DOT.THREE.WIDE

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GENERATOR

Guidance: You can only make one dot at a time.
Assignment: Today you must shoot images with at least 3 people in the frame, using a lens closest to the current temperature in Fahrenheit and your newest camera. You must also use your device’s widest ratio.

By Patrick La Roque

Right, so we’ve now published half of this issue’s Generator theme but have yet to explain what in the world it is we’re doing. So here’s a brief overview: awhile ago Derek shared a workflow he’d devised to generate shooting assignments with a friend. It involved technical variables, themes and dice throwing. I thought this could be a cool idea to automate so I created an iOS Shortcut that does exactly that: it dishes out assignments. It’s called KAGE Assignment Generator and it’s a free download if you want to check it out. Also feel free to modify it and add your own variables if you’re into this geeky stuff.

But anyway, this is what this issue is based on: Robert sat down with the generator a few weeks back and gave each of us the resulting assignments. And if you’re wondering what the “guidance” is about: I integrated Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies into the workflow as well. To add even more randomness.

The following images are essentially an exercise in compromise as far as I’m concerned. Luck of the draw saw quite a few of us having to use a focal length based on the temperature...which strangely—given how spread out we are on the planet—ended up leading us all to the XF 56mm f/1.2. I don’t mind shooting street/urban images with longer lenses; I’ve even used the XF 90mm in the past. But the combination of needing at least three people in the frame, ideally having them isolated (that’s how I interpreted the “dot”), a wide ratio (16:9 in this case), an 85mm equivalent and very few human beings around when I went out there (surprisingly)...let's just say I was more than a little unconvinced during the shoot. But that’s the point of the game: to work through the limitations and find a way in spite of them.

I’ll be honest with you: these are ok but I’m not sure the series is all that interesting as a whole. I feel there’s an emotional thread missing. Probably because there is, and in the end there’s no faking these things. 

But perhaps that’s the lesson here. 

I'm glad I failed

GENERATOR

Guidance: Don't break the silence

Assignment: Today you must shoot crowds or total emptiness, using a lens closest to the current temperature in Fahrenheit and your newest camera.
You must also use your device's square ratio.

BY BERT STEPHANI

I could have easily shot this assignment one or two months ago. But now, I absolutely hate it, it's the shittiest assignment I ever did for KAGE. Don’t get me wrong, I love the generator-idea, I just don’t like what came out of it for me.

I've started the year looking for silence, but lately I have moved on to conversations, meaningful real-life conversations. I've never liked crowds and I don't want to look for emptiness at a time when I'm starting to feel whole again. It's too warm to use the lenses I'd like to use and the square ratio limits my expanding view on things. 

I tried to get some pictures within the assignment and I failed badly. But you know what? I'm happy that I couldn't shoot anything decent for this one. It means that I've broken the silence.

Authorised By

Authorised By

We’re coming up on a federal election in Australia; so it’s safe to say some people are on edge.

But it’s hard to discern left from right out on the streets - unless they’re standing next to a sign in a t-shirt, handing out ‘how to vote’ cards, of course.

Will we continue on the conservative path that’s seen three prime ministers (and two deputy prime ministers) in the past six years? Or return to a more liberal - though that word means something else, here, as the Liberal party are the conservatives - some would say progressive, considerate way of running the country…?

LES PRUNELLES DE L'OMBRE

“Les paupières des fleurs, de larmes toujours pleines, 
Ces visages brumeux qui, le soir, sur les plaines 
Dessinent les vapeurs qui vont se déformant, 
Ces profils dont l'ébauche apparaît dans le marbre, 
Ces yeux mystérieux ouverts sur les troncs d'arbre, 
Les prunelles de l'ombre et du noir firmament 
Qui rayonnent partout et qu'aucun mot ne nomme, 
Sont les regards de Dieu, toujours surveillant l'homme, 
Par le sombre penseur entrevus vaguement.”
V. Hugo

Two Seconds

Two Seconds

As a reportage photographer rapidly developing stories, unpredictable action and consequently fast shutter speeds tend to be my primary domain. But within those .somethings of a second that I ultimately capture I always seek to find a truth - to reveal something, some essence, big or small of the subjects and scenes in front of me that I can give back to the viewer to help them understand not just what was happening but who the people in these photographs really are.

In The Second City of the Empire

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I’m a street photographer, and for me that equates to candid pictures without asking permission. But for this latest Kage assignment, I wanted to get out on the street and ask if I could take peoples portrait. I went out with a Hasselblad 500c/m with an 80/2.8 and an X-Pro2 with a 50/2. I wanted to capture the men of Glasgow with as much character on their faces as possible.

