There is a story behind this photograph...a problem and a solution.

This is an impulsive (candid?) portrait of my friend George Lauterstein, who has spent the better part of 40 years in serious Leica B/W photography, discovering the wonders of digital. He is using an Olympus C3030 in this photo and just sent me a set of digital B/W prints from this trip that are unblievably fine.

I took this photo in dim dawn light on a beach near San Simeon CA, with rocks shading the rising sun. I used, by error, 120 Kodak TCN, and exposed it a 200 EI thinking it was TMax400 standard film. The exposure was about 1 sec. at f/2.8 with a Mamiya C330 80mm lens...not optimal exposure conditions. The negative was a nightmare to print...heavy chromogenic mask, very dense, long exposure times, hot lamp negative bending in the enlarger, and general lack of good resolution/sharpness on the negative itself. I just couldn't make a good print on standard glossy or pearl papers. I even thought of having the neg reworked on a Tabgo Drum Scanner through Image Works and have a new neg generated (and still may do that), but, yesterday, it dawned on me that I should go WITH the problem rather than FIGHT it, so I made two fine 8x10 prints on Luminos Tapestry textured FB paper, and the image now has an antique look that seems to suit the less than perfect circumstances.

Just thought I'd pass that along. Cheers.

-- Todd Frederick (fredrick@hotcity.com), August 11, 2000

Answers

By golly I know George! One of the nicest people you'll ever meet! He has a frequently updated web site which displays his fine work and is definitely worth a look. Thanks for posting, Todd!

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), August 11, 2000.

By the way, if you do visit George's website, the "mystery" photos are all digital B/W.

-- Todd Frederick (fredrick@hotcity.com), August 11, 2000.

He's still got his Tiltall!... t

p.s. too bad about that corner, try some boiling Dektol (haha).

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), August 15, 2000.

Tom,

Regarding the corner...that's the sun rising! No amount of "boiling" will do a thing. I guess sometimes we just have to live with a little few imperfections in our life. I recall Bresson having to slice of the left side of his "decisive moment" image due to a fence board he couldn't avoid and still get the man leaping into the water at just the right time. I guess I could use an oval frame...good thought.

If you're referring to George's tripod...it's a light weight Linhof and the ball head is Leitz. Seems just right for the OM3030 digital.

We should all be as talented as this man!

-- Todd Frederick (fredrick@hotcity.com), August 15, 2000.