still life
Once upon a time, back in the days of film photography, I captured a series of still life images with bottles. I recently looked through my old photos to find a nice still life image for a spot on my living room wall and was pleasantly surprised by how good these images were. They reminded me of why I fell in love with photograghy in the first place and made me realize how much I miss film photography.
'Blue Bottles' image on display in the living room
Over a year ago I developed an obsession with masks. It was not the common nowadays obsession with protective masks but a fancy obsession with the Venice Carnival masks. And it was not just with any kind of the Venetian masks but rather with one particular type - the Jester masks. I felt a strong urge to implement the Jester mask images in my photography and could not resist this idee fixe. So I started to create still life images where a Jester mask played a role of the centerpiece. So far I completed seven such natura mortes and still do not feel completely cured. It was a pretty elaborate project - each image took around two-three weeks from start to finish.
A short introduction for those who have never heard of the Venice Carnival - the etymology of Carnival is from Medieval Latin 'carne vale' that literally translated means 'meat, farewell'. Carnevale is celebrated in the pre-Lent period before Catholics spend forty days in deep reflection and give up luxuries such as meat. During the celebrations merrymakers are free to eat, drink, and dance without reproof.
According to legend, one of the most famous carnivals around the world, the Carnival of Venice, started in the 12th century. The Venetian Republic defeated the Patriarch of Aquileia, Ulrico di Treven, he was taken prisoner and later released in 1162. The sharp-witted Venetians in exchange for his release requested payment of an annual tribute of a bull, twelve pigs and 300 loaves of bread to be delivered in the last days before Lent. In the honour of this victory, the people started to dance and gather in San Marco Square where the animals would be slaughtered in a public ceremony on 'Fat Thursday'.
The Republic of Venice only allowed nobles to participate in government and public life. Carnival of Venice relaxed the rules and allowed people of different classes to mingle together, which was not allowed at other times during the year. This tradition can be traced at least to the traditions of ancient Roman festivities such as Saturnalia. Venetian masks have always been a unique and important feature of the Venetian carnival. They made it possible for people of different classes to mingle together, which was not allowed at other times during the year.
Venetian masks may be generally classified under three major groups: Commedia Dell’Arte masks, traditional Venetian masks, and fantasy masks. Almost all of them are fancy faceless masks or depict funny recognizable characters, except for, maybe the Jester masks. The traditional Jester mask (the Joker mask depicts a male character, the Jolly - being the female equivalent) portrays a court Jester of the Middle Ages wearing a hat known as the fool's hat. It has three points or "punte" with the bells on the end that represent the tail and ears of a donkey. Another type of the Jester mask has multiple points spread evenly all around its face. In my opinion, this mysterious mask is in a class of its own, there is even confusion as to what mask group it belongs to. More about it in Part 2, below are still life images with Jester masks I created so far.
Venetian Mask and Shells
White Mask
Jolly Mask and Birds
White Mask, Bust, and Lemons
Farewell to MMXX (2020)
White Mask and Watches
Eight Birds and Mask
Gallery 14 Juried Photography Exhibition 2022
On the opposite ends of my current photo gear spectrum are a 50 years old view camera with a custom digital back and a modern compact mirrorless camera. Looking at their group portrait you might be able to notice some difference in their sizes.
50 years old 4x5 Sinar P (the digital back is not shown) with 100 years old Wollensak lens vs modern Fuji X100s. It looks like Fuji is smaller than the front of the old timer lens.
When I added the X100s to my stable it was considered 'the new Leica' by many great shooters. And who was I to argue with them? It's small, weighs less than a pound, ready to shoot instantaneously and, being in right hands, is able to produce outstanding images.
On the other hand don't even start asking me why I decided to shoot with such relic as Sinar P. I cannot provide you with a rational answer. The system weighs about 20 lb and it takes several hours to assemble the camera and set the scene. But it feels so good to operate its controls and look through its ground glass.
