This is a file that I sent off to a person doing yet another book on the Diana Camera its has alot of blather i thought i would should blog .. everyone says gotta have a blog .. ok i will try.
Lets get caught up first.
My travels with Diana.
By Mark Sink
.
To sum this up this funny camera and her sisters has become far-reaching. Is it pop or a serious art movement? Is it a gimmick or a serious tool? Is it in a round of dismissal by the purists similar to the pictorialists being rubbed out by Newhall and Adams? I have struggled with negative perceptions of work by the camera throughout my career and to this day I still struggle including my own critical retrospection.
As most now know the Diana and her relatives to date have an immense cult following. I came in unknowingly well after the first wave peaked in the early 80s. Since then the movement has turned into a tidal wave. Over the last few years there has been many dozens of toy camera exhibitions. Some of the shows I participated in included the Hayward Arts Center in California that included a catalog, the Benham Gallery in Seattle that included works shops and Plastic Fantastic at E3 in NYC that has a wonderful web site …. Most recently I was a juror for the terribly named Krappy Kamera show where I combed through thousands of stunningly beautiful submissions.
Diana is a very romantic tool. The Camera can be a tool to become an instant pictorialist. Many successful toy camera users don’t like to be associated with the romance of the pictorialist photographers and they like to use the camera with a modern vision. Nancy Burson is one great example, Nancy Rexroth is another. Many use it for very personal visions and ideas and use a standard camera for most of they're other work. There are countless success stories with users of this tool. But through the decades I am finding I have refined my eye and become much more selective of what I consider successful.
You can not make a bad picture; the camera is too easy. Sadly many use it because they can’t make a good picture with glass so they depend on the effects the plastic creates. It can often make very cute w eak pictures look serious a seemingly much stronger. I see a dangerous similarity with Polaroid transfer. It's too easy to be arty; the majority of work I see is often empty of vision, personal style and craft. It started as a teaching tool but has spread into the a dangerous realm of interesting gimmickry with little pre-visualized concept among young photographers.
Ansel Adams once said most people have sharp lens but fuzzy concepts.
My history
I won a Kodak Images in Silver Award in 1979 with images made by my first Diana. In a forgotten old box I found a Diana I used when I was a child in the 1960s inside was undeveloped the images I took of my mother from 15 years previous and me 4-ft shorter..It changed my life at least my direction in art school..I thought I had found a unique vision. I thought that it was the golden door. I soon was cut to size when a critic then told me.." oh the Diana ...how passe , lots of people have used the Diana" she told me to get t he catalog from Friends of Photography.The Diana Show...by David Featherstone...My bubble was burst.. It's a great catalog and Featherstone’s well-researched essay told the story of the camera and it’s beginnings. There I learned of Nancy Rexroth’s book Iowa and Mark Schwartz’s project of sending hundreds of cameras around the country to artists to shoot and return. These projects have proven to be some the earliest toy camera documents on record.
I have had a 26 year relationship with Diana. She was with me through my period at Warhol’s Factory (even though Andy hated the camera)...She got me into Vogue and Details and my first solo show in NYC in 86 -"Twelve Nudes and a Gargoyle-" The Diana was a huge hit in South America..the reverse technology movement never hit there the way it swept through the US, I guess they are struggling to get technology not discard it.. They seemed shocked and surprised with the notion that one can become successful in NYC using a toy camera.
As of recent I have tired of landscapes and single objects with Diana instead I am doing the historical swing back to the f64 world and I am on the road with larger formats, but still Diana is my camera of choice with nudes and fantasy staged work. I enjoy putting the plastic lens on new bodies, one of the best is sticking it on my old 4x5 Speed Graphic..My rebel Diana days are over. I have tired from getting in trouble from flashing the Diana in commercial settings... Smugness and need to flaunt the backwardness of plastic tools are over. Clients and art directors don't get the joke a lot of times, especially when they are being charged a large amount of money for the shoot...so now I generally have the blad on the tripod and sneak Diana in quietly.
My new projects involve making a sharp glass lensed photo but the content being Diana like, romantic and dreamy.... this has been much tougher. I also am inspired by my friend Adam Fuss with making a beautiful image using no camera at all.
The Diana is the greatest romantic. It’s a great wedding camera. Any time your at any great wonder of the world and you don’t have the load of gear or the time to shoot it better than a local postcard ....use Diana...they will be treasures and your 35mms will stay in the vacation tray.
