Post by PeterW on Jul 11, 2009 12:11:12 GMT -5
In another thread Sherri said that one of Bob's attitudes was 'We don't need no stinkin' meters.'
Way back when I was in my early 20s I went out for an afternoon with an old chain-smoking pro photographer. Well, he was old to me at the time; I suppose he was in his mid 60s. He'd never used a meter or exposure calculator in his life.
He specialised in landscape views and church photographs for post card, callendar and book publishers, all taken on half-plate Ilford Slow Panchromatic plates. He worked only from late Spring to early Autumn because he said winter lighting was uninteresting. His pictures were very good, and he had all the work he could handle.
We drove to the first country church on his list and after walking round it a couple of times looking at angles he took a few outside shots. Then we went inside and he spent about ten minutes carefully setting up his ancient wooden camera, which had all the swings and tilts you could wish for, chose a focal length lens and fitted a wooden darkslide in the camera while he explained the Scheimpflug Relationship to me.
The sun was shining through the stained glass windows so he picked up a couple of foot hassocks and walked about banging them together to get a slight dust in the air to reflect the beams of sunlight.
After a last look round estimating the light he opened the external Thornton-Pickard shutter pushed on the front of the lens and said, "Come on, we'll leave it to expose." We went outside and sat in the sunlight on the grass leaning back against the church wall.
He reckoned two churches in an afternoon, about a dozen exposures in all, was a fair day's work, and was probably the most laid-back, leisurely photographer I've ever met.
When we sat down he produced a pack of cigarettes. "I reckon about 2 at f/32 should be the right exposure" he said.
"Two minutes?" I asked.
"No," he said as he lit up. "Two cigarettes."
PeterW
Way back when I was in my early 20s I went out for an afternoon with an old chain-smoking pro photographer. Well, he was old to me at the time; I suppose he was in his mid 60s. He'd never used a meter or exposure calculator in his life.
He specialised in landscape views and church photographs for post card, callendar and book publishers, all taken on half-plate Ilford Slow Panchromatic plates. He worked only from late Spring to early Autumn because he said winter lighting was uninteresting. His pictures were very good, and he had all the work he could handle.
We drove to the first country church on his list and after walking round it a couple of times looking at angles he took a few outside shots. Then we went inside and he spent about ten minutes carefully setting up his ancient wooden camera, which had all the swings and tilts you could wish for, chose a focal length lens and fitted a wooden darkslide in the camera while he explained the Scheimpflug Relationship to me.
The sun was shining through the stained glass windows so he picked up a couple of foot hassocks and walked about banging them together to get a slight dust in the air to reflect the beams of sunlight.
After a last look round estimating the light he opened the external Thornton-Pickard shutter pushed on the front of the lens and said, "Come on, we'll leave it to expose." We went outside and sat in the sunlight on the grass leaning back against the church wall.
He reckoned two churches in an afternoon, about a dozen exposures in all, was a fair day's work, and was probably the most laid-back, leisurely photographer I've ever met.
When we sat down he produced a pack of cigarettes. "I reckon about 2 at f/32 should be the right exposure" he said.
"Two minutes?" I asked.
"No," he said as he lit up. "Two cigarettes."
PeterW
