Recently a fellow photographer friend of mine, perhaps inspired by the work of Vivian Maier made with a Rolleiflex, presented a problem to me. She wanted to try making square format images straight out of the camera without having to resort to using 120 film, like Maier used in her (now iconic) Rolleiflex twin lens reflexes (TLRs), and wanted to know if any cameras were made and still available that could yield square images on 135 film. This is nothing I’d ever looked into, being only vaguely aware of the “half frame” format that makes two portrait oriented exposures per 24x36mm frame of standard 135 film, so I did what anyone with a laptop or portable device user would do and Googled it. What I found was that Zeiss introduced a camera called the Tenax in 1937 that made 24x24mm frames on 135mm film, and the following year introduced a simpler model. To confuse things a bit, after the introduction of the simpler model, which had a fixed lens and lacked a rangefinder, the original became the Tenax II and the new one was redesignated the Tenax I. Even more confusing, after Germany’s split the Tenax I was produced by Carl Zeiss Jena and renamed the Taxona. It received a minor update in 1954, and production continued until 1959.

So after finding out that such a camera did indeed exist, I checked out some posts on forums to see what users had said about it before heading to my favorite local auction site to check for examples for sale. Sure enough, there were actually two available, so I sent the links to my friend for her reference. She decided she wanted one, and suggested that I run a roll through it first to test it out, so I made and offer on her behalf. The seller accepted the offer, and it was sent directly to me.

Made entirely of cast aluminum, it’s not super light, but it is super compact due to the reduced frame size compared to standard 135mm cameras.

Here are the basic specs:

• Lens: Novonar 37.5mm f/3.5
• Shutter speeds: B, 1, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/300
• Focusing: “scale” focus (no coupled focusing mechanism like a rangefinder)

Camera operation is as manual as manual gets. One sets the shutter speed, aperture, and focus separately based on meter readings or other precision instruments – like intuition and experience in my case. I’ve used scale focus cameras like the Kodak Retina 2b (and of course toy cameras like Holgas and Dianas) and no-focus cameras (like the Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim) before, and have plenty experience with even older bellows cameras with totally manual settings (like my Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta and Moskva-5 (a modified copy of the Zeiss Super Ikonta C), so this wasn’t new to me. New users often forget to check all settings before clicking the shutter on such cameras, but I’m pretty used to this sort of slow, methodical photography and usually don’t mess that part up often.

Speaking of messing up, one nice thing about this camera is that it can make up to 52 frames from one roll of 135 film, as opposed to the standard 36, so a missed setting or accidental shutter tripping isn’t such a big deal.

The first roll of film – which began as the only roll I intended to finish before handing the camera into the custody of my friend – was some Eastman 5222 film. This is black and white movie stock that is still produced and is sold in bulk reels. It’s rated at 250 ASA and pushes or pulls nicely, with good grain up to 800 ASA (haven’t tried pushing it beyond 800 yet). It’s pretty low contrast, so I find it ideal for my “figital” (film + digital – hat tip to Stephen Schaub) workflow, as contrast can always be tweaked after scanning in Lightroom. So I took the little square fellow with me for a few days and completed a roll one afternoon in the presence of its rightful new owner. Only problem was, in getting to know the camera I had neglected to learn how to properly rewind the film back into the canister, and the film snapped after a few rotations of the knob. So when I opened the camera’s back to retrieve the canister I exposed the film on both sides of the tear. Fortunately, I quickly stuffed the film away and kept it in the dark until it was time to process, thus saving some exposures from this roll.

This mishap turned out to be fortuitous, though, as my friend extended the trial period so I could shoot another roll through it properly. This time I chose a roll of Kodak Tmax 400 that I had bulk loaded myself from a 100-ft. reel, which had reached its expiry date in my fridge before I’d even spooled it to separate canisters. As it had been cold stored all that time I considered it basically fresh and rated it at 400 ASA.

