Winokur Photography

CAOS Living Book: QR codes + database = book

2010-02-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

Miki Johnson showed us this video at her Future of Photo Books lecture. See more about that on the APA SF Blog The thing I thought was most exciting is this project by Editoras Online from Brazil - the C.A.O.S. living book. I can imagine endless possibilities of tying print and search together. Maybe the QR code won't be the gateway but expect to see some technology shake out to provide a link between static and real-time media.

Watch this and you'll get it:

-Michael

Safari West

2010-02-16T09:13:00.000-08:00

We just got back from an overnight trip to Africa. Well, actually we drove up to Santa Rosa to visit Safari West, a little bit of Africa right in Cali's wine country. Check them out here.

White Cockatoo

Dozer a 1-year-old Reticulated Giraffe born at Safari West

Dozer's goatee

Demoiselle Crane

Wild Conveyor Toaster and a herd of cheescake

Flamingos via flashlight cam.

Zebra mom with newborn

Damara Zebra

Grant's Gazelle

Giraffe's eat constantly

Dozer working the crowd

Skeptical Reticulated Giraffe

Speedbird 72 heavy you are clear for final approach on runway 7 right.

2010-02-09T10:01:00.000-08:00

Its sadly true that all the romance of commercial air travel was wrung from flying years ago. Even without the recent humiliations at the hands of TSA, airline travel has all the sex appeal of taking a Greyhound bus to Bridgeport. If you want a sense of occasion, take a train. Better yet take a train in Europe. Still I've never lost my boyhood sense of wonder at watching planes. If you want to enjoy flying again I strongly recommend a trip to Vancouver Island where you can fly from one inlet to the next via seaplane. In the meantime the next time you hear the whine of a turbofan look up and take a second to think about this: A 747 taking off can weigh up to 255,000 lbs.

Editing Freckles

2010-02-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

I am working on an ongoing portrait series featuring Freckled people. When I moved into the new studio space in October I had a couple shoots here before we'd even unpacked. Then there was some down-time over the holidays. I wanted to get busy shooting in my new studio. So I invited my friend Zara over, I knew she would be a great portrait subject (she is in the bottom row 4th and 5th from the right, just to the left of the pen). After her the idea of photographing freckled people took on a life of its own. I'll be posting more about this as we edit and print.

- Michael

p.s. Know someone with fantastic freckles, send them my way.

Change of Address

2010-02-03T13:56:00.000-08:00

I've been so busy getting the APA/SF Blog going. I've neglected posting the biggest news from Winokur Photography. We moved. I'm very happy to tell you about The Foundry Studio, Winokur Photography's new home. This building, erected around 1907, as the home of Pelton Water Wheel's foundry. It has also been a studio space for a succession of talented photographers and other artists. Read about Pelton on Wikipedia, it's fascinating. I'm proud to work in a place which was once the home of a company combining craftsmanship and engineering to make a cutting edge product. After all, photography is a juncture of art and science.

We're located in what has been called Media Gultch, a part of San Francisco's Mission neighborhood. We have great resturants as wells as Calumet, Left Space, Figureplant and JCX Expendables as neighbors. It's pretty convenient.

That barber's chair (left) has traveled with me from Philadelphia to San Diego to Palo Alto to San Francisco. I'm pretty sure it's not going to be doing any more traveling for some time. This is the first time I've had a studio of my own. Even though my work is very location oriented, this studio is a great HQ. It will be an environment to experiment in, build sets, fine tune lighting setups and otherwise make a big mess.

Just because its an old warehouse doesn't mean it can't be homey. Come and visit sometime.

-Michael

Shopping for a bit of photo history

2010-01-28T18:15:00.000-08:00

I'm on the lookout for a pair of 8" Petzval portrait lenses. If you know of a source for these please send me a message. These lenses were made starting in 1840. They are characterized by extremely sharp center of focus with a quick falloff to a swirly bokeh. My plan is to try to adapt them to fit on the Gowlandflex, so if you have any experience with this also please let me know.

-Michael

Plainview - Use Macs, you need this.

2010-01-13T10:04:00.000-08:00

I was at an AIGA SF studio tour at The Barbarian Group last night. More about that in another post. They showed off their work using a browser they created - just because they needed it for their own presentations. Now they are giving it away for free. If you use a Mac and do any kind of presentation you need Plainview. It's just a browser but it hides all the controls and headers so your HTML or Flash preso takes up the whole screen. So, photographers, designers, sales peeps ... throw away Power Point and use your own website in your presentation. You can download it here: Plainview dowload. Of course if you are on a PC and you use Firefox just hit F11.

