Exploring the unlikely intersections of walking, photography and making
This is an updated blog post that first appeared on my previous blog site at firmangallery.com. I am particularly proud of the earlier work I did with my antique Cirkut camera and thought you might enjoy revisiting it as well. From December 20, 2014 to May 3, 2015 the National Gallery of Canada exhibited two... Continue Reading →
There can be no doubt, my Cirkut No. 6 Outfit draws attention wherever it goes. It is a beautiful thing to behold, this wood and brass camera perched atop its spindly wood tripod. And to witness it in motion, engine purring as the camera slowly rotates, is a mesmerizing experience. I see its effect on... Continue Reading →
Looking back, it is hard to believe that this is a camera I willingly chose to work with. I had been seeking an expanded point of view since the late 1970s. Just a year ago, I was using multiple images to fabricate complex vistas for the Trail Markers project. A year before that, there was... Continue Reading →
A small format camera is the photographer's sketchbook, the place where ideas can be quickly explored before paint is applied to that big, forever canvas of the final print. Over two decades, my coterie of Nikon cameras and lenses ably served as my sketchbooks. It started in 1978 with the purchase of a Nikon FE... Continue Reading →
Push the shutter release button and something unusual happens. No click, just a brief mechanical whir as the narrow slit in a silver drum rotates counterclockwise across the front of the camera. This is the Horizont, a Russian-built swing lens panoramic camera, the first of several devices I would own and use to take long... Continue Reading →
I can’t recall when I bought it. 1978 seems about right, the year I acquired the Cambo, my first view camera. Nor can I recall how much I paid for it. $300.00 perhaps. It was a used enlarger, purchased, like the Cambo, through a Winnipeg Free Press classified ad. I remember visiting an older man,... Continue Reading →
It’s an object of beauty. Built for desire as much as for function. It was the more portable view camera that I needed in 1983. But so beautiful as well. Wista 4” x 5” Field cameras are hand-built in Japan. The camera bodies are constructed of rosewood or, like mine, cherrywood with intricate tongue-and-groove joinery,... Continue Reading →
Did this camera choose me or did I choose it? I can’t be sure. What I do see in the photos taken with my Cambo view camera is a wonderful synchronicity of photographer and machine. I bought it used, in 1978. Found it advertised in the classified ads of the Winnipeg Free Press. At $300,... Continue Reading →
Konica introduced the Autoreflex T in 1968, the company’s first fully automatic 35mm single lens reflex (SLR) camera with through-the-lens (TTL) metering. The camera is built like a tank and, when the shutter-release button is pushed, it sounds like one. Its heft might suggest it was carved out of a solid block of steel. The camera came with... Continue Reading →
The body of my first real camera, the Konica Autoreflex T, is all that remains of my once robust stable of Konica 35mm cameras and lenses. But that is enough. This carcass of polished metal embodies a decade of life changes, worldly explorations and career accomplishments. It was 1970 and this was the first camera... Continue Reading →