Doug Hall at Imagery Gallery

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Maris
Posts: 882
Joined: 27 Jul 2012, 16:02
Location: Noosa

Doug Hall at Imagery Gallery

Postby Maris » 17 Oct 2020, 12:08

Image
Doug Hall at Imagery Gallery
Gelatin-silver photograph on Agfa Classic VC FB photographic paper, image size 24.6cm X 19.4cm, from a 8x10 Kodak Tri-X negative exposed in a Nagaoka view camera fitted with a Commercial Congo 360mm f6.8 lens.

At the time Doug Hall was Director of the Queensland Art Gallery and I was acting director of Imagery Gallery ... while the boss was away. Doug dropped in to check out an exhibition and got photographed for his trouble. I put an axis tilt on the front of the camera to leave only the eyes sharp. Little did I realise that this effect would become a cliché within two decades.

Mick Fagan
Posts: 412
Joined: 24 Sep 2015, 21:20
Location: Melbourne

Re: Doug Hall at Imagery Gallery

Postby Mick Fagan » 18 Oct 2020, 13:04

Pretty damned good, I reckon.

The use of the slightly longer focal length seems to have helped, as does the almost dark appearance of everything except his face and to a lesser degree, his shirt. I have only done a couple of portraits using the same technique, but haven't gotten anything as good as this one.

Not sure if you have burnt anything in, regardless, the image as shown is really good.

Mick.

Walter Glover
Posts: 1270
Joined: 31 Jul 2012, 22:31
Location: Leichhardt, NSW

Re: Doug Hall at Imagery Gallery

Postby Walter Glover » 18 Oct 2020, 13:38

Maris,
Things often become cliché because they work ..... and keep on working. Regardless, it is always commendable to be a pioneer even if it gets to be devalued to 'trendsetter'.
On the subject of trendsetters, as an avidly obsessed 16 year old heading through the city on the daily pilgrimage to work I used to gaze in a specialty book shop and the guy let me buy books on Lay-By (yes ..... that long ago) and the first two were: "Cowboy Kate and other stories" by Sam Haskins and "Nothing Personal" by Richard Avedon. There began a life-long interest in both men.
Later I followed a blog from Earl Steinbecker who'd been Avedon's assistant from the 50s who revealed that 'Dickie' did all his 10x8 portraiture with just one lens ...... a 360mm. I also worked with an advertising GP snapper who did all his 5x4 product shots with a Congo 300mm. So, in short, your lens selection was nothing out of the ordinary to me.
I think you have captured a very intriguing portrait of 'a man and his tools at work' here. His tools being his eyes and his erudition.
Walter Glover

"We see things not as they are. We see them as we are."
Emanuel Kant


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