Below is a wonderful statement on the Diana.
--Hirsch, Robert, Photographic Possibilities, Boston: Focal Press, 1991,
pp. 141-3.
<<"The Diana questions many photographic axioms, such as "a photograph must be sharp," "a photograph must have maximum detail," and "a photograph must possess a complete range of tones to be considered good." The Diana challenges the photographer to see beyond the equipment and into the image. This camera also is easy to use. There is no need to use a light meter or to calculate shutter speeds and f-stops. Finally, the Diana summons up the Dadaist traditions of chance, surprise, and a willingness to see what can happen. This lack of control can free you from worrying about doing the "right" thing and always being "correct." Since the Diana is a toy, it allows you to look and react to the world with the simplicity and playfulness of a child.">>
A short list of my working collection of toy cameras.
Anny, Arrow, Arrow Flash, Asiana, Banier, Banner, Colorflash Deluxe, Debonair, Diana, Diana Deluxe, Diana F, Dionne F2, Dories, Flocon RF, Hi-Flash, Justen, Lina, Lina S, Mark L, MegoMatic, Merit, Mirage, Panax, Photon 120, Pioneer, Raleigh, Reliance, Rosko, Rover,See, Shakeys, Stellar, Stellar Flash, Tina, Traceflex, Tru-View, Valiant, Windsor, Zip, Zodiac.
The Diana camera was made in the 60s by the Great Wall Plastic Factory of Hong Kong..The importer, Power Sales Company of Willow Grove Penn. sold the Diana only by the case -144 cameras- at about 50 cents a camera.
Other Favorite toys..Most all from the thrift store and most recently e-bay on the internet.
Ansco panoramic, Action Sampler, Holga,,Sun Pet with matching yellow sun glasses,Doris,Bazooka,,Hulk Holgin,Bugs Bunny,Boy,Baby Brownie,Imperial Girl Scout, Corina, Lomos Monark, The whole early Kodak line..the 1920s and 30s Deco models are my favorites.
My Diana image artist statement:
Diana Photographs
The Diana Camera is a simple toy camera.
It is a tool to make art that is a reaction against the refined glass optics that control the way that we see the world around us, other than through our own eyes. Standard photographs are to sharp,too real , even super real . I feel the world isn’t that way, and you don’t see or remember it that way at least I don’t.
I am having a wonderful love affair exploring with Diana .
Because she is plastic ,she is very light and easy to take everywhere . Her looks are very non-offensive which allows one to be much more at ease with a Diana taking pictures rather than a big heavy technical marvel that looks like the military built.
I believe the most beautiful things in the world are the most simple. I get great satisfaction in producing such romantic , soft, yet powerful images with a camera that costs close to nothing.
M.B.S.
I have both fine art and commercial … Commercial I have, fashion… like Grace Jones . corporate reports … on and on.
Then my art.
PDN has done a couple articals on the toy camera.
The list is the most important starting at the top.
Nancy Rexroth and another great one by the famous Arnold Gasson Shot #67….
. I have four or five different “Toy Camera” issues.. by Shots, started by the wonderful Dan Price.
Russell Joslin Published several articals on the Diana in Shots
russell@russelljoslin.comshotsmag.com
Nancy Rexroth
rexnex@cinci.rr.comDid the early early book “Iowa” She is the historical start…very important
Arnold Gasson is the first to use the Diana as a teaching tool .
There are some wonderful discussions about this in Shots mag
http://www.wirtzgallery.com/exhibitions/2000/exhibitions_2000_09/rexroth/exhibitions_nr_2000_09_images.htmlNancy Burson (probably one of the most famous) portraits of children in the book “Faces”
http://www.nancyburson.com/Anne Arden McDonald has great work.
