Author: Robert Young

Cameras in the Cupboard #8

Zeiss Ikon Contina

One of the cameras in the cupboard has a significant place in my life for a number of reasons. It is a Zeiss Ikon Contina.

In 1955 my mother’s eldest sister, my aunt Ruth, decided to leave our home town of Geelong and travel to Europe. This was not a common thing to do in the 1950s. Apart from the fact that it involved a 6 week voyage by ship, it was virtually unknown for a young country girl to travel unescorted to Europe for an indefinite stay.

Ruth got work in London, met up with several other women from various parts of the world and spent every available minute of the next six years touring Britain and Europe. She returned home after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1961.

I think Ruth’s Zeiss Ikon is a Contina 1a, made between 1954 and 1957. However, it has the Novar f3.5 lens, which means it was made prior to 1956. I am not sure if the camera was purchased here before she left or as soon as she arrived in England.

It is a very simple camera without rangefinder-type focussing, just a distance scale on the lens. There is no light meter either, but the lens is adjustable from f3.5 to f22.

For a simple camera, it is very solid, heavy and well made. My aunt was a fastidious woman and the Contina is in superb condition. I am struggling to find a mark on it, even with a magnifying glass. The leather carrying case is also in unmarked condition. One might be tempted to think that is has never been used, but I know it travelled around Europe for six years, and I have the boxes of slides to prove it.

Unfortunately Ruth was neither a good, nor prolific photographer. A lot of her images are badly underexposed.

But this camera represents a number of things in my life. The trip up from Geelong to Station Pier in Melbourne is one of my earliest memories and my first trip to Melbourne. It was the first time I ever saw a passenger ship, and the only time I have ever waved one goodbye, with the streamer throwing and a band playing.

And on the way home I got to ride in the dicky seat of my uncle’s 1936 Plymouth coupe.

The Top Twelve Project

Just before Christmas I read two blog posts on the same day. They were both about photography, by different photographers coming from different perspectives. But both posts made the same point: when trying to attract the attention of a potential client, or just people who might be interested in your work, less is more.

Over at The Online Photographer, Mike Johnston explains his thoughts as he looks through a photographer’s online portfolio. He comments on what is and isn’t helpful to someone looking for great images.

And what does he find? Too many gallery links that don’t indicate what lies beyond, interface design and navigation that get in the way of looking at the images and just way too much stuff to wade through.

Scott Kelby takes a look at an online portfolio and has a hypothetical conversation with the photographer about why he has so many images and why he has ranked them in that way.

Both Mike and Scott make the same point, why don’t photographers just show their best 10, 20 or 40 images, instead of hundreds. Not all of that lot can be winners or potential work-getters.

This set me thinking: what impression am I giving online? Apart from a few images on this blog, my online presence is mostly the 1000 plus images at the sharing site ipernity.

If anyone actually managed to wade through this many photos, what would they think of my photography? What am I saying about what I do?

The images I have sent to ipernity cover a vast range of topics. Some I have taken in an attempt to show creativity, some are holiday shots, some are there because I wanted others to be able to see them easily and some are experiments.

Those 1000 plus photos don’t project the image of my photography I would like to present to the world.

So, as a result of reading those two articles, I have started the Top Twelve Project. I have added a new Top Twelve page to the site, accessible from the tab at the top.

This page will give access to a gallery of 12 images. At the moment these are my favourite images from the last two years. Trying to choose the best 12 from the thousands I have taken over the last 24 months was a daunting task and I would be the first to admit that the choice might not be perfect.

The challenge now is to discipline myself to update this gallery as I take new images that I judge to be better than at least one of the ones that are there.

So, it is with great pleasure that I declare my Top Twelve Project open. Thanks to Mike Johnston and Scott Kelby for prompting this change of direction.

2009 – The Last Word

I am writing this during the afternoon of December 31st. 2009 is drawing to a close and I am not sorry to see it go.

As this blog is mostly about photography, that’s what I will concentrate on. There have been some highs this past year. The chance to spend 2 weeks in Venice, to be able to walk virtually the entire city and take time to photograph it; is an enduring memory. Out of this experience I have a beautiful book, produced by Momento, and an exhibition at Breizoz Cafe. I have sold two of the ten prints so far.

My small exhibition at Seddon Deadly Sins cafe was supposed to end in February. Several images sold and the owner asked me for some more. I seem to be a part of the permanent collection now.

I have spent a lot of the year, on and off, trying to learn more about portrait photography. As I don’t have access to, and can’t afford a studio; this has meant going down the Strobist path. For the uninitiated, this involves using ordinary flash units off-camera to stand in for studio lighting. It isn’t as easy as it looks.

And, it brings me to one of the bad parts of the photography year. Since switching to digital in 2002, I have relied heavily on a number of internet sources for sensible, sound, accurate advice. This might come as a surprise to some of you, but not everyone on the internet knows what they are talking about.

