13th Frame

Why 13th frame?

Pretty simple – the author uses medium format camera which can take only 12 frames on the standard film magazine. But sometimes, some magic happens, and then the 13th frame appears. No scientific research has been made to determine is it real or not, but you cannot rely only on what scientists will tell you, right?

So, that’s what this book is about. It tries to tell some photography-oriented stories from a perspective of one single guy from Poland. It sometimes is very genuine, sometime very out-of-human-mind’s-boundaries.

Dramatis Personae

As you will see, main character in this book is bald and bearded Rudolf. That’s the author’s nickname. But it’s not so simple, you know – sometimes Rudolf is referred as Rhododendron, or other strange R-something name. Among all these, there is Roderyk, Rudolf’s alter ego. He sometimes argues with Rudolf, sometimes they even want to fight with each other. Of course, there are others: Kasia, Keek, Jacek, Emsi – they all are from Poland too, they all have significant meaning in Rudolf’s life and I’d like to thank them for being there and providing help and inspiration.

Read it, enjoy it, and if you like it – tell your friends about it.

Marcin R. Szymczak

November 2011

Hardwareholics

Mark stood in a dark hallway before a small notice that someone had printed and clothed in plastic, then hung carelessly by three thumbtacks. He adjusted the camera bag on his shoulder and went inside with a squeaking of hinges.

The open windows let in the cool spring air, intensified by the emptiness of the room in which five chairs stood in an untidy circle. On the chairs were sitting: an unattractive woman about forty years old wearing glasses on her long nose, a lanky and thin blonde man with a bristly head of hair, and a small, swarthy, cross-eyed fat man with a camera bag by his chair. There were two empty places.

Welcome! The ugly woman addressed him confidently and stood up, offering her hand. I’m Eva and I’ll be leading the meeting. Sit wherever you feel comfortable.

He sat next to the blonde. The fatty he deemed his enemy – his bag did not inspire optimism. He knew that the fatty would try to use that bag to create an advantage for himself – he’d pull some super bright lens from it, or something…

Let’s start by introducing ourselves. I’m Eva, and I have fifteen years of professional experience in treating psychological addictions and compulsions. As I’m sure you know, because we get European Union financing, our meeting has to follow a strictly defined program, and we have to follow an established treatment schedule. I want to make you aware of this at the beginning so that there are no misunderstandings. We will stick to the plan that I will give you in a moment, and we will not shorten sessions. Now I’d like each of you to say a few words about yourself – how you found us and who you are.

The swarthy fatty started. He talked and talked about himself, nervously looking from side to side with his dark little eyes, until it just about made you sick to watch him. Then he started to talk about his equipment. The blonde next to Mark pricked up his ears when the topic turned to cameras and lenses; Mark also felt that he tensed up and his eyelid began twitching. He absorbed the parameters of the fatty’s equipment with a flushed face, automatically comparing what he heard with what he could boast himself. The result wasn’t bad.

The blonde was next. The blonde…was boring. He spoke slowly, languidly, probably just to show how very laid-back he was. At the end he pulled out a digital Leica with a careless movement, which evoked visible aversion from the other participants of the meeting. The leader was affected too, and reacted immediately.

Jack, please put that equipment away! she squawked with a sharp tone. In the name of order, I will remind you of the rules. The meetings are meant to help you with your everyday problems, which means that the only form of communication will be conversation. Not email, not taking photos, not showing your photographs, but conversation. Conversation; in other words: dialogue, listening to another person. Maybe we’ll change the form of presentation. Mark, why did you come here?

Silence fell. Mark felt himself getting red. His heart began beating wildly and his throat became so dry that he couldn’t get out a word. He was furious with the leader for not letting him introduce himself like all the others.

Ahem…why…ahem…did I come? Joanna, I mean my fiancée, said that I should.

Restrained snicker. He hated himself for having been persuaded to this madness.

I mean, Joanna and I came to the conclusion that I would like to have someone to take photos with. No one wants to, because…well, that’s how it is. Whenever I’m talking to someone over the Internet, it turns out that I just can’t come to an understanding for some reason. It’s not that I’m strange or something, because I usually have friends, it’s just…

No one wants to take photos with you? Eva guessed screechily.

Mark nodded his head enthusiastically. He looked around and saw that he was no longer causing laughter – his friends waited eagerly to see what was next.

Exactly! the leader proclaimed triumphantly. "Each one of you has a problem with one basic thing. You are incapable of talking about photography! The only thing that you can talk about are parameters. Equipment! Size! Weight! Lenses, flashes, and batteries!