718-418-5414
AnneM2605@aol.comhttp://www.anneardenmcdonald.com/noflash/diana/index.htmlNathan Cranston I think does great work.
cuskate@cs.com360-392-0805
http://www.thesight.com/gal1/8/index.htmlFrancis Schanberger Images on the beach
http://www.frangst.com/fvinyet@aol.com614-447-0274
Kai Yamada
kai@dianacamera.comwww.kaiphoto.comAmparo Jelsma
amparo@studioamparo.com http://studioamparo.com/beach/beach1.htmlEric Havelock-Bailie Potraits with a Diana he remodled to do close ups
pinarello99@yahoo.com ph720 34739
Syrie Kovitz very young very talented self portraits
http://www.syriekovitz.com/Mary Anne Lynch Her Marylyn Monroe series “the Dress”
telephone: 518-584-4612 or 718-857-6056
e-mail:
MLynch3424@aol.comTamaki Obuchi A wonderful photographer from Japan has done lots of Diana work.
http://fine-art.com/kitakyushu/kpg/obuchi.htmlsoave@bg.mbn.or.jpKristen Hatgi Very young has some wonderful work.
kkhatgi5684@yahoo.comJonathan Bailey Has been a solid Diana man for years.
http://www.jonathan-bailey.com/Mark Katzman is a big time commercial shooter in St Louis . He used the Diana some.
Fkphoto@aol.comAllan Detrich He has a informative site
http://www.allandetrich.com/diana.htmDetrichPix@aol.comOthers
http://www.huskudu.com/guide.htmlhttp://www.dianacamera.com/Plastic Fantastic Magazine
Martin Bleichter
mbleichter@comcast.nettoycam7@juno.comme@davebias.orghttp://www.apogeephoto.com/july2001/plastic_fantastic.shtmlI was just up at toycamera.com and the Toy Camera Handbook was finally published. You can see the details at
http://www.toycamhandbook.com/its goes on and on
Here is the best writing to date… 26 years ago
Dvd
fstone@aol.comPictures Through a Plastic Lens
by David Featherstone , copyright, The Diana Show , Friends of Photgraphy ,1980
It is the person behind the camera, rather than the machine itself, who creates the image. This, at least, is one of the paradigms of creative photography. Since the medium’s beginnings practitioners have readily accepted the refinements and improvements made on the basic black box and many contemporary photographers have embraced innovations as a means of expanding their visual explorations. Unfortunately, all too many photog raphers become consumed in the process of preparing to take the photograph; they typically end up with what Ansel Adams describes as a “sharp picture of a fuzzy concept.” Recognizing this and feeling that complicated machinery and careful technical calculations interfere with the basic intuitive picture-making process, some photographers have sought ways to make photographic seeing more immediate and direct.
Alienated by high-tech equipment, a remarkable number of photographers have chsoen to use an extre mely simple photographic machine, an inexpensive plastic “toy” camera with a plastic lens which produces images strangely relevant to contemporary photography. This camera is the Diana. It was introduced in the early 1960s, manufactured by the Great Wall Plastic Factory of Kowloon, Hong Kong, and imported by the Power Sales Company of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The importer sold the Diana only by the case--144 cameras--and the price in stores reportedly ranged from .89* to $3.00 per camera.
The Diana was marketed under a variety of names throughout the world, such as Arrow and Banner, although Diana appears to be the most widely dispersed brand name. In the mid-1960s students in the beginning photography classes at Ohio University in Athens began to use the Diana as a means of learning about photographic vision without being unduly concerned with machinery. The development of the Ohio University program was described in a January, 1971, Popular Photography article by Elizabeth Truxell, then Chairperson of Ë the University’s Photography Department. As educational use of the Diana spread to other photography programs during the 1970s, many photographers became intruiged with the aesthetic qualities of the pictures and started to use the camera for their own purposes.
Diana photographs have not been seen regularly in many exhibitions or publications. Perhaps wary of the reaction of the larger photographic community, photographers used their Diana images for personal exploration and continued to exhibit work done with more conventional cameras. A few did received recognition, particularly Nancy Rexroth, who had a portfolio included in the “Snapshot” issue of Aperture, (1974), and later published a book of her Diana photographs, Iowa (Violet Press, 1977). Another project that helped to popularize use of the Diana was Mark Schwartz’ “We Do The Rest.” Over a period of several years during the late 1970s Schwartz sent loaded Dianas to several hundred photographers throughout the country. They Ëwere requested to expose the roll of film and return the entire camera to him for processing and for inclusion in his final presentation. Apart from exhibitions in a few small galleries, use of the Diana has primarily developed as an underground activity. Its popularity has spread steadily, and when the invitation was extended for Diana photographs to be sent for consideration in this exhibition more than 100 photographers submitted portfolios.
This is an especially appropriate time for an exhibition and publication surveying the use of the Diana to be assembled. The manufacturer has discontinued production of the camera and, while some may be found in toy stores or flea markets, the final supplies are being quietly hoarded by those who know of its magic. Although other plastic cameras, even “improved” models, are available, none seem to have the qualities inherent in the Diana.
