Who is and What about Grebeman? (INTERVIEW)

Thank you Joep for inviting me to be interviewed and starting me off gently with just one question.
I am the son of parents who married in March 1941, my Father to be sailed on a famous ship, HMS Exeter just 4 days later and on March 1st 1942 HMS Exeter was sunk near the Sunda straits by the Japanese. Mother received a telegram on Friday 13th March 1942 telling her that her husband was missing in action, presumed killed. She always maintained that he was alive and six months later she recieved a type written postcard from Fukagawa camp No2, Nagasaki signed by her husband. He witnessed the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki on 9th August 1945 which he survived and I was born on 6th August 1947, two years to the day after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima so I consider myself a child of the nuclear age.
I was a difficult birth and was expected to be brain damaged, Mother wasn’t allowed to see me for 6 days, but I’m still here. Because of that experience I remained an only child and have been something of a loner ever since.
From an early age I have been passionately interested in natural history, principally bird watching but in recent years I have also become interested in butterflies, moths and dragonflies. My interests extend to trying to understand their biology and distribution locally.
Professionally I was an electrical engineer and for much of the 1970‘s I worked in the Middle East, returning to the UK in the late 1970‘s to resume working in the power generation industry in which I had been apprenticed.
When that industry was privatised I took the opportunity for early retirement in late 1993, some quick mental arithmetic will soon show that it was a very early early retirement.
Two years later I returned to the county of my birth and shortly after that became a volunteer on the reserve attached to the field centre at Slapton just a short drive from where I live.
Whilst the field centre is primarily an educational establishment Slapton is unique in the organisation (The Field Studies Council) in having a reserve attached to it.
Since then I have been heavily involved in monitoring and studying of certain species on the reserve.
For me photography has always been something of a second string hobby and one that has really been divided into two phases, but doubtless there will be more specific questions which will relate to that subject in due course, so watch this space.

Barrie

 

Ah, 2 questions, one I can answer one very quickly, no I have never visited Japan.

As to the second, that will take a little longer, and at the moment my stomach is telling me it's time I ate, so hopefully later this evening I can post about my first phase in the hobby of photography.

Barrie

 

Despite considering myself a child of the nuclear age in many things I am rather old fashioned and that certainly showed in my early choice of photography gear.
I bought my first camera some time in the late 1960‘s, a secondhand Voigtlander Bessa 1 folding rollfilm camera. many of you will probably be unfamiliar with this beast, so here is a link to a website about it.

Voigtlander Bessa 1, folding rollfilm camera C1950

In many respects this was an ideal camera to begin my photography experience, not least because it had no rangefinder focusing (a more expensive model had this feature) so one became somewhat adept at estimating distances and learned a valuable lesson in setting hyperfocal distance and controlling depth of field. I have a considerable bee in my bonnet about depth of field in photographs and find that knowledge of this subject seems to be very lacking amongst modern day photographers, but then modern lenses lack any depth of field scales so they are not exposed to the concept, and for some I believe it sadly shows in their photographs.

At some stage I must have become aware of the work of Ansel Adams because much of my photography revolved around black and white landscapes. I became even more aware of his work when working for the Arabian American Oil Company in Adqaiq in Saudi Arabia through borrowing books by the master from the excellently equiped library. I was also lucky enough to be passing through London when there was an exhibition of his photographs at The Victoria and Albert Musuem. If any of you have the chance to view original Ansel Adams prints then please make every effort to do so, they just glow with light in a manner I’ve not experienced elsewhere.

I then purchased a secondhand Mamiya Standard Press camera, this had a 90mm standard lens, a limited range of interchangeable lenses with interchangeable roll film backs in 6x7 and 6x9 format, coupled rangefinder focusing and a ground glass back which could be used for focusing with the camera on a tripod. That was the beginning of a phase of trying to emulate the master.

Here is a link to some information about this camera.

Mamiya Press Standard 23 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I also bought a secondhand Leica M3 and oh, what a superb piece of engineering that was. This was mostly used for street photography although it did accompany me on treks in the western Himalaya (Himachel Pradesh and Lahoul) and the Peruvian Andes.

You’ll notice a distinct lack of involvement with the in camera type of that time, the SLR. I found the viewfinder screens that usually incorporated either microprisms or split prisms almost impossible to use, perhaps because of my poor eyesight where I suffer from a degree of astigmatism, whereby I don’t focus vertical and horizontal subjects in the same plane of focus. However I seem to be able to focus accurately with what amounts to ground glass focusing screens.

I had built a darkroom in my parents house and did my own developing and printing, but when I returned to the UK in the late 1970‘s and set up house on my own the lack of this facility meant a slow diminishing in my photographic activities.

