Gowlandflex « Winokur Photography

Gowlandflex

Dan Winters Portrait of a photographer

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to spend some time with one of my favorite photographers when he was in town on assignment last month. Dan Winters is one of the best portrait photographers working today. He is also an amazing illustrator, set builder and maybe a bit of a mad scientist. Winters could be described as the da Vinci of modern photography.

While he was here I asked him if I could photograph him. Maybe creativity is contagious, I’m really happy with these two new portraits we made in my studio’s garage.

The black and white one was made with my Lumix GF1 and prints beautifully at 11×14, a testament to that little camera. The one in color was made with the Gowlandflex on Fuji 160s.

-Michael

San Francisco’s African American Churches

Reverend Williams, Ms. Williams and Sister Josephine - Mt. Herman Baptist Church May 2010

This is the very beginning, on Sunday we started up a new long-term project. Its a moment of unrealized possibilities mixed with all the harsh reality of making the right decisions in order to get where we are going. The project is about San Francisco’s African American churches. When we lived on Lyon street our neighbors were Mt. Herman Baptist church. Kind and interesting people who commute into San Francisco every week to attend the church they’ve been running for 34 years. Iana and I are fascinated by the idea that this community has left San Francisco but the city still their spiritual home. We decided back then that there would be some kind of portrait project we could do about the churches in the Western Addition – NOPA to the hipsters. I see this as a portrait project and also a historic record. Like everything it took us some time to get started but now we are on track and I hope we’ll be making some major progress over the next few months.

Sister Shirley - Mt. Herman Baptist Church May 2010

The current plan is to do the studio on location portraits I’ve done successfully before, this time using both Type 55 black and white positive / negative film and digital (insurance). I have a very small cache of Polaroid Type 55. It’s hard to use it up because there will be no more but it can’t sit much longer either, so this is the project and i’m going to use the 8 boxes of film I have and see where it takes me. If anyone is holding onto some Type 55 they would like to sell or donate to this project, we’d be quite appreciative. In addition to the studio-style portraits I’ll also be photographing church services to set the environment for of the portraits. I expect I’ll get more churching this year then in my previous 39.

Brother Dennis - Mt. Herman Baptist Church May 2010

I don’t usually talk about a project from the beginning, a habit of not wanting to get scooped from my journalism days, but I’m taking a chance here and making this a somewhat public process. I plan to post a few pictures after each shoot and then edits as we get to that stage. Here are the first 4 type 55′s from Mt. Herman Baptist and a snapshot of the film drying in our bath. Also, if you have connections to SF churches that would be helpful to this project I’d love to hear from you.

Brother Dennis - Mt. Herman Baptist Church May 9, 2010

-Michael

So, the magnetic white-board is about to be cleared off and once again the process of shooting and editing and shooting and editing and editing begins again.

Type 55 drying in the bath.

Gowlandflex / Large Format and Alternative Process / Polaroid / type 55 / Winokur Photography — No Comments
21
Mar 10

Peter Gowland April 3, 1916 – March 17, 2010

Sad news in the photography world this week. Photographer, innovator and inventor Peter Gowland passed away after suffering a broken hip earlier in the month.

I have been talking on this site for a long time about my exploration with the Gowlandflex, the ingenious 4×5 reflex camera Gowland designed and built. As well as being an inventor, Peter was an innovator in Glamour photography. In 2006 Double Exposure’s Lynne Eodice wrote about Peter and Alice:

For many years, Peter Gowland’s name has been synonymous with glamour photography. The son of an actor, Peter was born in Hollywood and became involved with the movie industry at an early age. After he decided that he preferred doing still photography to acting, he went on to photograph some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, interiors of beautiful Los Angeles homes, and numerous swimsuit models. As a photographer, he has over 1000 magazine covers, photographs in prestigious publications (including Playboy centerfolds) and 25 books to his credit.

Peter with his magazine covers

I’m sorry I never had a chance to meet Peter in person. Though he is gone there are about 800 Gowland cameras out in the world, some with the top photographers in the world (Annie Liebovitz, Yousuif Karsh, Phillipe Halsman, Dennis Manarchy, John Huet, Arthur Grace, David Raccuglia, Arthur Elgort, and Mark Laita). I think Peter and Alice would be happy to know that we are still using his cameras to make great images. If you’re shooting with a Gowlandflex, please send me links to your work. I think it would be a great tribute to him to create a gallery of images showing Gowland’s effect on photography.

-Michael

Equipment and Technology / Gowlandflex / Large Format and Alternative Process / Polaroid / type 55 / Winokur Photography — 1 Comment
3
Mar 10

Type 55ish – Finding a timeless look in a digital world.

Fuji 160 VC Color Negative 4x5 shot with Gowlandflex

Here is a quick recap for those who just tuned in. I started this blog when I bought my Gowlandflex camera. That’s why it was called “BigAssCamera”. The goal was to use the Gowland camera to shoot portraits on Type 55. My timing couldn’t have been worse. Polaroid pulled the plug on Type 55 right about the time I took delivery on the new camera. I have 8 boxes of 55 I’m saving for something very special. Meanwhile I’ve been looking at alternatives to get where I had intended to go with that film stock. Working with my partner in crime, the talented retoucher Chrysta Giffen, we experimented on some outtakes from the ongoing Freckles Portrait Project. Here are the results of our exploration.