The Diana camera has been produced in several models. The standard version has a single shutter speed; oth Ëers have an additional “bulb” setting for time exposures. There is also a model with a built-in flash unit, the Diana F, which often suffers from random synchronization between the flash and shutter. All models have three aperture settings: sunny, sun with cluds and cloudy. The lens settings, designated by drawings on the lens barrel, tested to be f/16, f6.3 nd f4.5, respectively. The camera is also equipped with an adjustable focusing ring; distances are marked at 4 to 6 feet, 6 to 12 feet and 12 feet to infinity.
The camera accepts 120 roll film and makes 16 exposures on a roll. Image size is approximately two inches square, with the frame edges delineated indistinctly on the negative by a plastic frame inside the camera. The exact edge-pattern created by this frame varies from one camera to another. Although quality control was relatively good for an inexpensive camera, it was never the prime concern of the manufacturer. The shutter of one camera was scientifically tested at one tw Ëo-hundreth of a second, but others are thought to be closer to one-thirtieth. Often several cameras must be tried before one with a working shutter is found.
One of the more pleasing aspects of the camera’s operation is aural. The shutter makes a loud metallic snap as the single shutter blade is tripped, another as the release lever returns automatically to its always cocked position. (Double exposures are made easily.) In addition, the film-winding knob makes a distinctive and almost humorous clicking sound as the plastic ratchet is turned.
Light leaks, the patterns of which vary between cameras, are a major source of trouble using the Diana. Most photographers place a generous supply of tape along the seam between the camera back and body after loading the film. More tape is applied to the red transparent frame-counting window on the camera back. On some cameras it is also necessary to tape the joint where the lens is attached to the camera itself. Since the plastic film-winding as Ësembly does not always tighten the exposed film completely, many Diana photographers change film in darkness and wrap exposed rolls in foil to prevent fogging.
Optical abberations in the plastic lens add to the difficulties the Diana photographer faces. The low resolution of the lens limits the range of tonality recorded on black-and-white film. The effect is even more pronounced when color film is used; the colors transmitted by the lens, which is not color-corrected, are often surprising.
The degree of tonal separation, color distortion and spherical aberration in the lens also changes from one camera to another, and the negatives sometimes suffer from uneven exposure and flared highlights. Ironically, the simplicity with which exposures are made is counteracted once the photographer is in the darkroom. All of these problems can be overcome with perserverance, experimentation, and printing technique, of course, and the photographers who use the Diana accept and expect them.
No gen Ëeralizations about the work of the 43 photographers included in this book can apply to all, and it should be clear that their motivations for using the Diana differ widely and extend beyond the desire to be freed from complicated photographic machinery. When asked why they began work with the Dian, the majority of these artists mentioned the camera’s simplicity of operation as a means of freeing themselves visually and of encouraging spontaneity.
This interest by photographers in bringing a fresh point of view to their work is not an unusual or unexpected occurence. In a medium so deeply rooted in the technology of its making, it is not surprising that many photographers reach a point of techincal confinement which must be overcome in order for their personal creative growth to continue. The conflict is resolved in many ways; explorations of alternative print-production processes and major changes in subject concerns are examples. The search for visual spontaneity through use of a sim Ëple camera such as the Diana is yet another.
A number of these photographers were first exposed to the Diana camera in an educational situation. Some initially responded to photogrpahs made by others, seeing in them a quality they wished to pursue in their own work. A few found themselves wanting to photograph, but without a camera; the Diana being the cheapest picture-making device available. Still others received the camera as a jesting gift, only to turn to it when their high-tech equipment was stolen.
There is a strong element of absurdist theater inherent in the use of the Diana, a conceptual performance purposefully undertaken and enjoyed by the artists. Consider, for example, the experience of one photographer in securing a press pass for an Oakland Raiders footbal game and standing on the sidelines, Diana camera in hand, among paparazzi using an array of zoom lenses and motor drives. Or of another who, after listing her occupation as a photographer, proceeded through U.S. ËCustoms with her Diana. A third carried the Diana as his only cmaera on a foreign vacation, using it to photograph such often-pictured monuments as the pyramids of Egypt. Many photographers take delight in assuring incredulous viewers that yes, their finely-crafted images are, in fact, made with a $3.00 plastic toy.
