Film: NSFW: Trafficing in the Nude.

[Maris Rusis]

There seem to be few photographs showing the inside of a photographic gallery. To amuse or enlighten the curious here is one:

Point Light Gallery, Before Opening Night.

Gelatin-silver photograph on Agfa Classic MCC 111 FB VC, image area 16.5cm X 21.5cm, from a Tmax 400 negative exposed in a Mamiya RB 67 camera with a 50mm f4.5 lens.​

The gallery lights are not on and the space is cool and dark.The photographer had no self-timer or assistant so the camera shutter was opened, the photographer went and sat quietly in the armchair for a minute, and then got up, walked to the camera, and closed the shutter. There is some ghosting in the image.

The exhibition about to open included many photographs featuring the female nude. On the wall, second from the right, is a framed presentation of the following image:

Floating Nude​

Gelatin-silver photograph on Ilford MG-IV FB VC, image area 24.7cm X 19.6cm, from a 10x8 Tri-X negative exposed in a Tachihara 810HD triple extension field view camera with a Fujinon-W 300mm f5.6 lens.

I was keen to get sales at this exhibition and asked the gallery director to hang the above picture next to Judy Dater's well known photograph of Imogen Cunningham and Twinka at Yosemite in 1974. The director said no. But in the end it did not matter.

Recalling this experience made me wonder how it is that the nude is preceived to be too prurient to survive inspection in one work-place but certainly pure enough to be sold for money in another. We live in a strange and varied world.

 

[Asher Kelman]

There seem to be few photographs showing the inside of a photographic gallery. To amuse or enlighten the curious here is one:

Point Light Gallery, Before Opening Night.

Gelatin-silver photograph on Agfa Classic MCC 111 FB VC, image area 16.5cm X 21.5cm, from a Tmax 400 negative exposed in a Mamiya RB 67 camera with a 50mm f4.5 lens.​

The gallery lights are not on and the space is cool and dark.The photographer had no self-timer or assistant so the camera shutter was opened, the photographer went and sat quietly in the armchair for a minute, and then got up, walked to the camera, and closed the shutter. There is some ghosting in the image.

Maris,

This such a great treat. I'm so glad you worked out the exposure so well. What was you lightmeter: your brain or your measured the light? It's great that we can see you and that you are informal enough to wear gym shoes.

I can praise enough your devotion to the silver-gelatin print. It's so important that folk here see what good discipline, craft and imagination can build. What's so special about the silver-gelatin photograph is that the image is made up of an physical trapping of metallic silver of a vast array of grain sizes to make up every part of the picture. The skill to achieve great pictures is not beyond the reach of most photographers but today, few are willing to invest the time needed to acquire the proficiency and judgement required.

Kudos and thanks for sharing and also revealing yourself at last!

Asher

 

[Maris Rusis]

Maris,

This such a great treat. I'm so glad you worked out the exposure so well. What was you lightmeter: your brain or your measured the light? It's great that we can see you and that you are informal enough to wear gym shoes.
Asher

Asher,

I hoped you would get a chuckle out of this one.

Technically, the exposure had to be about one minute to give me opportunity to operate the camera but spend most of the time in the armchair. Every moment I'm out of the chair my image becomes less solid. Metering was done with a Pentax spot meter, film reciprocity failure was allowed for, and the lens was stopped down to f32 to give me that precious minute. My gaze is downward and slightly to the left. I'm staring fixedly at my wristwatch to get the timing right!

The gym shoes are too informal for opening night itself. When the lights go on and the crowd comes in I present in the conventional black outfit complete with "artist's" black beret. And I schmooze influence makers, glad-hand potential customers, and say things I thought I'd never hear myself say. Such is the sordid world of art marketing. The nudes in the room, even the erotic ones, are chaste in comparison.

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Maris,

Technically, the exposure had to be about one minute to give me opportunity to operate the camera but spend most of the time in the armchair. Every moment I'm out of the chair my image becomes less solid. Metering was done with a Pentax spot meter, film reciprocity failure was allowed for, and the lens was stopped down to f32 to give me that precious minute. My gaze is downward and slightly to the left. I'm staring fixedly at my wristwatch to get the timing right!

Fabulous! An Oz self-timer!

Great shot of the gallery (and the floater as well).

I had a wonderful experience with long exposures (of an inanimate subject) in about 1960. I was in the AT&T headquarters engineering organization at their corporate headquarters in downtown Manhattan, New York. I was responsible for an external technical publication, the first of a new series, a description of the new interface connector being introduced for the Bell Telephone System's switched voiceband modems (the interface that would shortly become RS-232).