Excuse me, the tall blonde growled, raising his hand. I am not a hardware onanist.

Are you able to talk about photography with your friends? the woman asked cagily. Can you, Jack, talk freely about equipment without paying attention to, as you called it, hardware onanism?

Uhhhh….no…yes and no.

Which means??? Eva was leaning fervently in the direction of the speaker.

Well, you know. I…sometimes I get a little blocked. I despise people who only talk about equipment, but…how can I put this…I just don’t have anything to talk about. Because what can I talk about, if not about equipment? People’s photos are nothing but trash. They’re not sharp, they’re overexposed, they’re blurry, they get image noise…

Stop!!! The psychologist covered her ears with her hands in a gesture of despair. No, no! WE ARE NOT SPEAKING about parameters! Not only about parameters of cameras, but also about parameters of photography! Now it’s time for a few rules and then I’ll give you one exercise to do at home. I want you all to know that I am proud that you have come here. It’s a first step, a very important one, towards healing. Second, we can only carry out treatment in two stages. The first stage is having a conversation with another photographer without mentioning parameters. That includes the technical parameters of the image! When you have learned to do that, we will move on to the second stage, which is an essential element of the treatment. We will learn how to talk about equipment.

That’s shit, Mark thought. For a moment he had thought that this whole mess made sense, but when the lady started to get warmed up and talk about teaching them to talk about equipment…there was no way anything could come of it. We’re going to attack each other again and end up arguing, or worse, he thought bitterly.

***

The breakthrough happened in the moment that the Internet addiction was officially accepted. Then everything else started to flow, more definitions of addictions and other forms of compulsions, which thanks to public funding, we can finally treat. It also became clear then that I had to learn something myself about photography, in order to understand them, and know what they were talking about, recounts Eva J., a psychologist who has treated addictions for years. Why do we help people like that? Because it is truly a serious problem. Try to imagine an artist who cannot meet with other artists, because he or she immediately gets into a fight. It’s something like that. Here, though, we are dealing with a broader phenomenon, because it does not only affect artists, but also so-called artisans. These people often make their living from photography.

I had the problem two years ago, says George S., a wedding photographer. I found the center through the Internet, there was an ad on a portal. And it turned out that it is effective! I can talk with my buddies about my photos, and when a couple comes to me for a session, if the guy turns out to be an amateur photographer, I don’t yell at him, I just start a nice chat. Jobs just keep pouring in! he laughs easily.

I was sure that it was a huge scam, confides Mark, a photography lover. I don’t earn money from my photos, I don’t sell my work to anyone, but I value it very highly. I don’t find myself to be any kind of great artist, but you know…So when I went to the first meeting, I’m thinking, it’s impossible that we’ll be able to speak calmly about our cameras and the differences in our equipment. Anyway, what was the point? It turned out that it was necessary. Good cooks, chefs, as they told us, also have to talk about good pots or pans sometimes. It’s normal and there’s nothing to be ashamed of. And all the more, there’s nothing to fight about, or anything like that. Thanks to our conversations I changed my attitude to taking photos in general. I bought an old, large format camera, and now taking photos is a joy for me. And my wife is happy – I’m less nervous at home.

That first step is the most important, explains psychologist Eva J. They have to voluntarily and independently come and sign themselves up. Then it’s smooth sailing. We teach them the one most important principle: we can only talk about equipment when it changes the way we act. You want to talk about your medium format? Ok, but only when you’re demonstrating how it has changed the way you take photos. It’s very important – talk about equipment, talk about parameters, lenses, or weight, but in such a way as to show that it has an impact on your actual behavior. In one group there was a fan of the large format; at the beginning every other word from him in discussions with the rest of the group was quality! Later, when he had learned to talk about equipment, it ended up that that stiff guy integrated the rest of the group by talking about how he had to lug that enormous camera across some tracks, running away from speeding freight trains.

Every year, hardware neurosis causes two good photographers to give up photography.

March, 2008

Show me how you frame, I’ll tell you who you are

I came to the conclusion, on the basis of an altogether decent article in Black&White Photography, that I like squares because of my age; that supposedly I’m old. It’s been getting to me more and more often lately – my wife brings over friends who have barely seen 20 springs, and in a certain conversation with a trainer, I was classified amongst those who, while studying under communism, made money by cutting grass and picking cucumbers. ;)

But the fact is that the choice of the format in which one frames reflects one’s character in a certain way. And I imagine that before too long, a psychological test like this will appear in Ladies’ Home Journal or Redbook (or some other Us Weekly):

Choose one of the photos from the following page, and I’ll tell you what you’re like in bed: