foto-mondo: prague vivitar casio agfa SLR polaroid

Monday, August 06, 2007

DD IN PRAGUE X JT

these shots [made by jacqueline trachsel] are of me in prague. the top one is of me with one of my old stand-by toy plastic cameras - a vivitar panorama 35mm- which i use all the time. fool proof. no battery/no focus. the panorama pix come out really cool. but the overall quality is usally great when i use Ilford xp-2 [the best]- or even kodak BW400 CN

the shot below was made in the "old town square" of prague, where we were having coffee at an outdoor cafe [grand cafe praha]. i was up and making fotos between sips and puffs off my fag. jackie shot me with her pentax digital. hi tech shooting no tech!

below: me in action with the Polaroid 210 Land camera- holding the 'foto' in my mouth until i could count 30 seconds, then peel it apart. people sometimes came up to talk to me about the camera, which made me lose count and which made me crazy! i also have the casio digital around my neck; a vivitar plastic camera in each shirt pocket; an agfa isola [medium format film camera] in my shorts pocket, film in the other one; and 3 heavy slr cameras in the black bag... no wonder i look so BIG... and... no wonder i've been having shoulder pain ever since i got back. i wagged all those cameras everywhere, every day.

i wrote a whole rant in my travel-ology blog about how i lost [temporarily] ALL 539 of my digital fotos, when the 1GB memory card crapped out the last night in prague. i'm really glad i made almost every shot i took with about 5 different cameras. now, i have a gallon sized plastic bag full of film to have processed [color, slide and BW c-41] and many standard BW rolls to process myself.

[c]2007 doug duffey

about this blog

i began making photos in my teens. i wasn't really making much more than snapshots [except for a few psychedelic polaroids in the late 60s] until the 90s, when i bought a used Canon AE1 camera from a guy on Bourbon Street [probably 'hot']. that's when i began getting serious about photography. i taught myself everything by doing: how to use the camera; how to develop film; how to make the prints [b&w only]. when i bought 2nd hand darkroom equipment and began printing, it really became a passion.

i collect and use cameras: everything from crap 50-cent fixed focus plastic 35mm ones i find at junk stores to good quality Leica, Rollei, Bronica, Yashica, Nikon-i particularly like old manual cameras that don't use batteries etc. [Voigtlander, Zeiss, etc] i've been collecting rangefinders like crazy-it's gotten ridiculous: i have more cameras than i can use... but keep collecting. i sometimes turn broken cameras into pinhole film cameras.

i really like the effects i get with the crap plastic cameras [i like the element of surprise] using 'color process' b&w film- i usually load several w/different ASA film and take them when i go shooting. they're light, easy to carry, never need batteries, and i don't have to worry about lighting, or f/stops etc. i've also bought a lot of medium format plastic cameras as well [diana, agfa isola, etc] and old 127 ,120, & 620 film-cameras [both good quality and bad] - the fixed focus plastic lens make for dream-like, soft focus shots. i love old photographs and these were the type cameras that made the majority of those!

i've been trying to scan/archive most of my negatives/fotos for years now- but considering i have been making fotos from my teen years until now that is a major on-going work. i have about 4 external hard drives w/ thousands of fotos on them... and thousands of 'actual' physical negatives... and fotos- things i've shot all over the world; however, my favorite subject matter remains the beautiful but tragically disappearing old south, which i hope to capture as much of as possible.

i almost never have prints made. i usually print photographs myself, when i am going to do a series and or a show. i also develop all true b&w film/negatives myself, after having some negatives ruined by so-called professionals, who either used old chemicals or didn't time things right. as said, i collect old cameras and have many different film formats; many of the negatives would have to be sent off; so, doing it myself is faster and much cheaper. i'm not really into digital, because i like film... and i like working in the darkroom. digital cameras take the photos when THEY decide to; a manual camera makes the foto when YOU press the button. i've also seen digital fotos just 'disappear'- due to computer crashes- or media cards- so i prefer film. i have my grandmother's and mother's negatives from waaaaaaaaaaaaay back... which i can still print from... who knows that whatever digital medium we're using these days will even be functional in 5 years? give me film any time!

for a long time i have been using Ilford xp-2 - and Kodak BW400 [both are color processed b&w you can have processed anywhere] and scan the negatives into my computer. but , now to make things even easier, i just have whoever develops the negatives scan them to cd. of course i only print b&w- so for true B&W i print myself. if i photoshop anything it has to be a digital print; especially anything in color.

i've had exhibits in louisiana and europe, but due to the fact that music is my top priority business, i haven't been doing any printing lately. i just keep shooting more and more film and keep acquiring more and more negatives, polaroids, and cds of the work... [and collecting more cameras] at least i can post some of the digitized shots/scans here!

check out the IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT to save and continue Polaroid film