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Cheoram, Gangwon-do 2016
I had seen snow falling in the cheoram of April . It was a place where the shadows of the people who were once here remained faint. I just remember that it was cold and deserted. Nevertheless, it was not just a place where it was devoted to sentimental appreciation. It just seems to be closer to the feeling that everything is sitting down. It’s like being thrown in the middle of my heart. If time goes by, I want to go back and sit quietly for a long time.
Toyama, Japan 2016
Last spring, I went to Toyama to see the snow corridor in Tateyama Kurobe Alpine route where snow is still piled up. Kurobe, Unatsuki, Keyakidaira, Vizodaira, Tateyama, etc., which I had to visit for a short while, were all excellent. These are sure to be good attractions, but they are not very popular with the masses. Thanks to that, I was able to travel happily in a quiet atmosphere without being crowded. If I had more time, or If I could turn back time, I would like to enjoy the lonely yet beautiful scenery and time while staying in Murodo for a few more days.
Around Jamsil, Seoul 2003
When I walked around a lot with a camera. It’s been a long time ago, but when I look at the pictures of that time, I think of that time. I believe that photography is my clone. Even if I forgot, I find myself again in the picture. Things that have not been seen at that time seem to come after a long time. So the image is a key spring that opens a forgotten memory. It does not matter what the key looks like. The important thing is that you can open something through it.
We focus on the object in the picture while we take the picture. It’s about what to put in the picture. So when we first learn about photography, we learn how to put things in the picture. How to expose the object, how to make the aperture effectively, and how to construct the frame to catch the attention of those who see the picture. These factors, such as exposure, composition, perspective, the direction of light, depth of the screen, framing, exterior screen, arrangement between objects and objects in the picture, and direction of gaze all contribute to making a picture aesthetically beautiful, and these are the basis for touching any sense embedded in the human mind. Just as we listen to the chords of music and accept that the physical phenomena where sound and sound are synchronized with each other are natural, the various components that make up the picture eventually lead us to complex physics and chemistry in our minds when we recognize it It gives aesthetic pleasure.
However, all the photographs contain the photographer himself who takes the subject, whether he intends or not. When someone talks, he or she cares about the words “how can the other person accept?”, But the person who listens to the word looks more impressive about the way the person speaks. These are called nonverbal messages. Even if it is somewhat strange and stubborn, it is good to feel the honest heart of the person. On the other hand, if the person is right and courteous, if he feels purpose or ritual, it feels bad.
A photograph of a person reveals his or her most essential image without knowing it. It is more important in what context the person who puts the photos and what kind of attitude he or she puts on the photo, who is carrying people who are busy in the middle of the big city where photos are taken in the alleyway of the falling down town. One interesting phenomenon is observed here. We often think of ourselves when we are alone, or when we are with our most comfortable companions, out of social relations with others, as the most straightforward of ourselves. So, in a social relationship, one’s appearance is a kind of compromise formation, and the appearance of such a roughness is an essential aspect. But that’s not totally right. In fact, a person’s appearance is itself in the form of compromised formation itself. It is not the time to come home after work and spend time alone with family or traveling alone, but rather in the context of complex social life, the interaction between self and the outside world, It is the true shape of the person. Individuals who are out of the social context are likely to regress in a cozy environment. To meet the energy consumed in a serious adult world, we are still regressing into a comfortable relationship, crying, laughing and fighting as easily as a child. In that sense, photography is a fairly autistic act. The world is essentially made up of the relationship between the self and the object, but in the photograph, the object is not an object of me and other extraterrestrials but an object to which I have given meaning, whose meaning is in me, essentially my projection I have a conversation with myself. In that respect, the photographs that I have created by working alone are like a sort of monologue, revealing only a part of myself. Such phenomenon also occurs in photo appreciation. Most of the impressions and shocks we receive from photographs reflect the lives of the photographer himself and often are my projections of photographs rather than projections of the artist’s life. So while looking at the same picture, the photographer ‘s view and the audience’ s view face each other, but they see each other without seeing each other ‘s face. They are doing together but thought differently. The way to get out of such an autistic eye is to cross the line and talk. Without a time for artist and audience to walk together for a long time, to converse with each other, we will forever fall into each other’s world and look at the same objects from different points of view.
Let’s take a picture of yourself for a month and unfold it in front of yourself. What do these pictures tell you about yourself? Most of us are not professional photographers, and we are the ones who pour most of our energy into keeping up their lives. The photographs that we create are inseparably fragmented, my projections, and therefore the point that they are aiming at and the pictures they are pouring are of course different. If I want to go to any point through the picture, what does it say to me? What does the gap that between the picture I create and where I stand describe about me?