However fear not, there is a second phase and a reawakening and I’m sure Joep will ask me to reveal something about that in due course. Also some of you who have taken the time and trouble to read this far will doubtless be getting ahead of the story and will realise why I have finally settled on :43: with a collection of fixed focal length legacy lenses.

Barrie

 

I thought you might be a little surprised by my first contact with and interests in the world of photography since I know the photographs that prompted you to invite me for interview, and they are very different from how I started out.

A slight correction, the lens on the Voigtlander has a focal length of 105 mm which equates to about 43 mm in 35 mm format terms, which is actually considered to be the ideal focal length lens as it matches the diagonal measurement of the film negative and supposedly corresponds with the natural angle of view of the human eye.

In those days secondhand camera shops were a mecca with all sorts of excellent old cameras from revered manufacturers such as Linhof, Graflex, Horseman and Speed Graphic, names now vanished into history, as well as these new 35 mm upstarts.

The Voigtlander appealed to me as a much more technically competent camera than my Fathers very restricted folding bellows camera, rather like moving to a more up market P & S camera would in this day and age. At this distance I’m not sure if I had already seen publications featuring the work of Ansel Adams and therefore the idea of the superior quality of a larger format negative was lodged in my mind. If so was not about to embark on the idea of using a plate camera so it had to be the option to use a 120 roll film negative versus a 35 mm negative, whatever, quality was upper most in my thoughts, and at £15.00 the camera was very affordable. Sadly I no longer have it in my possession, they have become very collectible and a few years ago I saw that the Bessa 2 which featured a coupled rangefinder, an example of which I did have at one time, purchased for £25.00, was valued at £600.00.

I had no contact with anyone to guide me, my experience was gained from books, particularly a series written by Ansel Adams which I still have. These came under the collective name of “The Basic Photo Series” of which the only one I didn’t buy was “Artificial Light Photography”.

I did approach it quite scientifically and noted down all camera settings, highlight and shadow meter readings taken with a hand held spot meter, development times, film agitation during development and printing details, all carefully lodged in a notebook which I might still have somewhere. I certainly still have my 6 x 9 negatives from that era, all carefully filed in individual film negative bags and each bag with a reference number (oh dear, am I coming across as some sort of geek :smile .

I’ll finish on that note and await your next question, your dwelling in this historical era surprised me somewhat, so touche as it were. Will the next question advance us to my reawakening hinted at earlier or not?

If you are wondering about my speed of response, it’s a combination of somewhat sleepless nights and typical British summer weather, in other words rain, so you are rather lucky, otherwise I might have been considerably slower in responding to your questions.

Barrie

 

I am aware of the time difference Joep, but it's probably working in our favour. It's still poor weather here, low cloud and drizzle, it's difficult to see the woods just a couple of small fields away so that's working in our favour as well, gone are the days when I would sit out on the coast under a fishing umbrella in these conditions to record passing seabirds.

I most certainly do show my work from earlier times, part of my reawakening that I keep hinting at involved being shown how I could still use those roll film negatives and produce what were actually better black and white prints from them than in my darkroom days.
Given the above comment the answer to your other question is no, I do not miss the darkroom work and am more than happy to apply modern techniques where they enable me to produce better or more controllable results. Likewise the use of a digital camera has opened up many new vistas in photography that I am happy to use.
Having said that I still possess 2 Mamiya Press bodies and equipment that would enable me to process film negatives and although they have not been used for some time, who knows, it might just happen in a fit of retro enthusiasm.

Barrie

 

I haven’t been fishing for years. My Uncle who was my early natural history mentor used to live on a local estuary and we boat fished with hand lines, purely for the table, but that seems like another world these days.

These days I use a Panasonic G1 and GF1. For more normal work I use the Voigtlander (there’s that name again :smile  leica screw rangefinder lenses, I’ve got the 15mm, f/4.5, 21mm, f 4, 25mm, f/4, 35mm, f/2.5, 50mm, f/2.5 and 75mm, f/2.5. For macro work I can call on the services of a micro Nikkor 55mm, f/2.8, micro Nikkor 105mm, f/4 and a Sigma 105mm, f/2.8 DG Macro which is my lens of choice for macro photography.

Barrie

 

Thanks for reminding me Joep, I do have the 20mm, f/1.7 lens bought as part of the purchase of the GF1, a very nice lens but rather gathering dust, it lacks that retro depth of field scale that those lovely Voigtlanders possess, even if manually setting them using the depth of field scale takes a little bit of mental arithmetic to use on :43:. I waited until I could obtain a G1 as body only, so no kit zoom lens for me, well I did say earlier on in the interview that I was somewhat old fashioned. I’ll let you into a secret, I’ve got a Sigma 18-50, f/2.8 EX Macro zoom that I used with an Olympus E1, but don’t tell anyone, it will ruin my retro image :smile:.

At last Joep, my opportunity to detail my photographic reawakening. Outside of the school and university term time the field centre at Slapton runs courses aimed at either adults or families. In 2001 this country was in the grip of a foot and mouth outbreak (is that hoof and mouth in American parlance?), much of the countryside was closed and bookings were down. I was invited to sit in on a course entitled “Natural History Photography” run by one Adrian Davies, an author of books on digital techniques and a professional lecturer. The course started at the end of May just as the restrictions were being lifted (Adrian’s course is normally held in early August just as the recent one was) and some places that he was used to going to on field trips were still closed so I was able to suggest other sites that were open. Since then we have become firm friends and I have sat in on some of his lectures and accompanied the group on most of their field trips every year since 2001.

In 2001 Adrian covered the subject of digital photography for the first time on his course which he had been running at Slapton then for about 10 years prior to that. He had used one of the very first digital cameras in the UK, a Kodak DCS 100, the hard drive unit for which was housed in a separate shoulder mounted case. This was a 1.3 Mp camera based on the Nikon F5. In 2001 Adrian was using a Kodak DCS 620, now a 2 Mp camera based on the Nikon F5 but totally self contained.

I was using a 2 Mp Nikon Coolpix 800 borrowed from the field centre. I felt a trifle embarrassed using this tiny throw away looking camera on Adrians spare benbo tripod, until he took one of my photographs one evening, made minor adjustments to it in the latest Photoshop and then printed it off, what a revelation.

My immediate reaction when I saw the levels and curves graphs, particularly when the preferences were set to more sub divisions than the default 4 was to utter “Ansel Adams zone system” That’s not strictly true, one is linear, the other is log but it seemed analgous to me at the time. I was hooked. When Adrian discovered I had 6 x 9 roll film negatives he showed the group how to scan them in with a desktop scanner equipped with a back lit light box and I was well and truly converted, photography was back on the menu and my old negatives had a new life as well.

Being a natural history photography course close up, if not true macro photography loomed large on the agenda and I was set off in a new direction. A couple of Nikon coolpix cameras and a few years later and Adrian introduced the concept of raw output, I saw it’s benefits and so a further upgrade to a camera that could output in raw was made. I was never happy with pure digital lenses and their lack of manual setting scales, so when I discovered the :43: system and realised that older lenses could be used I converted and can see no reason to upgrade for some considerable time hopefully.

I’m producing work that I’m happy with and that’s what counts for me.

For those of you interested Adrian has a website

Adrian Davies Imaging: WELCOME

You might find one or two of his latest images rather similar to some of my latest postings, the view of the Quarry at Haytor was done independently of Adrian but must have been taken from almost the same position and the Golden-ringed Dragonfly which was found by the 16 year old naturalist/photographer who I’ve been mentoring was co-operative enough to let many of the group take photographs. I would like to think that at the end of the day Adrian and I share something of a similar photographic eye.

Well that is the story of my reawakening, I’m back in business photographically speaking. Whether I will ever return to some forms of street photography I don’t know, since returning to live in the UK I’ve always lived in rural communities, there are no more than 30 houses in the village I now live in and I feel in very alien surroundings when I make a rare visit to a large town or city.

Barrie

 

Thanks pal, so much for keeping a secret .

I had to ditch Windows 3.1 a little while ago , my post processing applications are running under Windows 2000. I suppose that one day in the not too distant future it will be impossible to find a printer with drivers for Windows 2000 or software to run under that OS and I will need to update. It would be good if by that time there are Linux distributions that will load monitor profiles so you can work with a calibrated monitor for photography processing. To access the internet I do use a linux distribution, actually a version of Puppy Linux devised by an Australian, Barry Kauler. I use it in a live DVD mode where the whole distribution loads from the DVD into RAM and it runs from RAM, any configuration changes can be written back to the DVD, so I can be cutting edge :smile: .

Thanks for the links to some of my previous posts.

Just 2 photographs from 40 years, oh dear. I could have chosen one of my landscapes from the old days, but I’ve gone for this photograph of Pegasus, the winged horse on a tombstone from St Werburgh’s Church, Wembury. This church is right by the coast with a view south west out to the Mewstone that stands just to the east of the entrance to Plymouth sound. There is a smoothness of tone in an original A4 print and a lovely bokeh that shows the church faintly in the background which has been made a little rougher by the downsizing, all this from a simple 4 element Tessar type lens on a Voigtlander Bessa 1 folding roll film camera. Depth of field could have been just a fraction more, although the estimated zone focusing is just about spot on. Behind the photographer is a door in the church wall. Beyond that below the cliff there is a reef of rocks and then the entrance to the river Yealm where my Uncle used to live. On an old 19th century chart that he had this reef is called Porchopen reef since the door in the church wall lines up with the door in the porch entrance to the church. It was one of my early efforts with the Bessa 1. So a photograph that brings back memories.




