Random Excellence: Jose Luis Gonzalez

Linhof Color monorail, 1960
Photo by Jose Luis Gonzalez

TOP reader Jose Luis Gonzalez contacted me this morning to offer some friendly advice, and in the process I learned of his camera collection and the portraits he makes of his collectibles using light-painting techniques. You can view many examples at this 2016 post on Japan Camera Hunter. Great tabletop photography of a lovely camera collection. Nice, all around!

Mike
(Thanks to Jose)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Fred Tuman: "That same exact type camera of camera was used every day in my studio from 1986 till 2004. It has bought me my home, paid for my wedding, and purchased five new cars over its lifetime. I paid $450 for it used at Ken Hansen's. When I sold it, with a couple of lenses, I took a trip with my wife to Vienna with the proceeds. Will any of my digital equipment reap the same emotional rewards?"

Peter Komar: "Back when I was shooting medium or large format product photography I absolutely recall the 'Light Wand.' It had many 'light end' attachments and a long tethered fiber optic cable to the base unit. It was quite the rage for a short time and the results were unique as far as product photography was concerned. The images of the classic cameras I would bet were shot using that technique, it was a lengthy process and, as I recall, always shot in very dim light studio settings. Nice to see that technique as I have not seen that in many years."

Paul McEvoy: "That Linhoff Color monorail is the most beautiful camera I've ever seen. I remember lusting over one in my LF days. I don't think there's a better looking camera out there."

Comments

[Dori]

Sorry for being off-topic, but take a look at this article on Patreon:
https://reclaimthenet.org/final-ruling-patreon-owen-benjamin-injunction-denied/

You might want to have a backup method in place in case Patreon goes bankrupt.

[I've been stressed about this all day. If Patreon went belly-up it would be a disaster for me. And this is about the ninth time something's come down the pike that threatens my livelihood and loads me up with stress and uncertainty. Remember when Amazon was warring with the States over sales tax? The States were claiming that affiliates constituted a physical presence in the States, so Amazons threatened to drop all its affiliates unceremoniously. Ken Rockwell packed up his entire family and hightailed it from California to New York because of that, that was so threatening. It's just not easy making a living on the Internet, that's all I can say. It's been generous at times, but it's always precarious. And I thought I finally had a little security because of Patreon. I'm bloody amazed I've lasted fifteen years, frankly. --Mike]

[robert e]

This post is like three photography posts in one. Can we go back to pool now? (Joking! I'm squarely in the "anything MJ wants to write about is fine with me" camp.)

I envy and admire Mr. Gonzalez's work and collection, both, but in that linked article he calls out a real master of light painting in Harold Ross. https://www.haroldrossfineart.com/

As with HDR I'm not a fan of the technique unless it's both convincing (i.e., naturalistic, even if it's impossible for it to be natural) and tasteful. In that case, it can blow me away, and much of Ross' work does.

Thanks for the tip!

[Dori]

Sorry, didn't mean to bring more worries, rather just wanted to make sure you'd evaluated alternatives in case Patreon went away. Probably best to spread out your subscribers across different ones (not all eggs in one basket):
https://blog.appsumo.com/patreon-alternatives/

[John Krill]

Mike, PayPal is another replacement for Patreon. The YouTube photographer Nick Carver uses PayPal.

PS: Nick is one of the best photographers on YouTube.

[Michael Potter]

Mike,

If you need to switch from Patreon, just let us know. PayPal would work for me.

[Tom Burke]

There was a time when, for reasons I can’t remember, I started collecting Magic cards. I never played the game, just collected some of the cards. A new expansion (‘Fallen Empires’) had just been released and I thought it would be fun - and possibly profitable, eventually - to get every card in that expansion. That meant buying an initial box, then lots of individual expansion packs in order to get the ‘rare’ cards. Eventually I completed the set. Fast forward a few years, I found that that particular expansion is less-well regarded than others for gameplay, and the print-run was long. As a result of both of those, its value is low.

I’ve never collected anything else!

[Helcio J. Tagliolatto]

"...for me digital cameras are just tools, not so with film cameras, film cameras are a thing of love."
Jose Luis Gonzales.

Couldn't have said it better.