Super-Angulon 21mm f4 was announced at Photokina in 1958. This Photokina heralded a big year for Leica. Besides Super-Angulon, other new lenses included Summicron 35mm 8-elements, Summaron 35mm f2.8, Summilux 50mm 1st, Elmar 65mm f3.5 for Visoflex, summicron 90mm with lens shade, and Elmar 90mm f2.8. Also introduced at the same time were the Visoflex II and Leica M1.
Designed and produced by Schneider, production of the Super-Angulon began in 1958 but didn’t really get going until 1959. The lens was a semi-symmetrical design with 4 groups and 9 elements. The rear elements reach back into the camera almost to the shutter curtain. This design was excellent for distortion suppression, but today’s use of digital cameras results in changes in the color at the corner. The lens was slightly faster then the earlier Biogon 21mm f4.5 for Contax. The Leitz lens had an E-39 filter thread so that it would take standard Summicron 50mm filters and lens cap, and there was an accessory lens hood IWKOO and separate, special deep rear caps for either SM or BM mount. Clickstops were at all full apertures. Focus was rangefinder coupled down to 28 inches and then manual focus down to 16 inches for close-up work. Super-Angulon was produced in screw-mount. Bayonet mount lenses had an adapter ring attached secured by a small setscrew. Thus, all lenses could be used on either type of camera. but those that were delivered as SM lenses did not have the adapter or the small hale made for the point of the setscrew, and since those lenses are far fewer, they are considered more valuable today.
The lens had some curvature of field of the “positive” variety, with closer focus around the edges of the frame, which was useful for extending the depth still closer to the camera, especially at large apertures. The depth of filed in a vertical photograph made while standing with the lens focussed at 10 feet, could encompass everything from infinity to the grass under foot at f/4. there was some falloff in corner illumination at f/4, but the good sharpness and depth made this aperture quite usable nontheless.
Edge sharpness varied somewhat between individual examples of the lens, improving with stopping down. The field curvature prevented really crisp imagery in the corners at infinity, but became generally good at closer distances. Central sharpness was, however, excellent in all of the examples I have tested. The Super-Angulon 21mm f4 had only a very few, well-controlled reflections when the sun was in the frame. But, if this practice was prolonged over time, the paint around some of the interior elements could begin to flake off from the internal heat, and the lens would begin to suffer loss of contrast at the largest apertures due to reflections from these bright edge surfaces. To fix the problem, the element edges would need to be repainted by the Leitz Service Dept.
The shallow round lens hood IWKOO was available separately, but since the lens was essentially backlightproof, the use of the hood was not all that necessary. Of more concern to me was the chrome surface of the lens flange surrounding the front element. I was always afraid that this bright surface would cause reflections if the light from the sun should be reflected off the inside surface of a filter and into the lens causing loss of contrast. But I never really saw this effect, and I never bought the hood either. The hood did cut off some of the view at the bottom center of the frame in the brightline viewfinder, though; so most photographers I talked to never bought the hood either. The hood is something of a rarity today, as is the deep metal SM rear lens cap OIXMO.
The Super-Angulon’s tremendous depth of field was particularly useful for deep depth photographs and close-ups. Quite sharp at the smallest apertures, depth could be maintained from infinity down to approximately one foot at f/16, and even closer at f/22, but with some loss of resolution due to diffraction. The depth of field scale stops at f/16, presumably because the marks for f/22 would nearly meet at the back of the lens mount!
One particular talent of the Super-Angulon 21mm f4 is in photographing architects’ models, or such things as model train layouts. With the focus set at 16 inches, and aperture at f22, depth of field can extend from about four feet to about three inches, and with good corner sharpness. The field curvature helps with the corners, but one other factor is of even greater importance – the size fo the lens flange! The small lens barrel allows the center of the lens (without shade) to be positioned less than the picture of the model appears to have been taken from approximately a scaled down person’s standing height. You can actually look up at a model locomotive or building, for instance, and not down from an artificial “helicopter” height made necessary by the large front flange of a reflex lens. The Super-Angulon 21mm f4 still finds occasional use in my lens lineup for this sort of thing. It can also focus closer than 16 inches by screwing the lens out slightly and/or shimming it, but this requires testing on film to find the exact focus distance. When shooting these close-ups, in order to overcome parallax problems, I sight through the brightline finder and get the exact framing I want and then raise the tripod center post the precise distance between the centers of the viewfinder window and the lens 2.25 inches with the plastic bodies finder. This procedure removes any parallax error, but bear in mind that on an extremely close picture, the viewfinder will show slightly more than is captured on film due to the extension of the lens.
to be continue..