A recent effort from a couple of weeks ago featuring a Red Admiral butterfly captured in early morning sunlight (about 1 hour after sunrise) taking it’s first feed of the day. The insect is in near perfect condition and I think the range of colours in this shot all complement one another. I have to say it meet with Adrians approval, it was taken during his recent course although I was on my own actually examining my moth trap in the hope of obtaining suitable species for the course members to photograph. An uncropped image shot using my Panasonic G1 with Sigma 105mm, f/2.8 macro lens. There’s a softness to the lighting that appeals as well in my opinion and a relative simplicity to the whole shot, someone might just be able to live with that on their wall.






Barrie

 

The butterfly photograph was taken hand held, that’s going to have to be the norm for most butterfly shots, although I have done some tripod mounted ones of butterflies recently on overcast days with a hint of drizzle when they were more intent on perching than flying. The skill then of course is to locate them in the first place. This one had warmed up sufficiently to fly in to that site, but was intent on feeding. By extrapolation of wing span to image size (it was not cropped) I estimate distance from front of lens to butterfly as 900mm. Data is f/8, 1/800 second, EV set to 1/3 stop under exposed, 400 iso, aperture priority, multi-segment metering, manually focused. These would be typical settings for this type of shot, speed was helped by direct low early morning sun from behind the photographer, care being taken in positioning myself so as not to cast my shadow over the insect or it would probably have taken flight.
The following table shows the field of view versus distance from subject to front of lens for a typical 105mm macro lens

225mm x 150mm---1270mm
150mm x 100mm-----890mm
90mm x 60mm-----510mm
60mm x 45mm-----350mm

taken from my post in the thread "A Red Admiral butterfly awakes"

Bird Watching has to be the hobby that has seen me through most of my life on this planet up until now, very portable, you only need a pair of binoculars and a guide book perhaps. It’s been with me in Saudi Arabia, India, Sri Lanka, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Algeria, Peru and even offshore in the north sea as well as from about the age of 10 in the UK. It has kept me going through good times and bad. When I’ve been more settled in the UK it has also taken the form of more detailed survey work to produce maps of breeding distribution on farmland and in woodland and in recent years detailed study of particular species, hence my handle of “grebeman” from my long term studies on Great Crested Grebe.

Barrie

 

Barrie, I enjoyed your answers and these two beautiful photographs very much. Having read this interview and your thread about dragonflies I hold your pictures and your knowledge about what you photograph in high regard.

 

Joep, I did indeed do a lot of traveling, mainly work related although India, Sri Lanka and Peru were holidays. These days I’m very parochial and don’t travel very far. It might be nice to arrive at some remote destination but the hassle of getting there would be more than I might be prepared to tolerate.

You might recall that I did at one time own a Leica M3 and I had a great admiration for the street photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson and the photo journalism of the likes of W Eugene Smith, Margaret Bourke-White and George Rodger as well as the war photographs of Robert Capa, Larry Burrows and Don McCullin.

I was never going to willingly put myself in the position of any of the latter photographers so I don’t have any war photographs to my name. They were men who seemed to be deeply affected by their experiences, what human being wouldn’t be and it’s interesting that in retirement Don McCullin now takes striking black and white landscapes of the Somerset countryside where he lives.

Many of them seemed to take photographs that portrayed the compassion shown by one human being for another under times of great stress and that is what I admired in their work, they served to show the rest of the world the aspects of war that should make us all rebel from the idea of warfare as a means of settling conflicts, remember much of my growing up was done in the 1960‘s, the protest generation.

George Rodger showed us the lives of many of the old tribes of Africa and W Eugene Smith documented the life of a remote Spanish village in 1951 and the results of the mercury poisoning at Minimata in 1971 to name just a couple of his stories.

This type of photography is now much harder to find as a result of the demise of photo centred journals such as Life and Picture Post.

Just to prove that I once had it, here are a couple of my photographs from my Leica days, both on Leica M3 with 90mm, f/4 Elmar, the non collapsible version with five lens elements in three groups. all the fuss that’s made these days about lens stabilisation, please, learn how to hold your camera, hold your breath and gently squeeze the shutter release.

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A Herder in the Outer Himalaya (the Pir Panjal) where I trekked in the company of the author John Keay following in the footsteps of some of the men detailed in his book "When Men and Mountains Meet"

Barrie