On another level, there is a widepsread feeling of satisfaction gained in making viable, important and high quality photographic images using cheap, uncomplicated equipment in the face of a medium which seems to thrive on advanced technology. Innovations and technical improvements do find their way into Diana photography, however. Although many of the photographers have been content to use the camera as is, others have adapted it to their own aesthetic needs. The plastic construction of the camera allows changes to be made easily; the basic cost permits trial and error experimentation.
The most common adaptation is the addition of a tripod mount glued to the bottom of the Ë camera to allow time exposures in low light and to minimize camera movement. Several photographers have added mechanisms to allow use of external flash units, ranging in sophistication from Sindy Kipis’ use of a can opener taped to the camera to serve as a manually operated “hot-shoe” to Graydon Woods’ adaptation of a Diana F to accept electronic flash. Ardine Nelson has devised a method of inserting an “L”-screw into the lens barrel of the single-speed model to interrupt the shutter mechanism for time exposures. in order to prevent overlapping exposures on the film, Jim Alinder moved the exposure-counting window on the cmaera back from the 16-picture position and aligned it with the 12-per-roll series of numbers on the film’s paper backing.
Lili Lauritano cut away the plastic frame inside the camera to chieve a rectangular, rather than square, format. Carson Graves has taken this one step further by removing enough of the frame to allow the full cone of light passing through the len Ës to register horizontally on the film, creating extreme edge aberrations and extensive vignetting.
Even with these changes, it is the plastic lens itself which provides the primary aesthetic attraction of the Diana photograph, and despite other widely varying considerations, photographers are universally drawn to the optical qualities of the camera. Relatively sharp at the center of the field of view and becoming less sharp towards the edges of the frame, Diana photographs have a feeling of swirling motion around a central energy source. These pictures created through a plastic lens visually resemble, in part, the physical patterns of human vision. Our eyes focus on a relatively small area at any one instant and it is only by constant and rapid shifting of focus that the forms within an entire field of view are perceived. Artificial optical systems can only approximate this phenomenon. Images resulting from the “corrected” optics of refined lenses provide an illusion of a world we n Ëever see. The Diana lens, conversely, isolates a single “frame” of vision which occurs so quickly we are unaware of what is actually being seen. Trained to respond to the finely detailed images produced by traditional cameras, we often find the visual glimpse produced by the Diana to be incomplete and unnerving.
Questions of the photographic validity of one of these phenomena over the other, and of the merits of image sharpness in general, are hardly new to discussions of the medium. Sharpness is primarily an aspect of optics that has been assimilated as a concern of aesthetics. The degree of sharpness in any image is only one of many possibilities on a continuum which ranges from a totally incoherent blur to a clearly delineated representation. During the past 140 years photographers have designated different points along that continuum as prerequisite for successful photographs. Critics have adamantly attacked or defended those choices and succeeding photographers have either follow Ëed the conventions of the time or selected a new point on the continuum to express their photographic concerns.
Commercial portrait photographers in the late 19th century, for example, produced finely detailed likenesses of their sitters, capitalizing on photographic qualities the paintings which were their competition could not achieve. Their counterparts today use a softer, less crisp style. Many 19th century portraits made by well-known photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron relied on unsharp imagery while portraits made by serious photographers today are likely to be clearly defined.
Overall image sharpness is not, of course, the only factor which has determined changes in photographic aesthetics, but it has defined the predominant direction of 20th century photography. The move by Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand away from pictorial imagery during the second decade of the century, a position later solidified by Edward Weston and the members of the f/64 group, remains a maj Ëor aesthetic parameter in contemporary photography.
Even though the optical effect of the Diana lens is similar to that of the lenses used by pictorial photographers in the early part of the century, the interests of Diana photographers do not include a re-creation of that aesthetic. There is, in fact, an historical awareness of that movement expressed by many of the artists here and a conscious effort made to avoid pictoralist imagery and to produce photographs which are decidedly contemporary in their visualization. Diana photographers are motivated by the search for an alternative mode of expression, not the duplication of a style explored by a previous generation of photographers.
The unique and magical optical effect of the plastic lens fins expression in these photographs in two ways. The first is through a formalist concern in which the image is structured to accentuate the importance of objects toward the sharper, center portion of the frame or to contrast unsharp positive an
d sharper negative space. The secon
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