Happy New Year from Winokur Photography

2009-12-31T11:07:00.000-08:00

I love my clients, most are friends all are creative collaborators. Each year I pick something that I can brand and give to them. This year I chose the Sharan SQ35 pinhole camera which happens to be sold by my friend Doug’s company Noted. The Sharan camera is a cardboard kit with a pinhole lens that makes square images on 35mm film. Since the kits take about an hour to build I figured none of my clients would build them – so I assembled all 25 cameras, packaged them with film and decorated them with custom “Winokur Photography” stickers. In previous years I’ve given “private label” wine. Since this year’s gift was so much more labor intensive then the wine I had to keep the list quite tight. The cameras went to my current clients and some very special dream clients.

I figured no one would have film hanging around anymore, so each camera was given with a roll of film to get started. In a week or so I'll be emailing everyone who got the cameras and asking them to submit their pinhole camera photos for display on this blog. Of course there will be a top-secret, super special prize for the person who sends the best pinhole image.

The instruction on the SQ35 make Ikea's instructions seem stratight forward. Assembling the cameras got easier after the first few but the design has some quirks and I ended up going over every one of them a second time to make sure all their little parts were properly stuck together. If the Sharan folks read this, I have some free advice for improving the kit.

Twenty-five note cards and 25 sets of promo cards.

Recycling: I used the original Sharan box as part of my home-made packaging.

Say twenty-ten. New Year's note cards, with Kurt Herr's logo design.

The labels for the cameras were printed at Community Printers where our friend Ross helped me get everything tuned up. We didn’t want to spring for a die cut so I thought I’d be hand cutting each sticker. The Xacto cuts just weren’t pretty enough to satisfy my QC team so I went to Techshop and used their Helix laser etcher engraver for a high-tech, low volume die-cutting substitute.

The Winokur Photography labels on the cameras were printed in six flavors.Those hi-tech black rubber bands are a key to the workings of the SQ35 - they hold the back shut.

My assembly plant all cleaned up after the build, everything counted out and ready pack.

The post office took 16 days to send the boxes I ordered, last minute purchase from U-Line and one-day shipping saves the day. Of course, the day after the cameras shipped USPS shows up with 25 boxes. Notice the Burberryesque ribbon, that's how you know we're styling here at WP.

All present and accounted for, ready for the post office.

Collaboration

2009-12-27T15:20:00.000-08:00

Several years ago my friend Nancy Dobbs Owen and I conspired to do a shoot with her jewelry. Nancy brought along make up artist Jackie Yost. Jackie and I have been working together ever since.
Just over a year ago I got a call out of the blue from Chrysta Giffen who wanted to talk about the photography business in San Francisco. She has been doing digital post, printing and compositing work for me ever since.
In a business where most people work alone, where projects range from requiring one or two people to scores of talented contributors - having a team is critical. Knowing who to call when there is a client is one part of the equation, having relationships with people who share your vision is also key to the constant effort of making new work. So, when I have an idea I know who to call; it works both ways.
At one point while we were working on some portraits for a pharmaceutical client Jackie told us about her interest in a creating beauty images with funky eyelashes. I put her and Chrysta together and we all started looking for talent. Chrysta found Laurie and Allison on the website Model Mayhem.

This is Laurie.

This is Allison.

My work is focused on a real authentic look, so these images a outside of what I would call my style. However I am a portrait photographer and I think there is plenty of space for the "beauty portrait" in the work I'm interested in. Plus my health clients are interested in skin care so I'm happy to have samples of work that are all about beautiful skin. Images that showcase the team it takes to make an image with the look of beyond perfect skin.

Family Portraits

2009-12-13T18:35:00.001-08:00

My parents were here in SF visiting over Thanksgiving so I used some of my precious and aging supply of Type 55 to make some portraits of them. Being that they are my parents they are willing but not necessarily agreeable portrait subjects.
This was a happy Gowlandflex accident. My finger slipped while cocking the shutter. I was going to dump this but instead made a second exposure and processed it out. I caught my dad smiling and looking tough on one piece of film. He always wants to look super serious in photos.
I don't think my dad will like this picture but hopefully he won't be too mad that I posted it. I love shooting this close with the Gowlandflex. It's a challenge because the parallax adjustment on the camera can't compensate at this distance, so the composition is always a guess. Seeing how well the Rodenstock 150mm lens performs this close you know it's worth fussing a bit with the camera to make it work.
While I'm talking about my parents I should give them a little blog shout out. They are fantastic artists you can see their work here and here.
This last photo is also with the Gowlandflex but it's on Fuji 160s not Type 55. You can see why so many people loved the Type 55. It's just as sharp as you can imagine but with an incredible soft tonality and the Polaroid x-factor that is hard to match.

