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This is cool in two ways. 1) He is using physical elements to get the interesting shot. There is something that is difficult to describe, but innately alluring

This is cool in two ways. 1) He is using physical elements to get the interesting shot. There is something that is difficult to describe, but innately alluring about "real" or physical aspects of our increasingly digital world. The bending of light, the crystals in film, the feeling of the pages of a real book. There is something about the medium itself carrying meaning, even if the actual communicated value is the same. Perhaps it speaks to a timelessness, or durability of good ideas, beautiful pictures, and powerful words that can last thousands of years. Where as in the digital realm, my worlds sometimes only last as long as the hard drive they live on. I think it is deeper than that. Physicality is something we can relate to, touch, smell, taste, we experience it far deeper than an abstract concept represented by pixels on a screen. E.g. Why is a book better than a PDF? I have no good answer. 2) Although being in photography for decades, I was unaware of this specific effect when manipulating the elements inside a lens. I had no idea this effect was possible. The tinkering, the curiosity followed down a path few would bother with, isn't that what hackers are all about? I am inspired by His diving deep on topics of interest.

IgorPartola 6y ago
That makes a lot of sense. I am looking at it from the point of view of the finished product, the photograph, rather than the process of creating it. I personally tend to do things “the hard way” at times because I feel like I, for the lack of a better term, put my soul into the thing that way. But as a practical matter, people viewing a photograph generally don’t know how it was produced and as such is this particular effect unique and/or hard to reproduce?
- platz 6y ago
  You wouldn't be able to recreate the exact effect digitally. You could try to approximate a crappier version of it but there would be noticeable differences, and sometimes nuance in art matters.
  - imwillofficial 6y ago
    Even if it was an exact replica, there is, as the french say, a je ne sais quoi about an object crafted lovingly in a manual fashion. Definition of je ne sais quoi : something (such as an appealing quality) that cannot be adequately described or expressed. This sounds like fluff driven by emotion and not reason, but I encourage readers to embrace the lack of reason for some elements of human experience. We are anything but perfectly rational beings, this is one powerful aspect where efficiency and logic are sacrificed on the alter of subjective experience.
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  Maybe they don't know, but there is an unspoken energy to things that are real, that have a history all their own. Sometimes, for some people, the object itself is part of the message, the way it was crafted part of its value. Explain sentimentality and you explain this hahahah.

IgorPartola 6y ago

That makes a lot of sense. I am looking at it from the point of view of the finished product, the photograph, rather than the process of creating it. I personally tend to do things “the hard way” at times because I feel like I, for the lack of a better term, put my soul into the thing that way. But as a practical matter, people viewing a photograph generally don’t know how it was produced and as such is this particular effect unique and/or hard to reproduce?

platz 6y ago
You wouldn't be able to recreate the exact effect digitally. You could try to approximate a crappier version of it but there would be noticeable differences, and sometimes nuance in art matters.
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  Even if it was an exact replica, there is, as the french say, a je ne sais quoi about an object crafted lovingly in a manual fashion. Definition of je ne sais quoi : something (such as an appealing quality) that cannot be adequately described or expressed. This sounds like fluff driven by emotion and not reason, but I encourage readers to embrace the lack of reason for some elements of human experience. We are anything but perfectly rational beings, this is one powerful aspect where efficiency and logic are sacrificed on the alter of subjective experience.
imwillofficial 6y ago
Maybe they don't know, but there is an unspoken energy to things that are real, that have a history all their own. Sometimes, for some people, the object itself is part of the message, the way it was crafted part of its value. Explain sentimentality and you explain this hahahah.