The Taxona then made a trip with me down to Tainan 台南 where I was shooting a triathlon race – actually two, on consecutive days. I arranged to stay in Tainan for an additional two nights and one day, and even benefited from the generosity of the proprietor of the B&B I stayed at. If you’re looking for something quiet and charming in Tainan at excellent rates, definitely give Roman Holiday serious consideration. Located in the historic Anping section of town close to the harbor and the coast, they also have bicycles and scooters for rent.

My friend Jean and her sister picked me up and we spent the afternoon together, first with a pontoon boat ride through a mangrove canopy and then to two different old salt fields in the area before passing by a black faced spoonbill sanctuary on the way back into town for dinner. Somehow I managed to start and finish the entire roll of 50 exposures there, as well as rewind and process the film without incident this time.

I processed the Tmax 400 film in HC-110 solution B for 6:30 together with the Eastman 5222. Normal development time for the Eastman 5222 at 400 ASA would be a bit longer, but I wasn’t sure I had any images on that roll, so conserved time, effort and supplies by handling the two rolls together.

Conclusions:

Since I was using the Taxona under decent daylight conditions and sought reasonable depth of field in most cases I shot nearly everything at f/5.6 to f/11. I was surprised how nice the lens worked for people and landscapes, and the one image I made at maximum aperture of f/3.5 even resulted in good bokeh. Operation was smooth with the exception of a bit of trouble depressing the advance lever all the way, and shutter speeds were accurate.

Scanning the unusual square format was difficult and time consuming, but I’m quite pleased with the results. The lack of focus mechanism, the quick film advance lever, and compact size make it a unique and enjoyable tool for street photography. If scanning weren’t such a chore I would seriously consider acquiring one for myself, but I’ll stick to 120 film for now. As of this writing, this quirky little camera is in the hands of its new owner, who finished her first roll of Tri-X yesterday and is now working on a roll of colour movie film.

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And so it was that I found myself with this camera in my bag on the night of my friend Mo’s birthday. After a scrumptious Peking duck dinner we headed to a basement jazz club called Saphho that felt a little bit like the Village Vanguard, complete with a truly excellent quintet of musicians that laid down some serious funky jazz just the way I like it. The camera was only with me because I often take it with me during the day to make portraits of strangers or other images that catch my fancy while out and about, and I had no intention of using it to make pictures at a jazz club at night when I placed it in my backpack early that morning. So it sat there while I chatted with my friends, made toasts to birthday boy Mo, and grooved to the music… until I spotted a scene I just had to try and capture. That led to a torrent of inspiration that didn’t abate until the music stopped and we left the joint.

“Ancient” Digilux 2

Released in December 2003, the Leica Digilux 2 was the result of a collaboration between Leica (optics, ergonomics and controls) and Panasonic (sensor and electronics). It is a five-megapixel digital camera with a fixed zoom lens with 28 to 90mm equivalent focal length range and maximum aperture of 2.0, which creeps slightly to f/2.4 racked out to 90mm. Its CCD sensor is noisy, but renders colors beautifully and produces film-like tones in black and white. Autofocus is slow, often inaccurate, and hard to confirm, and the electronic viewfinder is small, confusing, and not very nice to look through. Manual focus is achieved (or not) through a tiny patch in the already tiny viewfinder that magnifies the focus point, but it’s so small and the resolution is so low that it’s very difficult to tell when a subject is actually in focus. It has a built-in pop-up flash that can point straight forward or lock in an upward position for bounce, which is a really nice feature to have.

Yet despite all these quirks and limitations, which would never be accepted in a new digital camera today, this camera looks and feels great in the hands like a camera bearing the “Leica” name should, it can be used in aperture or shutter priority or full manual mode, and the Summicron lens is brilliant. The “tiny” 5MP CCD sensor outputs small JPEG files and RAW files that contain more information but suffer from fuzziness, so I never bother shooting RAW with it anymore. I love the ease of the zoom lens, the large max. aperture, and the handling, and treat it a lot like a film camera I’d use for shooting mostly under ample daylight, except that after I make as many exposures as the (max. 2GB) SD card can hold I don’t have to develop the film, wait for it to dry, and scan it every time I finish 36 exposures.