I have no illusions, not everyone is making this information available out of sheer altruism. Most use it to attract traffic to their sites so that they can advertise goods and services. And a lot of these are very worthwhile. However, having said that, many of them go above and beyond the call of duty to explain what they are doing, or to answer questions and give advice in forums.

This year seems to have been a very bad year for a number of these people. Several have given up in anger and/or frustration. There are many reasons for this. Two of the main ones complained about are:

Sense of Entitlement – some people in the forums seem to think they have a God-given right to demand information or answers to questions and get a little agitated if they don’t get what they want.

Criticism – some very experienced, talented photographers have been criticised heavily for producing work that isn’t up to a supposed standard, or doesn’t meet the accepted formula. Attempts to explain that there is a difference between work that you can sell to corporate clients and, well, crap get met with abuse.

I suppose I am surprised that any of them bother at all.

I have noticed a tendency for people to want to be told a formula that works, rather than learn anything. There were two posts within minutes of each other in one forum from people who got expensive flash units for Christmas and wanted to be told how to use them, because the manual was just way too hard to understand.

I am getting fed up with these seemingly endless discussions too. Maybe folks should read something, learn something, try something, practice.

The people who are being criticised are working photographers who spent years learning this stuff. It is embarrassing that they should be subjected to abuse for trying to share it.

So, in an attempt to redress this somewhat, I give you my 2009 Photography Roll of Honour (in no particular order):

David Hobby

Kirk Tuck

David Tejada

Michael Reichmann

Don Gianatti

Mike Johnston

Happy 2010

Cameras in the Cupboard #7

Agfa Clack

This is another purchase. I saw it sitting in a second-hand junk shop complete with its “leather” case and instruction leaflet and I just had to add it to the collection.

The Clack began production in 1953 and continued through until 1965. A twelve-year production run is unheard of in the digital age.

The camera is very simple, basically just an update of the early box cameras. The Clack takes 120 roll film and the whole roll/spool assembly slides out of the camera so it can be loaded. The image size is 6×9 (centimetres) and only 8 shots fit on a roll.

The Clack has two shutter speeds, normal and bulb. But it does also have two aperture settings, one for sun and one for overcast.

And, I have to confess, at the moment it isn’t in a cupboard. It is in a packing crate under the stairs. But it will be unpacked and back in a collection cupboard eventually.

The photo of the Agfa Clack was taken ‘strobist’ style with a Canon 580EX 11 flash fired through a Westcott umbrella just to the left of the camera and a large white reflector just to the right to provide some shadow fill.

Venice – The Exhibition

At last! The much-delayed Venice exhibition is now open. The 10 images depict life in Venice along the back canals where people live and work. This aspect of Venice fascinated me much more than the big-ticket tourist attractions.

A gallery of the images in the exhibition is here.

The exhibition is at:

Breizoz, 139 Nelson Place, Williamstown, Victoria, Australia.

Family Fotos #4

This post is about another image from my grandfather’s collection of negatives. See Family Fotos #3 and Family Fotos #2.

This post also ties in with the approach of Remembrance Day, 11th November. It was an important day for my grandfather. To him it meant he could return home to his young wife, and a son he had never seen.

My memory tells me he wasn’t that fond of Anzac Day. It was a day for him and his mates to get together, remember their friends who never came home, and have a serious drink (about the only time he ever did). Outsiders, ones who hadn’t been through it, weren’t welcome.

I am sure he would hate the current generation’s obsession with deifying Anzac Day into a near-religious holiday.

My project of scanning all of his negatives has stalled recently. Life has been rather busy since we moved, with work, a wedding and some annoying but not serious illness. So, here is one I prepared earlier.

The photo shows my grandfather, Charles Cone, and one of his mates from 2nd Field Company at Mena Camp in Egypt, some time in early 1915. In the background are horses from his transport unit.

Front and centre is a kangaroo.

Another Great Has Left Us…

R.I.P. Irving Penn

One of my heroes, Irving Penn, passed away on 7th  October at the age of 92.

Penn was one of my very early influences as I was learning photography in the ’70s.

I wrote about him and his influence on an earlier blog, here…

“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.”

~Irving Penn

Back to Square One…

Well, not really square one, but back to where everything should be. A number of photographic issues arose out of and following our recent move. Not everything was caused by the move, but I decided it was time to sort everything out and get back to a known standard.

So, the camera and lenses have had a thorough clean, the camera’s forward focussing issue has been fixed and the body has been calibrated to the lenses. The camera’s software has been updated to the current version. The biggest issue was the scratch on the focussing screen, the screen has been replaced and the prism has been cleaned.

The printer has been in for a service and clean and is now back to factory specification.

The monitor has been re-calibrated and all colour settings in Photoshop have been checked.

All I have to do now is get some talent and I should be good to go.

What I Did on My Holidays

In April 2009, we visited Venice for two weeks. It is a beautiful city and one that is well worth the time to walk around it and explore the parts of the city that tourists don’t get to see in the average 2-3 day visit.

I have posted a gallery of Venice images that clearly show how I felt about that marvellous city.