Let's get personal.

2009-10-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

Erik Almas' grand prize winning picture from 2008.

If you're not already on it you should be dreaming-up, shooting, editing or retouching your best personal images for the APA SF Something Personal show. That's APA's annual 100 print exhibit and blockbuster party; fourteen-hundred people came to the show last year. If that's still not enough incentive for you to get your work ready for the contest, then the incredible panel of judges we have lined up should seriously motivate you.

I've got to save some surprises but I'll give you a taste. Some of this year's judges include: One of the most talented and influential creative directors in the magazine world Scott Dadich, Creative Director at Wired. Margaret Johnson, GCD at Goodby the top creative agency in America according to Archive. Jennifer Jerde, Owner of Elixir Design, her beautiful work is in the permanent collection at SFMOMA and Fabio Costa, Creative Director at Cutwater where he works on Ubisoft, Nvidia, Ray-Ban and Persol.

Your odds of winning are good. Last year we had about 600 entries so the chances of winning were about 1:6. Just to put that in perspective, your odds of being struck by lightning are 1:280000 so you have a much better chance of getting in this show then being struck by lightning. Last year the 100 images in the show came from 62 individual photographers. So the average winner had 1.58 images represented in the show. We know of one photographer who tracks a national advertising campaign back to having his images in the show, and another who got a solo gallery show out of her winning images.

Are you ready to enter? I thought so. Entries are due October 20 (click here for the entry for). Seriously there will be no extensions.

Dan Winters in San Francisco September 23 with APA and AAU

2009-09-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

We're all getting pretty excited about this week's APA lecture featuring Dan Winters at AAU's Morgan Augitorium. Dan's talk will be interesting for photographers as well as anybody in the design or editorial world. Here are the details:

September 23
7:30 to 9:30 PM
Doors open at 6:30
AAU Morgan Auditorium, 491 Post, San Francisco

Checks and Cash only. APA Members: $10, General Admission: $15, Academy of Art Students free with AAU ID.

I've been a huge fan of Dan's work for years now. I think the line he walks between commercial, editorial and fine art is an example of the space today's photographer hopes to occupy. He clearly brings a style and vibe to the table that clients seek out.

The NPR Blog has a short interview with Dan here:

Winters knows his predecessors well, photographers and painters alike, and fully acknowledges their influence. Edward Hopper, Irving Penn, Alfred Stieglitz -- all the midcentury greats. "You're either a Stieglitz guy or a Steichen guy," he asserts, "like you're a Rolling Stones guy or [a fan of] The Who. They're two different kinds of people." Interestingly enough, Steichen was the more commercial photographer. But Winters still associates himself, and his work, with a school of early documentary photography.

I hope we'll see you out on Wednesday night.

September Photography Openings

2009-09-11T16:20:00.000-07:00

First Thursday, San Francisco's defacto night for art openings, slightly delayed by Labor Day and Burning Man, turned into a fantastic Second Thursday with several great photography shows at 49 Geary and Gallery 291 last night. For sure the star of the evening was Hiroshi Sugimoto, the mad scientist of the fine art photo world, his newest body of work called Lightning Fields is a set of stunning black and white images Sugimoto creates by applying 400,000 volts of electricity directly to the film with a Van De Graffe generator. I found a couple of great videos of Sugimoto talking about his work. They are here and here. Listening to him one understands he is an intellectual, educated in architecture, history and science, and his work draws on broad and deep concepts about the natural and man-made environment.

With gallery and museum shows around his work and the cover art of the current U2 album "No Line on the Horizon" Sugiomoto's work demands a high price. The print of the above picture is $80,000 at Frankel. If I were in the market for a Mercedes I think Sugiomoto's print would be a better use of the money. Until the lottery winnings come in I have this Fujiroid from his show with an extra bit of lightening from on-camera flash. Richard Prince can only hope to re-photograph an image this well.

Next we went upstairs to Haines Gallery. I was blown away for the second time of the night, this time by Adou Samalada's work. His images of his native Sichuan Province in China are beautiful and timeless. Adou works with old expired film to create portraits which are poetic and heroic. They seem to come from some remote past but they are current documents of his life.

"There is no difference between taking a picture of others and myself. The camera may be pointed outward, but whether you like it or not, it always reveals you."