Blue Note Inspiration in Taipei

Once I took the camera out to start shooting I knew how I wanted to work. Limited to the camera’s maximum of 400 ISO, I was even more restricted than if I’d been shooting 400 speed film, which I would have probably pushed to 1600 if I was working with a new roll. I love the way the black and white JPEG files come straight out of this camera, so I set the white balance to B/W, focused manually most of the time, and only triggered the camera’s flash for a single exposure. Color images made at 400 ISO on the Digilux 2 are not too pleasing, and I associate jazz music with sharp, emotive black and white images made during the music’s heyday of the 1950s and 60s, the decades I think of as the Blue Note era. Blue Note Records introduced and supported many musicians that were exponents of Hard Bop, such as Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Dexter Gordon, Hank Mobley, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw, Jackie McLean, Wayne Shorter, and Lee Morgan. Their records not only had a signature sound thanks to certain compositional and performance aesthetics, but also due to the equipment and approach used by recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder. And with Blue Note co-founder and accomplished photographer Francis Wolff on hand at the recording sessions with his Rolleiflex set at f/8 with a big flash on a bracket, combined with the talents of cover designer Reid Miles, the label also had a signature look.

So I suppose in some subconscious ways I have been influenced by my love of Hard Bop and the Blue Note look, but those influences never entered my mind as I moved around making images on this night. The band was playing their first ever gig together, and I am unable to recall everyone’s full names. Joining the Japanese electric bass player, and a Taiwanese guitarist who studied at jazz education powerhouse North Texas State University, three Americans rounded out the group: a piano player named Matt, a drummer named Chuck, and Kevin James from Ohio on multiple saxophones or reeds. Each was highly skilled on their instrument(s) and the language of jazz. They played a selection of funky jazz that ranged from Kenny Garrett’s “Sing a Song of Song” and “Happy People” to an original by pianist Matt cut from a similar cloth. Kevin had more horns with him than tunes to play them, and switched back and forth between tenor and soprano saxophone and the Akai Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI) made famous by the late great Michael Brecker. I’ve never heard anyone besides Brecker play the EWI, which has an insane seven-octave range, and loved hearing Kevin wail on it. He also threatened to play an electrified bass clarinet, which he referred to as “Eddie Harris meets Eric Dolphy,” but the designated tune for that to happen, Harris’s “Freedom Jazz Dance,” wasn’t called before the night was over.

I’m a HUGE fan of jazz music, and draw tremendous inspiration from the jazz aesthetic of composing in the moment. In many ways photography is a lot like jazz, as the development of one’s style often follows a similar progression from emulation to assimilation and finally to a recognizably individual voice or style.

My passion for jazz has been life long, and it was extra special to more or less stumble upon a group of genuinely talented musicians playing a great selection of classics with great verve and skill right here in Taipei. I’m sure my glee came right out as I went up to Kevin and chatted with him about his background, some of our favorite musicians, his EWI, and this new band.

When it comes to photographs of jazz musicians there are few better photographers than William Claxton and Francis Wolff. They worked exclusively in black and white and often used one single flash. Some day I’d love to try using the same setup that Wolff used for his iconic images of jazz greats like John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, and Dexter Gordon to experience how he did it and then add my own variations. This is my first attempt at photographing musicians in the act of creation. I hope my delight at hearing such a fine group of jazz musicians in my beloved adopted town of Taipei comes out in these images, and I can guarantee I’ll be back to enjoy more of their performances soon – camera in hand or not.

I used a combination of tools on this day, including a Nikon D700 and Holga 120N with Shanghai GP3 film in the studio, and Mamiya 645 Pro TL with Kodak Tmax film and Nikon F100 with Fomapan 100 film outdoors, using mostly natural light with a reflector and bit of flash here and there.