Apparently having both in my possession I was curious to find out who will win in their 'Whale vs Elephant' or rather 'David vs Goliath' face-off. It's almost impossible to predict the outcome of such contest in advance by comparing their systems' specifications. There are two many parameters involved and none of them is the defining factor. Even the camera effective pixels count, the staple of all advertising campaigns, is totally misleading.
So I concluded that the best way to satisfy my curiosity once and for all will be to shoot the same scene with two competitors, make a decent size prints of both images, and compare them. At that point my intention was not to perform a standard 'pixel-peeping' comparison but somewhat to compare images of the same scene on their artistic merits.
Without further ado I cut a nice iris flower in our garden, put it in a matching blue vase and start to shoot a scene where the flower was the point of interest. Immediately after the first shots a strange thing happened - I realized that something was wrong with the original idea: the camera choices forced me to set the scene differently to use the cameras at their best.
Right out of the camera images generated by the 'old timer' had a delicate painterly Pictorialist look with a muted color gamut. They just begged to add more details to the background to make the image compositionally balanced.
Its rival images with their bright colors and highly defined details looked like Deco-inspired ones. The point of interest in these images grabs the viewers attention so strongly that they looked better against a plain monotone color background.
So I finally gave up on the idea to compare the images of an identical scene and ended up with comparing images with an identical point of interest - the iris flower in a blue vase.
And here are the finalists:
Irises, Sinar/Wollensac system
Iris in a Blue Vase, Fuji X100s
You made your choice. Good job! Now, here is my story. I hesitated to prefer one to another while looking at them side-by-side on my monitor screen. However, in the 16" by 20" prints competition I gravitated toward recognizing the painterly Sinar image as the winner. A quick poll among my guests also demonstrated that it was a choice of 9 out of 10 participants.
Does this outcome indicates that one system performs better than another? I am not sure.
Despite of the facts that:
a) an image generated by Sinar system contains 20 times more pixels as one generated by the Fuji camera,
b) each Sinar system photosite area is four times larger than Fuji photosite area,
c) Sinar lens area is 7 times larger than Fuji one
both images when displayed on a 24" monitor screen or viewed as 16"x20" prints visually contain similar amount of details.
It well might be that the reason of such preference is mainly psychological and has something to do with how a modern person of Western culture perceives images. Due to enormous differences in lens/sensor sizes the Sinar images have much smoother tonal transitions. Also the hundred years old lens causes more image imperfections than the modern Fuji lens. IMHO both factors influence the viewers perception of Sinar images such that they are rated as more pleasing and artistically significant than Fuji ones.
In conclusion, my feeling is that size of a camera matters...kind of.
Does it mean that from now on I will use Sinar as my walk around camera? Not until I get my personal Sherpa.
The Pictorialist image notes:
Camera used - Sinar P 4x5 system
Lens - Wollensak Velostigmat Series II 12", lens diameter - 52 mm (The Series II Velostigmat 12in f/4.5 sold new in 1922 for $146.50. In 2015 dollars that’s $2,046.83; similar to what one pays for a Nikon or Canon professional lens.)
Custom scanning digital back - based on Nikon D700 full frame body
Assembled system weight - around 19 lb
Due to digital back design limitations the actual 'sensor' size was approximately 3.5"x2.8" (6320 sq mm); it is smaller than the camera 4"x5" ground glass size, but it still has more than twice the area of a medium format image and 20 times larger than the Fuji sensor area (312 sq mm when cropped to fit 4:5 proportions).
Number of recorded pixels - approximately 260 MP
Sensor photosite (pixel) size - 8.45 microns
The Deco image notes:
Camera used - Fuji X100s
Lens - Fujinon 23 mm f/2, lens diameter - 20 mm
Assembled system weight - 0.98 lb
Number of recorded pixels - 13 MP (when original sensor size is cropped to fit 4:5 proportions).
Sensor photosite (pixel) size - 4.8 microns