At Haines I met Zara from Fifty Crowes I'm hoping she will sit for me so I can make a portrait of her with all those amazing freckles. Zara is busy working on an opening 50 Crows is doing with Ed Kashi on October 1. More on Ed on Fifty Crows blog here.

After Adou we went to Brian Ullrich's show at Robert Koch. Brian is the receipient of a Gugenheim for his work on the malls and other remnants and detritus of our shopping culture. He writes:

Over the past 7 years I have been engaged with a long-term photographic examination of the peculiarities and complexities of the consumer-dominated culture in which we live. This project titled Copia, explores not only the everyday activities of shopping, but the economic, cultural, social, and political implications of commercialism and the roles we play in self-destruction, over-consumption, and as targets of marketing and advertising.

Living in San Francisco where we feel the effects of the economy but don't see the wreckage in the obvious way that it has been wrought in other parts of the country. It's kind of jarring to realize that Brian's images document our home not some far off place.

Fujiroid of Miki Johnson from Reslove talking to Brian at his opening.

The last stop of the evening was for one of my personal favorites, Michael Garlington at Gallery 291. His images are beautiful, dark narratives, photographs from Grimm's Tales, beadtime stories to terrify children. Garlington was a master printer as well as a photographer. His personal work is masterful in its own right but with a low-fi, noisy, dirtiness that would be the opposite of the work he did as a printer. His images like Adou's are current but appear to be plucked out of the past.

Here is a Fujiroid of someone iPhoning a Garlington image.

Here is the info for Michael's show at 291. You can also buy his book Portraits from the Belly of the Whale on Amazon or at 291.

Night Fujiroids

2009-09-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

I'm still having lots of fun taking the Fuji Instax camera to parties. Of course I could take a digital camera and that would be lots easier but digital is so 2008.

The Louis Vutton windows on Union Square with blogosphere star Miki Johnson.

Grab shot walking down the street on our way to Michael Garlington's opening at Gallery 291.

The Fujiroids burn out when you put to much light through the lens. This photo with the sun in the background looks like a UFO is landing in San Francisco. Of course we all know UFOs landed in S.F. years ago, otherwise how could you explain our Board of Supervisors.

This is guaranteed to ruin your day

2009-09-03T15:46:00.001-07:00

Today's San Francisco Chronicle has a story on the very front page of their business section about hobbyists taking work from professional photographers. It's here if you can bare to read it. I guess the chronicle - which is near the top of the death watch list for major metro daily newspapers - got tired or writing about the fall of newspapers and decided to focus on the the economy of free and the future of still photographers.

"It'd be nice to get paid, but I don't really care," said the San Francisco resident. "What are they going to pay me, a hundred dollars? I'd rather get copies and show them to my friends."

The software engineer they interviewed had given his photo to 7x7 Magazine in exchange for a few copies of the magazine. 7x7 has never been a lucrative client but they have been a great display space for San Francisco photographers and they have financed some great portfolio development projects for photographers including Erik Almas.

With an entire issue filled with images they found on Flikr and plans for more such issues one has to wonder what value of the magazine is delivering. I would have to say it's value is about what they are paying for images $0. If they are just republishing work you can find yourself on Flikr then the publication isn't contributing much more then paper and ink. Free certainly has to be an enticing prospect for any publisher but I don't see the payoff f0r readers or advertisers. 7x7 is a style and lifestyle magazine. Their job is to be ahead of the public, finding trends and reporting on them in a beautiful way that also provides gorgeous display space for advertisers. How well can they do this by scouring Flikr for your old photos. It's not that there aren't lots of nice photos on Flikr its that I don't see how this strategy makes the magazine relevant.

Film is dead, long live film:

2009-08-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

Our local APA chapter just had a great event on editing. On the panel were Wired contributing photographer Joe Pugliese and Wired Photography Editor Anna Alexander talking about the editorial assignment process and Norman Maslov Agent Internationale and Sue Tallon talking about portfolio editing. In the interest of full disclosure I am on the board of APA-SF.

If you weren't there you missed a great discussion about all things editing. I have one juicy tidbit to share - especially for my Gowlandflex, Type 55 followers. After all, that big, beautiful, beast of a camera was the reason I started this blog. Here goes: Wired, the magazine of the digerati, prefers film. Yep you heard it here. They not only are okay with photographers shooting film on assignment but prefer and encourage it. Joe Pugliese, Todd Hido, Dan Winters - all shoot film for Wired. So dust off your 4x5 holders and unplug yourself for a minute. Film isn't dead.

Meanwhile you can read about and see photos from a Dan Winters shoot with Brad Pitt - on 4x5 - for Wired here on WTJ.