I needed a photo of the connector "exploded", showing the shell halves, connector proper, assembly and retaining screws, and so forth. There was no time to arrange for Bell Telephone Laboratories to do that. The illustration department suggested a nearby studio photographer who had done product photography for them, and I set up an appointment for the next day.

When I arrived, the photographer said he had, based on my detailed description of what I needed, already made a tentative setup.

The plan was to array the parts on a white background on the floor and shoot this from above with an 8x10 view camera. Although the overall field was perhaps only 14" square, he had evidently equipped the camera with a lens of astounding focal length, and had the camera mounted on a bracket on the very top of an 8-foot A-style stepladder, a rather creaky one at that.

With a rough layout of the parts on the white background, he ascended the ladder (it swaying fearsomely) and took a quick peek at the ground glass, which confirmed that his intuition regarding magnification was right on the money. He descended and I then made the final arrangement of the parts (a tedious task as you know).

There was no shutter on the lensboard. Rather, he would make the exposure by removing and then replacing the lens cap (one of those lovely leather ones that looked like the cap of a fancy telescope case).

He arranged a number of floodlights, and then ascended the ladder, filmholder in hand. He checked the framing and focus, put the lens cap on, put in the filmholder, pulled the dark slide, took off the lens cap and set it on the top step of the ladder, and climbed down. Of course as he did, the ladder swayed quite a bit, which it continued to so for a while after he reached the ground.

He said "this will be a long exposure", looked at his wristwatch, and suggested we go to the studio kitchen for coffee and donuts.

Every so often, he glanced at his watch. Finally he said, "OK, I think it's done". We went back into the studio and he climbed up the creaky stepladder, it again swaying wildly. He put on the lens cap, put in the dark slide, pulled the filmholder, and descended. He said he would have the camera-ready print by the next morning.

I told him to have the print taken by courier directly directly to the illustrator who was putting the book together for me.

The next day the illustrator called and told me that the shot was great, "Except ..". I went up to his shop. The print was in fact perfect - except that evidently a large horsehair had evidently fallen from the ladder (which has been stored God-knows-where) right onto the field of parts.

He said he would touch up the print before shooting it in the copy camera.

I thought about it, and said, "No leave it alone - it will make a great story over the years".

And it has.

The book, by the way, was the first of a series of external specifications later known as the AT&T "PUB" series (from the prefix to their reference designations, which for many years followed the cover design the illustrator did for me. He had sent me six sketches of possible cover designs, making the one he favored in blue, since he knew I would probably choose the blue one. I did, and in fact we had it executed in process blue ("cyan"). In later years, the cover design for the series was changed to white with the familiar blue and yellow "racing stripes".

Years later, the very connector (which I had retained as an important historical artifact) became the computer end of a parallel printer cable I made for a lady friend for use on some Radio Shack computer (parallel printer cables then cost about USD45.00). She was very alert to its significance, and used to show it off regularly to her friends.

Another wonderful branch of the story comes from the fact that actually having that interface approved by the EIA (as RS-232) was largely the work of Larry Tate of IBM. I worked with him later on various industry standards activities. One day he told me that as a young sailor at the end of World War II, he was part of a special detail that had the task of guarding ("to the death") two mysterious metal cases welded to the deck of the USS Indianapolis as it sailed across the Pacific to the island of Tinian.

Their contents: two "devices" nicknamed "Fat Man" and "Little Boy".

So it's all connected (and kept connected by two little screws).

Best regards,

Doug

 

[Rachel Foster]

Both photos are wonderful.

 

[Asher Kelman]

I was keen to get sales at this exhibition and asked the gallery director to hang the above picture next to Judy Dater's well known photograph of Imogen Cunningham and Twinka at Yosemite in 1974. The director said no. But in the end it did not matter.

Recalling this experience made me wonder how it is that the nude is preceived to be too prurient to survive inspection in one work-place but certainly pure enough to be sold for money in another. We live in a strange and varied world.

The exhibition about to open included many photographs featuring the female nude. On the wall, second from the right, is a framed presentation of the following image:

Maris Rusis: Floating Nude


Gelatin-silver photograph on Ilford MG-IV FB VC, image area 24.7cm X 19.6cm, from a 10x8 Tri-X negative
exposed in a Tachihara 810HD triple extension field view camera with a Fujinon-W 300mm f5.6 lens.​

Maris,

Now to your astonishingly simple and effective picture. Doubtless, you used no lights! If so they would have opened up the shadows in the rocks in the distance and not have been aimed at the graceful model. You have strong upper left and lower foreground to make the place for the nude almost requiring to be occupied by your composition. I had to put the picture on my desktop and reduce its size to 80% to see the full image without scrolling on a 24" iMac.

The prints must be amazing. I hope there were brisk sales and that your charm and time in the darkroom paid off!

Asher