Digital capture combined with scans of Type 55 and other film stocks

Fuji 160VC plus some loving from CGRetouching

Digital Capture plus scans of scratched and wet filmstock

Gowlandflex / Polaroid / Winokur Photography — No Comments
13
Dec 09

Family Portraits

My parents were here in SF visiting over Thanksgiving so I used some of my precious and aging supply of Type 55 to make some portraits of them. Being that they are my parents they are willing but not necessarily agreeable portrait subjects.
This was a happy Gowlandflex accident. My finger slipped while cocking the shutter. I was going to dump this but instead made a second exposure and processed it out. I caught my dad smiling and looking tough on one piece of film. He always wants to look super serious in photos.
I don’t think my dad will like this picture but hopefully he won’t be too mad that I posted it. I love shooting this close with the Gowlandflex. It’s a challenge because the parallax adjustment on the camera can’t compensate at this distance, so the composition is always a guess. Seeing how well the Rodenstock 150mm lens performs this close you know it’s worth fussing a bit with the camera to make it work.
While I’m talking about my parents I should give them a little blog shout out. They are fantastic artists you can see their work here and here.
This last photo is also with the Gowlandflex but it’s on Fuji 160s not Type 55. You can see why so many people loved the Type 55. It’s just as sharp as you can imagine but with an incredible soft tonality and the Polaroid x-factor that is hard to match.

Equipment and Technology / Gowlandflex / Large Format and Alternative Process / Polaroid / Portraiture / type 55 — No Comments
29
Oct 07

The Gowlandflex isn’t for everyone

There is no doubt the Gowlandflex is a hard camera to work with. In my mind much easier then any other 4×5 camera but that’s not saying much on the easy – hard spectrum.

I hope he doesn’t mind but here are some photos of my friend David McLain trying to use my Gowlandflex. David’s an amazing photographer but he is used to working fast and light on assignments for National Geographic. Check him out at www.davidmclain.com or www.mergegroup.com. These photos were taken by my buddy Kevin Stokes www.stokes-web.com

Equipment and Technology / Gowlandflex / Large Format and Alternative Process / Polaroid / Portraiture / type 55 — No Comments
18
Sep 07

George Schultz at Stanford

I photographed George P. Schultz yesterday at Stanford University. The shoot was digital and involved a car full of gear, of course I had to bring the Gowlandflex along for some extra fun. This is a perfect example of the strength of this camera. We were shooting fast (I think we had 20 minutes of Mr. Schultz time) at multiple locations. There was no way I would have introduced a regular 4×5 camera into this shoot. With the Gowlandflex I was able to literally put the Canon DSLR down and pickup the Gowlandflex and make a couple exposures without really changing the pace of the shoot. My only gripe is with the evil Polaroid they really should be ashamed of their quality control. At $90 per pack I find myself throwing away 2-3 sheets of film that self destruct in the film holder.

-Michael

Equipment and Technology / Gowlandflex / Large Format and Alternative Process / Polaroid / Portraiture / type 55 — No Comments
20
Aug 07

Artist Portrait

This simple portrait represents for me what I love about using Polaroid Type 55 (and the quality that started this absurd foray of mine with the Gowlandflex). The tonality and detail this film produces is just delicious. I’m not a technologist and I can’t quantify what makes this medium special for me but what I keep coming back to are silky smooth midtones and the unpredictable nature of the emulsion (that’s a nice way of saying developing flaws are part of the fun).

For those who care about this sort of thing, this image was made with the Gowlandflex and Rodenstock 180mm f5.6 wide open. The lens was synced with two Hensel heads in soft boxes, powered by a 1500ws Vela pack.

Cheers,

Michael Winokur

Equipment and Technology / Gowlandflex / Large Format and Alternative Process / Polaroid / Portraiture / type 55 — No Comments
31
Jul 07

180mm

Many photographers who were making images with medium and large format cameras switched to the 35mm format when we switched to digital. This was both to adopt some of the best, fastest advancing technology and because affording a 30K medium format digital back is just not easy. Even though the cameras we adopted are amazing in their abilities and sophistication, there is a critical difference between them and their larger format sisters. A larger sensor (or piece of film) allows a longer lens while still maintaining that same ‘normal’ field of view. So a 35mm camera uses a 50 mm lens to accomplish what a 180mm lens does on a 4×5. The vital difference is that the longer lens has more compression and less depth. A quality I appreciate in portraiture.

I’m still hoping for a larger sensor (not in megapixles but in physical size) – right now almost 6 by almost 4.5 is the biggest thing going. I would like a 6×8 cm sensor so I can start shooting with my Fuji GX camera again. Meanwhile Polaroid 4x5s are good diversion from shooting dSLRs

-Michael Winokur Photography

Equipment and Technology / Gowlandflex / Large Format and Alternative Process / Polaroid / Portraiture / type 55 — No Comments
28
Jul 07

First Gowland Type 55 images

Finally I have some photos to show. The issue with going hunting around for old techniques is you have to create a whole new work-flow to accommodate old technology. In this case scanning film. There was a time when I owned three film scanners, it was a great day when I got rid of them. Scanning has a whole series of problems associated with it. The two that always caused me the most frustration were dust and color consistency between scans. In adopting the Polaroid Type 55 as a tool, I’ve brought those two old friends back into my life.

The Gowlandflex was ready to work with just in time for my friend’s wedding in Michigan. So, we drug it and a bunch of Polaroid film through airport security – you should have seen the TSA they didn’t know what to make of the Big Ass Camera. Anyway, here are some samples from that series.

Type 55 has a particularly pleasing set

of mid-tones and I love the way it
renders a blue sky with the
occasional processing mark.

Gowlandflex

Dan Winters Portrait of a photographer

San Francisco’s African American Churches

Peter Gowland April 3, 1916 – March 17, 2010

Type 55ish – Finding a timeless look in a digital world.

Family Portraits

The Gowlandflex isn’t for everyone

George Schultz at Stanford

Artist Portrait

180mm

First Gowland Type 55 images

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