If you are lucky enough to be in San Francisco on September 23 2009, APA is hosting a lecture by Dan Winters about his new book Periodical Photographs, Aperture press 2009 at AAU. Details coming soon on the APAsf.com website.

Transparency and the photo biz

2009-08-28T13:11:00.000-07:00

Transparency is one of the theoretical conditions required for a free market be efficient. - Wikipedia

In case you've missed it there is an interesting conversation going on on A Photo Editor. APE posted some advertising and editorial estimates. Read the comments if you want to see ensuing debate about pricing. I want to thank him for posting these and for the debate he started. There were 154 comments as of this morning. In many ways APE is doing for the industry what our professional organizations believe they cannot do - openly discuss the cost and value of photography.

I think there is a very interesting lesson from the level of debate and the tone of surprise these estimates caused on his blog. Photography is not a transparent business. In many cases the professionals in photography can't accurately assess the value of their work to the market.

There are good reasons for this. It's hard to quantify the value of creative thought. Each creator has a different business realities and costs of production to consider in pricing. That said, not honestly and openly discussing pricing has in my opinion been a problem for our market.

Economists, particularly western ones, hate opaque markets. They are inefficient, volatile, and have higher costs then transparent ones. The web in many ways has made the market much more transparent. For example, it's super easy to find out how much everyone else is paying for a car. This protects buyer A from paying more then buyer B. This in turn helps legitimize the value of the vehicle.

Another problem with opaque markets is they allow the more informed player (in our case the client) to control the negotiation. A transparent market is one where all parties have equal access to information. If you knew what Sterling Cooper paid for their last 10 photo shoots you would be in a stronger negotiating position with them and with their competitors. In the current photography market a client can tell you - we never pay for that, every photographer signs this contract, the other guy is bidding 1/2 of what you bid - all you can do is guess what the other guy actually does or did. The more you know about the market the more accurately you can value your goods and services. Let's be clear transparency is not price fixing - which is illegal. In fact the more knowledge everyone has in a free market the fairer it tends to be.

Do give these estimates a careful read. For a definition of transparency here is the Economist's A-Z.

-Michael

Michael Garlington

2009-08-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

When I had no money to spend on such things (that's still true) I dropped a whopping $200 on Michael Garlington's book "Portraits from the Belly of the Whale." I'm still thrilled with my purchase which included a beautiful print called "The Fishmonger's Daughter." Seen here.

I knew right away that Garlington was a true artist. For one his images are imaginative and beautiful. Think Christopher Walkin's adventures in Wonderland. What really tipped me off is I met Garlington in San Francisco traffic. He was driving a VW bus which was wallpapered with his work prints. I pulled up next to him thinking what nonsense is this, then I saw that the images were brilliant. Here is Garlington's bio from the Gallery 291 website:

Michael Garlington is an acclaimed Northern California photographer and master printer. He began shooting his own images while working at Spindler Photography, a high-end lab in San Francisco that caters to the finest photographers working today. His work has been purchased by Yale, Dartmouth and countless private collectors.

They should just show a picture of his van - it tells the story more fully.

If you are in SF, see his work at Gallery 291 starting September 10, 2009.

Beijing Street series

2009-08-26T15:48:00.001-07:00

A few months ago we had the time and opportunity to visit our cousin Andrey in Beijing. Since I don’t truly understand the concept of a vacation I arranged a ‘fixer’ so I could do a couple days of street portraiture while we were in town. Since my work is all about real people, any pictures I would make there would require a translator, one who understood the culture, languages, photography and production. That’s what a fixer does, more on this later.

It’s hard as an American not to have wildly inaccurate preconceptions about China, most of understand that they make our stuff, own our debt and have some challenges on the human rights front. All I can really report from our brief time in Beijing is, whatever you expect to find there you will be surprised. At this moment ~~progress~~ change in Beijing is, and has been, so fast that even the locals can’t find there way around. Seriously, some of the roads are so new the cabbies don’t know where they go.

The result of all the new building (they’ve had the best architects in the world working overtime) and the rapid cultural and economic development is a duality between new and old that seems present in every aspect of life. This uneasy and very rapid mix of the new into a very old place manifests itself physically in the streets and buildings, culturally in the art, politics and clothes and psychologically in the outlook of young and older generations

Heading to Beijing I knew my ability to make images in China would be limited, I was traveling light I had two days to shoot maybe a half day to scout and no special access. Given those limitations I feel that this shoot was a successful effort for two reasons. I know what I do and we’ve done this kind of street portrait project before. So my scope was narrow. I immediately found one thing about Beijing, the mix of old and new, to be interested in. So that was the assignment I gave myself: Real Beijingers showing elements of new and old China. Does it sound too simple? I think one of the biggest challenges photographers run into with their personal projects is they bite off more then they can shoot. If you assign yourself to photograph “Cultural Change in Neocapitalist China” you best have some time to commit. Finding something you can do well with the resources available is just as important as finding the ideal project.