However, in recent years Taiwan’s second city, the southern harbor town of Kaohsiung （高雄) has taken up the mantle and successfully pulled off the country’s first true urban marathon. The route takes runners on a flat route through the city’s main districts, passing over major thoroughfares, bridges, past wetlands, the cleaned up Love River, fishing harbors and estuaries, and universities before finishing on the track in the 2009 World Games Stadium. City residents come out in droves, supporting runners with cheers, homemade treats and refreshments, colorful costumes, and lots of encouragement delivered with gusto and a smile, and the city does an excellent job of giving its streets over to the runners for the better part of the day.

Despite well over 20 years in Taiwan I am a relative stranger to Kaohsiung. This was also my first time covering the race, and I did my best to present some of the color and excitement of this rapidly-growing event as a staff photographer for Don1Don, whose report (in Chinese) is spiced with many of my images. The following gallery completes the picture.

Nantou–> Hualien –>Nantou

November 2012

I had the privilege and pleasure to work as an editorial photographer for the English cycling apparel company Rapha in late November last year. Unlike many companies that might typically gather some riders together for some light cycling and lots of staged photos in picturesque settings, Rapha takes the extreme opposite approach, challenging every rider just to finish each day’s scheduled ride as part of the company’s Rapha Continental program. Under this arrangement, the company sponsors real amateur cyclists across different regions around the world to join organized group rides, perhaps better known as “challenges.” Always ambitious, the rides can be difficult just to finish even under the best of conditions, and nearly impossible to complete as planned when local weather, road conditions, and even political considerations interfere.

I joined the group of 17 riders, led by two Singapore-based Englishmen named Adam, at the end of their first day in Taiwan to make images over the subsequent three days of cycling.

The four days of riding were epic for the cyclists and not without drama for their humble photographer, either, taxing everyone’s endurance and willpower and testing my gear to the extreme.

Rapha is an impressive company with a refreshingly rugged approach to cycling and a ragingly loyal fan base. They set out to test their products in spectacular settings under trying conditions, and that’s precisely what they do, with toughness and no complaints mixed with good-natured humor.

Read a full write-up and view selected images from my camera and lens on the Rapha site. Perhaps to illustrate the extreme conditions of the first day, which consisted of over 2700 meters of climbing in a cold, driving rain over Taiwan’s highest roadway before descending in dwindling light into the gorge on the other side, only images from Day One have been selected to accompany the story. Fortunately, Day Two saw lovely light filtering through Taroko Gorge as the cyclists wended their way down to sea level for a “recreational” ride into Hualien and back, and Day Three blessed the crew with crisp autumnal air and golden sunlight as they reclaimed the mighty Hehuan Mountain from the opposite side before enjoying a smooth trip back down to Puli and the final destination of Taichung. To supplement the selection there I have made a gallery here to present a full view of the conditions the group experienced, endured and enjoyed over the three days I accompanied them.

This image was worth every penny to our family in remembrance of a wonderful landmark occasion.

A few years ago, on the occasion of my parents’ 50th anniversary (gulp!), the subject of meaningful gifts came up in discussions between my sister and I. What would we do and prepare for our parents, who with a nice home with a yard, greenhouse and gardens, and two fine grandchildren a few hours’ drive away didn’t lack for much. What about gadgets? Dad is a geek and is fluent in Linux and iOS, and he’d know better than us what he wanted in that realm. With me living in Taiwan and my sistah in Woostah, purchasing some physical object presented other issues, like where to buy, how to source, shipping, different currencies and payment methods, and so on.

So it came down to something with more meaning than monetary value, a gift that would celebrate our parents’ long union and our family’s graces. Perhaps it was the photography geek in me that prompted me to suggest a family portrait session. Nearly four years later we all agree that was the right decision.

