4 ms·

Love the gritty aesthetic of old photographs like this. Actually prefer it to modern, razor-sharp photography. Or maybe analogue just fits the image we have of

by jsmit 8y ago

Love the gritty aesthetic of old photographs like this. Actually prefer it to modern, razor-sharp photography. Or maybe analogue just fits the image we have of the past better? I wonder what kind of equipment was used for these photos.

anderber 8y ago
I completely agree, I'm personally partial to the medium format cameras. From this interview, it looks like he used Nikon cameras: http://www.obstundmuse.com/chris-niedenthal/ http://www.obstundmuse.com/chris-niedenthal/ > Jens Pepper: What camera did you use at that time? > Chris Niedenthal: Ever since my last year at college, I was a Nikon man. First it was a simple Nikon F, then I bought the Photomic prism with lightmeter. I later added a somewhat cheaper Nikkormat (though I had the Japanese version that was called the Nikomat. So those were the two cameras I used for my first years in Poland. Later came the FE, then the FE2, and also an FM, usually with winders (early motordrives). Next came the beautiful Nikon F3 with motordrive, and later the F4. I always used a separate lightmeter, never trusting the camera meters when shooting on colour slide film. At first I had the British Weston Master meter, but eventually graduated to the Minolta Flashmeters.
alistairSH 8y ago
I love this series of photos. Kodachrome doesn't have the grain of some other films, and many photos could be mistaken for staged modern reproductions. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2352173/World-War-II-Kodachrome-Vivid-color-photos-paint-moving-picture-1940s-American-war-effort.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2352173/World-War-I...
- bogomipz 8y ago
  Indeed Kodacrhome really "pops." Might you or anyone else know what the dominant film stock would have been in the Eastern BLoc during this time?
  - patrickg_zill 8y ago
    I wasn't there, but there would have been imported Agfa film and the local color film was called Smena, I think.
chiph 8y ago
Probably a 35mm Praktica, made in Dresden. At one point they had 10% of the world market, and probably nearly all of the market in the Soviet sphere. http://www.praktica-collector.de/history.htm http://www.praktica-collector.de/history.htm A fellow in my unit in Sacramento had one. It was solidly built, but the East German battery for the exposure meter was weak - he got a ride in a HH-53 to take aerial photos of the unit building, and the downdraft from the rotors chilled the battery below where it would provide any power, so all his pictures came out nearly black.
- pilsetnieks 8y ago
  Maybe all the market in East Germany but in USSR proper Zenit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenit_(camera) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenit_(camera)) was the absolute market leader.
nyolfen 8y ago
“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.” ― Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices
- ferongr 8y ago
  >CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video What
  - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
    Not exactly the same but there are devices used when restoring arcade games that simulate the scan lines of the original CRTs on a modern display, e.g. https://paradisearcadeshop.com/en/home/electrical/video-converters-and-tools/scan-line-generators/1253_mini-slg https://paradisearcadeshop.com/en/home/electrical/video-conv...
  - nyolfen 8y ago
    the quote is from the mid-90s
bluthru 8y ago
I agree. I really don't need my great grandchildren to see my pores.
gambler 8y ago
Maybe it's because people didn't take zillion photos a day to chose the "best" ones based on how much likes they would get on Instagram. The content is different, the dynamics is different, but grit is probably the first thing we notice.

by jsmit 8y ago

anderber 8y ago

I completely agree, I'm personally partial to the medium format cameras. From this interview, it looks like he used Nikon cameras: http://www.obstundmuse.com/chris-niedenthal/ http://www.obstundmuse.com/chris-niedenthal/ > Jens Pepper: What camera did you use at that time? > Chris Niedenthal: Ever since my last year at college, I was a Nikon man. First it was a simple Nikon F, then I bought the Photomic prism with lightmeter. I later added a somewhat cheaper Nikkormat (though I had the Japanese version that was called the Nikomat. So those were the two cameras I used for my first years in Poland. Later came the FE, then the FE2, and also an FM, usually with winders (early motordrives). Next came the beautiful Nikon F3 with motordrive, and later the F4. I always used a separate lightmeter, never trusting the camera meters when shooting on colour slide film. At first I had the British Weston Master meter, but eventually graduated to the Minolta Flashmeters.

alistairSH 8y ago

I love this series of photos. Kodachrome doesn't have the grain of some other films, and many photos could be mistaken for staged modern reproductions. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2352173/World-War-II-Kodachrome-Vivid-color-photos-paint-moving-picture-1940s-American-war-effort.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2352173/World-War-I...

bogomipz 8y ago
Indeed Kodacrhome really "pops." Might you or anyone else know what the dominant film stock would have been in the Eastern BLoc during this time?
- patrickg_zill 8y ago
  I wasn't there, but there would have been imported Agfa film and the local color film was called Smena, I think.

chiph 8y ago

Probably a 35mm Praktica, made in Dresden. At one point they had 10% of the world market, and probably nearly all of the market in the Soviet sphere. http://www.praktica-collector.de/history.htm http://www.praktica-collector.de/history.htm A fellow in my unit in Sacramento had one. It was solidly built, but the East German battery for the exposure meter was weak - he got a ride in a HH-53 to take aerial photos of the unit building, and the downdraft from the rotors chilled the battery below where it would provide any power, so all his pictures came out nearly black.

pilsetnieks 8y ago
Maybe all the market in East Germany but in USSR proper Zenit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenit_(camera) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenit_(camera)) was the absolute market leader.

nyolfen 8y ago

“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.” ― Brian Eno, A Year With Swollen Appendices

ferongr 8y ago
>CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video What
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago
  Not exactly the same but there are devices used when restoring arcade games that simulate the scan lines of the original CRTs on a modern display, e.g. https://paradisearcadeshop.com/en/home/electrical/video-converters-and-tools/scan-line-generators/1253_mini-slg https://paradisearcadeshop.com/en/home/electrical/video-conv...
- nyolfen 8y ago
  the quote is from the mid-90s

bluthru 8y ago

I agree. I really don't need my great grandchildren to see my pores.

gambler 8y ago

Maybe it's because people didn't take zillion photos a day to chose the "best" ones based on how much likes they would get on Instagram. The content is different, the dynamics is different, but grit is probably the first thing we notice.