The other critical element for this shoot was the ‘fixer’ Lin Jing. We really got lucky finding her. She was amazing. Her tireless energy and willingness to approach strangers on our behalf really made the shoot work. I ended up finding her through my old college friend Kay Chin Tay in Singapore who knew a guy named Tobie Openshaw who was in Beijing who knew Noah Weinzweig a Canadian ex-pat and producer extraordinaire who hired Lin Jing for us. If you need a Red camera in China, Noah is the guy to call. Noah also produced for Edward Burtynsky. When he told me this I was honestly a little skeptical. There are lots of people who will tell you about how they assisted for Nat. Geo or whatever. Well I just saw the documentary on Burtynsky, “Manufactured Landscapes” and there’s Noah translating, rallying people and loading 4x5 – he is the real deal.

Well the work is finally online here: winokurphotography.com I hope you will take a look. One last step for us, sending prints to everyone we photographed. As always a BIG big up to my crew on this project: Iana Simeonov, Lin Jing and Chrysta Geffin.

-Michael

Paris Rendezvous and American Jesus take prizes from he IPA Lucie Awards

2009-08-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

This was my first year entering the IPA Lucie Awards so I'm happy to have received honorable mentions in 2 categories for the portrait project American Jesus and in 2 categories for the digital project Paris Rendezvous. A big up to my team for all their help on these projects especially digital artist Chrysta Geffin.

Polaroid is dead, long live Fujiroid

2009-07-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

My new favorite toy is the Fuji Instax 55i. Our fixer had one in China, once I saw it I had to have one myself. So far they are mostly sold in the Asian market. You can read about it on The Photo Village and on Lomography I bought mine on eBay from a seller in Hong Kong. Oddly it arrived faster then most internet orders within the US.

I've been having a great time taking this little instant camera to parties. The only downside is I tend to give people the credit cards sized pictures the camera produces so I have only a few samples to show here.

It's no surprise that Fuji's quality is better, more consistent and the film cheaper then Polaroid was. It's easy to be nostalgic for Polaroid now that they've passed on but it's also easy to forget how bad their quality control could be. For the moment the Fuji Instax is great fun and should be fantastic for a lot the fans of Polaroid pack cameras. The big news on the instant film front is even more exciting.

thirteen-million seconds, that's how long they say we need to wait for the Impossible but the promise is new, better instant film. The last time we talked about this it was an advanced rumor. Now with ownership of a fully kitted out Polaroid factory, a fancy website and some strong buzz I'm getting hopeful they'll pull it off.

Impossible b.v. has been founded with the concrete aim to re-invent and re-start production of analog INTEGRAL FILM for vintage Polaroid cameras.

Therefore Impossible b.v. has acquired the complete film production equipment in Enschede (NL) from Polaroid, has signed a 10-year lease agreement on the factory building; and has engaged the most experienced team of Integral Film experts worldwide.

American Jesus

2009-07-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

My specialty is finding the right real people to photograph for my client's campaigns. The preference of working with real people has developed over my career but it comes down to finding people with great character and personality. Since I have just released my newest series of real people portraits titled American Jesus I thought this would be a good time to talk about one of my techniques for finding great people to photograph. We have tried and are willing to try any approach. We street-cast, post ads online, search for specific looks, recruit our friends...

The method that has worked the best over the years is taking the studio on the street and photographing people as I meet them. This eliminates all the vagaries of scheduling. The drawback is the loss of the control we get in the studio. The big upside is we often get to borrow characters, energy and emotion from an event going on around us. American Jesus was photographed during a wild Easter event in Dolores Park. We heard about a Jesus look-a-like contest that was going on and went to see how people would dress up.

Here is San Francisco it's often windy - backgrounds, light stands, soft-boxes and flags don't do well in the wind. I've been refining my tools over the years and I've been learning what works along the way. The recent shoot went really well thanks to a cube we built out of steel pipe and Kee-safety corners. With Matthews silks to diffuse the natural light.