So who would we hire to rally our troops and take the portraits? That was simple. My sister and her husband were married in the same town we’d be celebrating our parents’ anniversary, and the same photographer that had shot their wedding with medium format and 135mm film cameras nearly 20 years before was still going strong. Being located in the same country, state and time zone, my sister got on the case and began setting up the session, which was scheduled for the day of our anniversary dinner. The cost, which included digital proofs and one disc with full-resolution images, was US$750 (around NT$22,500).

My sister had checked with the photographer to confirm the time and the date a few days earlier. The day arrived and it was a brilliant sunny day, perfect for celebrating and for taking some photos. The appointed hour approached as we busied ourselves with guests and early celebrations. We headed out to the spot he told us to meet him, dressed smartly for the session. And we waited…

…and waited.

…and waited.

Meanwhile, we were running out of daylight.

A known free spirit, the photographer had temporarily misplaced our appointment in his memory bank, but after a few attempts to contact him he finally answered his phone and said he’d be there shortly.

Sure enough, he appeared without much further delay, sporting a New York Mets cap (Go, David Wright. Thanks for the Cy Young, R.A.!) and a Canon 5D around his neck with one prime lens and one 5-in-1 reflector. Although late for the appointment and with limited time to complete the session, he was as cool as can be, with a friendly, assuring, and affable manner.

He’d assembled the crew at this spot, and now he needed to work with the light and pose us. Simple. He got us on a sand dune, backlit by the setting sun, and asked a non-family member to hold the reflector for some golden fill light on our faces. And with a few waves of his hand and simple directions, interspersed with wise cracks and compliments, he got us into nice poses, shifted our ranks here and there, and knocked off less than two dozen images. With time to spare and some stunning golden hour light remaining, he then suggested that my sister and brother-in-law do an impromptu family portrait session. After all, he’d shot their wedding, and now they were a family of four with a son heading to high school and daughter terrorizing her field hockey competitors. And a handsome bunch they were, too.

We didn’t have to see the images to know we’d love them. And when they finally arrived (with some more prompting) we were more than pleased.

So apart from his laid-back demeanor, why was the photographer – who’d shown up nearly an hour late – so cool under pressure? Because he knew his location, how to handle the light, give it a little extra sparkle, and he threw in a bonus for my sister and her clan. In short, when it came down to the photography he was a true pro.

Are the images technically perfect? Hardly. But were they fun to do, do they convey emotion, and did my parents mount the top picks on the wall? Absolutely.

Were just a handful of images with electronic files on a disc worth 750 bucks? Absolutely!

Had we gone halvies for some sort of material item, no matter how pricey, chances are it would be obsolete by now, if not parked in a drawer or closet somewhere. A meal would be enjoyed and digested, the conversation fading from memory as time passed. But the feelings of that day by the beach, the week-long celebrations, the good food and great company, the times we’ve all shared in the years prior and since, and the love we all have for my parents come back with every viewing of those photographs.

Hire a pro. You won’t regret it.

Featuring narrow country roads that climbed up a river valley, culminating in a steep grade along a mountain shoulder before winding its way up to a park visitors’ center at the turnaround, it offered crisp winter air, pastoral scenery, and above all camaraderie.

Click HERE to view Don1Don’s report, featuring many of my images (about 70%).

The biggest change with the site design, in addition to a clean Home page, is the addition of a dedicated Portfolio section. It is divided into three main categories, namely Portraits, Sports, and Bridal/Weddings. I am also considering adding a Street Portraits section as my involvement in the 100 Strangers Project continues to intensify and grow (stay tuned for a related post soon).

Despite persistent bugs, I’m thrilled and proud to present the new site. Take a look around, and hope you find something that catches your fancy!

這系列的影像是我跟長期合作的搭檔，千葉，和模特兒建軒一起創作的。一開始我們架好燈之後就開始潑水，以捕捉濺水的畫面。厲害的健軒被潑水時雖然水直接倒入褲子裡還能維持姿勢並面不改色的保持冷靜。千葉的閃燈因進水故障之後（下次一定要記得蓋上透明塑膠袋！），我換了比較柔的打光設定又拍了幾張不同風格的寫真。