now you know so i'm on the other side of of this like i'm looking at and this

happens a lot i look at spaces in my apartment where elizabeth used to be and she's not there anymore and then that's what some of these images do to me they like remind me of the of the person who was there and so there's just a lot and so it was it was a lot when i saw the pictures in my timeline i was like you know wow wow you know and i would like to say that's the kind of photograph I would like to take,

but I don't think it's up to me to take the, like, that wouldn't be the thing I would want to do. It's not, I don't have that. I love looking at those pictures though. I love spending time with her work in this idea of having a, you know, a photograph that's allows for reflection and space and, you know, sort of a pause in the, in the crazy world of my clutter and the New York city and looking at something like that.

So I'm trying, I'm not making a lot of sense, but it's like trying to be like free flowing here a little bit. But, and you, you sort of knew of her as well. I mean, I was not, not, you said tangentially. Well, just, I knew some of, some of her portraiture I think is where I had just seen. And one of these photographers of the 20th century, you know, rundown of, you know, here's, here's some representative examples of her work.

So that's where I kind of drew the line she was a contemporary of of Arbus and Gibson and Mary Ellen Mark. Um, that's what, that, that's essentially all I, I knew about her. I didn't know about the spaces part because the volume that I was reading had more to do with pictures of people than I did about her personal work, you know? Yeah. It's nice to see a photographer like her to discover her and she does different things.

Like she's not just doing the spaces, but she has the, the, the nudes and the portraits as well. And so it's kind of really, it's cool to come across someone who can do something like that well in different, in different aspects. And the other thing I wanted to say about the pictures, like again, what she's got and what Hammer Shoei also does is an incredible, the silence in their imagery is loud. If that makes any sense whatsoever. The silence is the thunderous.

I remember hearing that in a, in a movie once.

The silence is the thunderous. but i get the sense that the silence in their in their imagery is is just like it screams at me in a good way you know and so so i'm really happy to have found her work and i'm really happy to have this book of hers and to now like she's now part of the pantheon of stuff that i of people i can i can pantheon i can yes yes it is and you know i i love that sense of discovery just like Like you're with Holger.

I'm not going to say his name right. Just say his first name, Holger. Holger. Yeah. With you with Holger, it's just me with Ava. I hope it's Ava. Eva? No, it's Ava. You know, me with her. And it's like, you know, I can still find people who are going to pull these kind of, you know, feelings and stuff from me. And just, you know, it's like I still have a lot to learn. And I love that because I still feel like I love learning about, about, uh, people.

And then, yeah, she's in our, she's, she was in my past too, you know, and, It's nice to, to know we sort of, you know, I have a couple of degrees of separation from. Not that I know, I don't know Sean Kernan too much, but, uh, we are, we are Facebook friends. That doesn't usually mean anything, but I did, I said, I did take a couple of classes with him. So I think we should do a deep dive on Sean Kernan.

I would love to have him on the show. I don't know if you would actually, if I can actually reach out to him. I know a couple of people who know him directly, but it'd be interesting to talk to him about her as well. That's a good idea. Yeah. So anyway, go check her out. Put all the links in the, in the show notes. I'll try to drop some of her pictures in there too. So you can just see what I'm talking about. And I'll try to talk about, I'll put some of Hammershoi's images.

I just put, I'll put a link actually to a documentary about him. That was the BBC with Michael Palin trying to follow Hammershoi. I went, I did a search for Hammershoi on YouTube and there's this thing. thing. Anyway, it's interesting because to look at his work and then look at her work as well, see what I'm talking about. So I'll put that in there. But yeah, that's it. I think we had a couple of good... It was nice, a little bit change of pace.

Yeah, yeah. Do sort of semi-shallow deep dives. Yeah, a couple of them. Yeah. I'd like to do more of these. I've got a whole pile of pictures on my phone of like screenshots of photographers. I was like, Ooh, who's this? Capture that. Who's this? I've even written about some of them in my photo journal. So it'd be great to like, you know, follow up on some of these people, but. Yeah. And, uh, all right. Well, yeah. Uh, let's wrap this up before we get too tired. Okay. People can work.

All right. So where in the world are you, uh, are, can you be found? Well, on Vero and X slash Twitter, I can be found at W Rosin photo on Instagram. I'm Ward Rosin, fine art. It's W A R D R O S I N fine art Facebook. I'm Ward Rosin photo. I have a website, which is rosin.ca, and our unofficial podcast sponsor is ornisphoto, ornis.photo, where I sell lenses and lens adapters for fun. Lenses, seven artisans? Seven artisans, yeah. Seven artisans, yeah.

Yeah, we've got to get some of those lenses out in the world. They're so much fun to play with. Sales have picked up lately. I don't know. No, there's a spring thing going on. Oh, well, that's good. Yeah. We've got enough capital built up to do another order. Well, come check out our unofficial sponsor and help unofficially sponsor our podcast with them. Anyway, yeah. Yeah. All right. And what about you, my friend? Where can we find you?

Where am I? I'm pretty much on, let's see. Well, Vero and Flickr of A.M. Rosario, at A.M. Rosario. Instagram, at A.M. Rosario Photo. My website is amrosario.com. But if you want to find me on Facebook, I'm going to throw that in, facebook.com slash rosariophoto. So that's a place where I put a lot of my pictures. Our website is streetshots.photography. But we've had a lot of people sign up for our Substack newsletter recently. recently. So, uh, because, uh, our, our, our, our.

I want to say friend. He's not quite a friend yet, but the Barry and X Perrello and the Candid Frame subscribed to us and recommended us. So we've gotten some subscribers lately. So go check our Street Shots Substack newsletter out at streetshots.substack.com. And if you want to leave a voicemail for us, you know, speakpipe.com slash streetshots. We've had some voicemails. That's kind of fun. And if you want to support us by buying me a coffee, you have to buy me a coffee to support us.

You can go buymeacoffee.com slash Antonio Rosario. So, yeah. Yeah. We've got people subscribing to the newsletter. I've got to write another newsletter soon. I've got to figure something out. So, that's cool. It's great. I get voices out there in the world. It's nice to interact. And please, if you're thinking about it, please go ahead and do it. Yes. Thank you. Send us a DM or, you know, let it leave us a message on SpeakPipe. It's really great to get that feedback from you.

Absolutely. All right. Well, let's call it a night. I'm going to call it a night. It's a night. It's a night. Night, night. Thanks for hanging in with us for tonight, and we will see you in a couple of weeks. And, Ward, have a good night. Thanks. You too, man. Music.