Here is the cube:

My assistants might not love this idea as much as I do, all that pipe is heavy but we have been hauling around hundreds of pounds of sandbags so its kind of a wash. The cube is just as heavy as all that sand but it has structural strength that light stands don't offer. The other great thing about the cube is we can clamp strobe heads right to it reducing the number of stands for people to trip on.

Setting up:

Photographing a Jesus impersonator:

As with all of my projects the tools are just a bunch of gear, it's the team I work with that makes the pictures happen. I couldn't have done American Jesus without my Iana Simeonov producing, my brother Stephan helping with logistics, my assistant Michael Blumenfeld and Chrysta Geffin who loved up the photos in post.

-Michael

A break from the studio for a shoot in Yosemite with some very cool kids.

2009-06-30T18:39:00.000-07:00

I've been working as a photographer for many years now. Maybe I’m jaded about some things. There are still a few things about this business which are exciting no matter how long you are at it. Getting your work on the cover of a magazine is really fun. Getting to meet and photograph really interesting people in Yosemite and then getting on the cover of the magazine makes for a pretty un-beatable day at the office. Big thanks to Adina LoBiondo and Judith Lewis at Sierra Magazine and to the kids from Crenshaw and Dorsey highs for being so great.

This was my favorite image from the shoot and I think it also would have been a great choice for the cover. Thanks to the Sierra's designers for giving it a lovely full-page ride on the opening spread.

Shelton Johnson was such a captivating speaker it was hard not to stop photographing him and just listen to his stories. A 22-year veteran of the National Park Service, Johnson has been researching and writing about Buffalo Soldiers who protected the park in its early days. Look for his upcoming book Gloryland, rumors are there will be a movie too.

Selected

2009-05-26T14:35:00.000-07:00

I got my work into Viisual.com (the misspelled but highly selective online portfolio site). Take a look at my listing but be sure to brows the MIX to see tons of great photography.

2009-05-26T07:45:00.001-07:00

A glimmer of good news about Polaroid in today's (May26, 2009) New York Times. A handful of former Polaroid employees are trying to manufacture film in Holland. Meanwhile Fuji has a line of instant point and shoot cameras called the Instax, the mini 55i being the most interesting. It makes credit card size instant pictures. We saw people using these in China but so far they are not available directly in the USA. Check out Lomography.com for more on the Instax.

Hot Springs Cove, Tofino

2008-11-05T15:00:00.000-08:00

If you're ever on Vancouver Island I highly recommend Hot Springs Cove in Tofino.

Okay, its not from the Gowlandflex but the camera is just a tool, its the work that matters.

Goodbye type 55

2008-02-11T12:01:00.000-08:00

Polaroid announced today it will close factories and cease production of all instant films. You can see the AP story here: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8209093
I'll try to stockpile some type 55 film, but the stuff doesn't age that well so it will all be gone in a few years. It would be great if Fuji would take over some of this business as they have shown some interest in 4x5 and medium format instant pack films, but it is hard to imagine them expanding those offerings.

The Gowlandflex isn't for everyone

2007-10-29T17:27:00.001-07:00

There is no doubt the Gowlandflex is a hard camera to work with. In my mind much easier then any other 4x5 camera but that's not saying much on the easy - hard spectrum.

I hope he doesn't mind but here are some photos of my friend David McLain trying to use my Gowlandflex. David's an amazing photographer but he is used to working fast and light on assignments for National Geographic. Check him out at www.davidmclain.com or www.mergegroup.com. These photos were taken by my buddy Kevin Stokes www.stokes-web.com

George Schultz at Stanford

2007-09-18T10:24:00.000-07:00

I photographed George P. Schultz yesterday at Stanford University. The shoot was digital and involved a car full of gear, of course I had to bring the Gowlandflex along for some extra fun. This is a perfect example of the strength of this camera. We were shooting fast (I think we had 20 minutes of Mr. Schultz time) at multiple locations. There was no way I would have introduced a regular 4x5 camera into this shoot. With the Gowlandflex I was able to literally put the Canon DSLR down and pickup the Gowlandflex and make a couple exposures without really changing the pace of the shoot. My only gripe is with the evil Polaroid they really should be ashamed of their quality control. At $90 per pack I find myself throwing away 2-3 sheets of film that self destruct in the film holder.

-Michael

Artist Portrait

2007-08-20T17:28:00.001-07:00

This simple portrait represents for me what I love about using Polaroid Type 55 (and the quality that started this absurd foray of mine with the Gowlandflex). The tonality and detail this film produces is just delicious. I'm not a technologist and I can't quantify what makes this medium special for me but what I keep coming back to are silky smooth midtones and the unpredictable nature of the emulsion (that's a nice way of saying developing flaws are part of the fun).

