Hi Irenaeus,
You wrote:
"Until then, the question remains. I don't know how to talk about image quality in the abstract, so here are some of the photos that have moved me and which I'd be delighted to be able to echo:
1. A dim memory of somebody else's Rodinal induced high accutance B & W negatives.
2. A photo from Sean's first GRD review of a Bellows Falls street after the rain with the principal street coming in from the left, an offshoot bending sharply away toward the distant right and third one directly ahead dropping straight down out of sight towards a railroad below. There's a stop sign on edge in the foreground and a wonderful row of old buildings in the middle and I love what the light's doing with the wet.'"
I'm happy that you like some of the work. That water on the pavement -- that you were talking about -- that water is very important to that picture, as I imagine you know. One of the challenges of "street photography" (ie: the photography of actual streets) is that pavement tends to be uniform and often, itself, has little visual surface. So too for sand... They can tend to create passages in a picture which can quickly become monotonous if un-relieved. Over the past few years, I've been using water, of all kinds, to activate different kinds of picture surfaces. Water on sand, on pavement, skin, rocks, clothing... The water, itself, is never the subject of the picture, but its been playing a very important supporting role in a lot of the pictures I'm making.
"4. B & W infrared "documentary portraits" I took of my own children and of significant places in Israel in the '70s. "
I'd like to see those.
"5. And finally, and nearly best of all, Sean's photo in the Long Term Epson review of firefighters making arches of water in the middle ground while four soaked kids stand in the foreground eagerly hoping to be able to run through again!"
That's something I've been photographing for about three years now. In my little village of Saxtons River, Vermont there are big doings on July 4 each year. The big sports event is a sort of soccer played with a ball and high pressure fire hoses. By its nature, it tends to be visually classical even before the camera ever enters the equation. Romantic sometimes maybe but, to my eye, highly classical.
In any case, I'm pleased that some of the pictures interested you. There are more from the water soccer in the 35 mm (M8) lens review and then, of course, many more, of the same subject, that aren't published yet.
I decided quite awhile ago that the general illustrations for these articles would have to come from whatever I really ended up using the camera or lens for. Each time I publish, I know there will be a lot of people who, naturally, won't be interested in the illustrative pictures, per se. But as photographers, I think we do our thing and just put ourselves out there, through the pictures, and let the chips then fall as they may. But it's good to know that some of that work has been interesting to you and I thank you for saying so.
Cheers,
Sean