"My Dad the Hoodlum"
Fairbanks, Alaska

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), July 31, 2000

Answers

Laugh...the only thing this picture is missing is about 10 more elderly people dressed and posed in the same manner :)

BTW, can I take a guess at the lens you used? Canon 50mm/1.8?

-- Edward Kang (ekang@cse.nd.edu), July 31, 2000.

You're close, it was a Leica 50mm f/2 Summicron. In the dapple lighting I remember being only a few stops down from wide open, probably f/5.6. Film was Tmax 400. I really like the background in this shot.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), July 31, 2000.

Interesting! The reason I guessed so was because of the bokeh in the background. It's very similar to the effect I get when I shoot high contrast backgrounds with my Canon 50/1.8. I guess I've always considered the effect to be unpleasing and I find it surprising that a Leica lens would exhibit the same qualities...

Maybe as more of a generic question, do you personally find that sort of bokeh interesting? Or do you find it more distracting?

-- Edward Kang (ekang@cse.nd.edu), August 01, 2000.

Depending on the extent of the blur and the image itself, I have been mostly enthused with the selective focus photographs. Particularly with people. I'd much rather have most of the photograph blurry with the focus of attention sharp, than have all the photograph sharp as a tack. The exception to this is with wide angle, 20mm and below in the 35mm format where the effect of the wide angle is more important than selective focus. In my view, though, you just can't beat the pleasant angle of view with the good 'ol 50mm lens. My shot here would have looked better at f/4 maybe.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), August 01, 2000.

I knew what I was going to say about this shot, then found out that you already said it yourself: "I really like the background..." :) Normally I would say that your subject is too centered, but for some reason it seems to work here. I like his pose and expression. I4ve noticed that quite a lot of viewers seem to percieve things like loneliness and decrepitude from pictures of old people, no matter how the subjects appear - smiling or otherwise. I4d say they couldn4t get away with that in this case :)

-- Christel Green (look.no@film.dk), August 07, 2000.