For those who care about this sort of thing, this image was made with the Gowlandflex and Rodenstock 180mm f5.6 wide open. The lens was synced with two Hensel heads in soft boxes, powered by a 1500ws Vela pack.

Cheers,

Michael Winokur

180mm

2007-07-31T18:18:00.000-07:00

Many photographers who were making images with medium and large format cameras switched to the 35mm format when we switched to digital. This was both to adopt some of the best, fastest advancing technology and because affording a 30K medium format digital back is just not easy. Even though the cameras we adopted are amazing in their abilities and sophistication, there is a critical difference between them and their larger format sisters. A larger sensor (or piece of film) allows a longer lens while still maintaining that same 'normal' field of view. So a 35mm camera uses a 50 mm lens to accomplish what a 180mm lens does on a 4x5. The vital difference is that the longer lens has more compression and less depth. A quality I appreciate in portraiture.

I'm still hoping for a larger sensor (not in megapixles but in physical size) - right now almost 6 by almost 4.5 is the biggest thing going. I would like a 6x8 cm sensor so I can start shooting with my Fuji GX camera again. Meanwhile Polaroid 4x5s are good diversion from shooting dSLRs

-Michael Winokur Photography

First Gowland Type 55 images

2007-07-28T11:34:00.001-07:00

Finally I have some photos to show. The issue with going hunting around for old techniques is you have to create a whole new work-flow to accommodate old technology. In this case scanning film. There was a time when I owned three film scanners, it was a great day when I got rid of them. Scanning has a whole series of problems associated with it. The two that always caused me the most frustration were dust and color consistency between scans. In adopting the Polaroid Type 55 as a tool, I've brought those two old friends back into my life.

The Gowlandflex was ready to work with just in time for my friend's wedding in Michigan. So, we drug it and a bunch of Polaroid film through airport security - you should have seen the TSA they didn't know what to make of the Big Ass Camera. Anyway, here are some samples from that series.

Type 55 has a particularly pleasing set

of mid-tones and I love the way it
renders a blue sky with the
occasional processing mark.

Big Ass Camera

2007-07-20T16:40:00.001-07:00

Here is a photo of the Gowlandflex so you can see why I'm calling this blog Big Ass Camera. The person shown should give you a sense of its actual size :P

Learning to work with this new tool has been a challenge. When the camera arrived I was having trouble focusing it. After a series of emails to Peter I found out how to calibrate the focus mechanism and I also discovered the focusing lens was loose in its lens board. Now that these problems are fixed I'm starting to experiment with the camera and having some success.

At the same time I have been having some fun at TechShop if you notice the top of the camera I've created an adapter to use a right angle view finder from my Fuji GX680 (the best camera I've ever used) on the Gowlandflex. This is a great solution for location photography because it means I don't need a dark cloth to see the ground glass in bright light. The adapter is my own design and the parts for it were cut out of acrylic with the TechShop laser etcher/cutter. A brilliant tool (check out Epilog).

Now that I have the camera working the way I want It's time to start making some images and I'll share those with you starting with my next post. As I said when I started writing this is about learning to work with a new camera but the blog is also about creating a new body of work with Polaroid Type 55 as a medium.

Gowlandflex

2007-06-12T17:52:00.000-07:00

I'm starting this blog to share my experiences working with a new tool. In the age of digital - and yes most of my work is digital - I'm starting to work with a very special 4x5 camera. It's a Gowlandflex you can learn more about it on Peter's website. To understand the camera you first have to know the limitations of most 4x5 cameras. Then you have to see this beautiful beast in person.

The downfall of most 4x5 cameras is the inability to focus once the film holder has been loaded into the camera. This means that if anything moves (even a few centimeters) the image will be out of focus. The genius of the Gowland camera is that it is essentially two cameras in one case - one to focus and one to expose. This means that capturing a decisive moment can be possible with a 4x5 camera. Now, of course lots of people have made amazing images with 4x5 cameras and recorded both decisive moments and real expressions - but still, not being able to focus at the time of exposure is problematic.

Why not digital - it's faster, easier, cheaper, more portable and on and on. Only thing is you can't shoot Polaroid p/n film with a digital camera and this film has a very unique, beautiful and unpredictable look to it. So, as much as this blog is about the Gowland camera it is really about the goal of working with Polaroid negative film.

Where are the photos? They are on their way. This is my first Blog entry and I need to get some photos ready to post. If you happen by here before that happens, well you can look at my website and see how far off the path the Gowland camera is for me.

Cheers,

Michael