I’m hoping to use this uneditioned section as a way to show and provide a variety of work, some of which came about unexpectedly. In some ways the 90’s were the most creative period in commercial photography, the economy was good, the clientele often younger and edgier. We saw a lot fads like cross processing, solarization, grainy film, in use, among many other techniques. Diana and Holga cameras had been used in art photography for a long time, and were now making their way into commercial work. The unpredictable results may lead to lovely surprises for art or personal work, but for clients, time, materials and subcontractors required dependable results. So, I pulled the plastic lens out on my Diana, and placed it in a view camera shutter, very easy, unscrew the lens elements, tape in the funky little beast, and you have shutter speeds, f stops, flash sync, and the ability to polariod for clients. However the Diana lens was very short. There’s nothing really special about it that results in the resulting magic, it’s a single element plastic lens. Edmund Scientific had pages of single element cheap lenses in a variety of focal lengths, problem solved, I used them on my 4×5, and my RB67.
Having a commercial photography studio and specializing in still life, persuing a sudden idea out of the blue was easy with space and equipment at hand.
I picked this leaf off the sidewalk on the way from the coffee shop (wonderful Paradiso, long gone) to the studio one day, placed in down on a wrinkled piece of japanese paper, lit it with one grid spot, put the plastic lens on the 4×5 and shot a polaroid T55, this scan is from the neg. I’ve always liked the image, this month’s print of the month, available on the uneditioned print page here.