Yearly Archives: 2019

11 posts

The Negative Is The Score…

“The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score, and the print the performance.” – Ansel Adams When I shoot film (which is most of the time), I generally use the film’s “box speed” (e.g. where Tri-X is rated at ISO400) and occasionally push the film as needed. One school of thought is to deliberately overexpose the film and then develop it normally (e.g. effectively rating Tri-X at ISO200, but then developing it as if it has been shot at ISO400). This produces a “dense negative”, with the histogram pushed far to the right. This blog http://www.johnnypatience.com/the-zone-system-is-dead/ explains the technique […]

Scanning XPan Negatives

The Hasselblad XPan is one of my favorite cameras. In fact, many of my scanner purchase decisions have been influenced by being able to scan XPan images quickly and, also when needed, at the highest quality. If your budget is limited, a modern flatbed scanner such as the Epson V600 or its derivatives will do a good enough job; however, you can do better. My current workflow involves using a fast Pakon F335 scanner for quick scans, including creating contact sheets. The Pakon can scan a roll of 35mm film in about a minute. The quality is quite decent as […]

New Project: “Americans”

Take three guesses on what style of photo portraits I am going after, and the first two don’t count. In 2019, what does it means to be an American? As an immigrant myself, I have always been fascinated by this subject. Now with the country being divided politically, this question is even more important than ever. In this project, I aim to make portraits of “Americans”, people that have stories to tell. For this project, I will be using an 8×10 camera and photograph solely in B&W. 8×10 B&W films are expensive and 8×10 color films are just impossibly expensive. […]

“American”

One of my pieces from the Occupy Wall Street project was accepted in a group show at the Pacific Art League, and the local newspaper ( https://paloaltoonline.com/news/2019/04/17/pacific-art-leagues-exhibition-celebrates-the-timeless-quality-of-black-and-white-photography ) did an article on it. The author wrote: “Richard Man channels the work of Robert Frank in “American,” a portrait of a man draped with American flags, which he also holds in his hands. His intense gaze seems to challenge onlookers to react to his patriotism.” High praise indeed….

March/April/May Photo Exhibitions

March 30 12:30PM – 5PM, San Jose (CA) City Hall, Rotunda. Transgender Day of Visibility event. I will have ~10 VERY LARGE (44″ or larger) images, and another dozen 24×30″ images from my Hearts on Our Sleeves project. March 31 – May 31 BFUU (Berkeley Fellowship of UU), Berkeley, CA. I have 17 images from my Hearts on Our Sleeves project in the space. I guess this is my first “solo show” :-). Please join us at the March 31 Reception 12:30 – 1:30PM. The event is Free but please get tickets from EventBrite here. March 30 – May 11 […]

California Road Trip

I will probably be taking a road trip between March 7 to 12, 2019 (dates are somewhat flexible), traveling mainly between San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego and back. My goal is to take photos for my projects, especially for the “Hearts on Our Sleeves – gender expansive community in America” (see project description and sample images here). For it to be successful, I need couch-surfing space (I do snore, sorry) and of course people willing to be in front of the camera. If you are interested in the project, or know someone who is, please contact me at richard@richardman.photo. […]

Panoramic Images

I love panoramic images, so much that I have a 617 view camera and an XPan. Really glad that there is a panoramic display plugin for WordPress. NOTE: you can scroll horizontally with the images to see the full width! Hopefully now I can post panoramic images and not have them crop or otherwise being display in funky ways.