An old man near the train station was causing a bit of a commotion with a piece of religious artwork. Although he looked impoverished, he had actually commissioned an artist to create this painting and having just collected it (on his wheelchair), he wanted to show it off.

I was given a poem about a female athlete by the man with the silver hair and I was asked on several occasions if I was from the press. People are suspicious about cameras these days. It seams that if you shoot with anything other than a phone, you must be press or up to something dodgy, even with an old Hasselblad.

Around one in three said yes to having their portrait taken. In the end I only used two shots from the Hasselblad due to a problem with the lens. Medium format film or a 1.5 crop sensor, can you tell which two are from the Hasselblad without looking at the metadata?

One day late

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By Jonas Rask

I was supposed to get this story done and uploaded yesterday.
But I didn’t make that deadline.
Obviously.

We weren’t supposed to dig into our archives and reuse material that had already been shot.
But I dug into my year old gallery.
Obviously.

So, why was I late? Why did I dig? - Because I was lazy and didn’t get my portraits shot? Not really.
I shot self portraits. I portrayed my good friend Donald, I portrayed fellow photographer Frederik Vohnsen, I portrayed my kids, nieces and nephews. All within the last 14 days.

So I didn’t need to be late, and I didn’t need to dig.

I have this camera. It’s nothing fancy. It’s old.
I love that little (big) thing. It shoots packfilm. Old Fujifilm FP100c or FP3000b. It’s a fantastic feeling to shoot a portrait of someone I know with this camera. To show them the positive, then go home and develop the negative using bleach and a glass-plate. It’s oldschool charm that really makes you commit to your craft, and to your portrait.
But the Fujifilm FP100c and FP3000b are no more. I have collected a lot for storage in my fridge, but they’re way past expiration already. And when they’re done - then no more. Then only digital noise.

So, again I’m late. They’ve all expired, and I have to dig deep into the corners of online stores to find the few remaining packs for me to maintain my storage.

So I’ll continue to be late, and I’ll continue to dig.

The below images have been shot using a Polaroid 600SE camera and a Mamiya Sekor 127mm f/4.7 lens.
Some are shot on FP100c, some on FP3000b. Some are scanned as positives, some have been scanned as negatives.

In spite of ourselves

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“Strobe lights and blown speakers
Fireworks and hurricanes
I’m not here
I’m not here”
— Radiohead

I’ve disconnected myself at last. I’ve deleted CNN and MSNBC from Safari’s Frequently Visited URLs. I no longer visit Trump’s Twitter feed, “just to check” the level of insanity. I unplugged the poison drip, cold turkey.

We listen to morning reports of course, the 6 PM news on TV...awareness feeds on information and I refuse illiteracy. But I won’t plunge into the depths: for three years I drowned, my lungs and brain screaming for oxygen while I swam further and further away. No more. The change, in such a short period of time, isn’t even remotely subtle: my thoughts are clearer than they’ve been in ages. I’m writing again, shooting again. Breathing.

We’re alone and we’re a multitude, separate yet identical. We host quantum universes in our blood, aspire to the same improbable ideals, all of us finite and impossible.

I see no plan
but I do guess at beauty, still.
We will always be one, fundamentally indivisible—in spite of ourselves.

Just ... Simple

BY BERT STEPHANI

A friend asked me to show him how to shoot simple, elegant portraits and so he set up a shoot for us with a lovely young German student. In a way this was pure comfort zone stuff for me but it made me become aware that I’m often overthinking portraiture. In the pursuit of killer-images my mind gets away from the person in front of my camera. For this series I kept it super simple: My X-Pro2, the 35mm 1.4 and the 56mm 1.2 and a big window.

My friend’s next question was: what if I don’t have a window? I usually don’t light with a huge soft light source because it just seems too easy. But why would that be a bad thing? I hadn’t used a softlighter-type modifier for ages because it’s impossible to control. But on the other hand, it just pumps out a bunch of pretty light which gave me and my subject room to move.

We then went outside in a non-descript residential area to see if we could find good light and interesting backgrounds there. I think we did.

In many ways this shoot was effortless and if the wheels in my head were spinning it was just because I was trying to explain how my intuition works to my friend. I was pleasantly surprised by how the images came out and how enjoyable the process was. I’ll keep it in mind not always to try so hard but just enjoy the shoot, the light, the company.

Shock, Recognition

Shock, Recognition

What does it take to recognise someone you know?

I wonder sometimes about this - about how little information you could be given about someone, and still know them; from a description, a sound, a gesture they always use, a certain way of doing things.

And it’s what I find I miss about people when they’re gone, too…