That Swiveling Noblex 175
I will not deny the awesome capability of the modern digital camera. It can, within reason, do anything. But to me it fails in one (not to me) unexpected way.
You would never think of unscrewing a Phillips screw with a hammer or hammering a nail with the handle of a Phillips screw driver. Each tool has its principal use.
In the photographs that I took of Texas cowboys in 2011 that are here and in the panoramic photographs in this blog which I took on the way to Texas in our 2007 Chevrolet Malibu I think they are special because I used the right tool. It is a German-made Noblex 175. It has a swivel lens and the 120 film that I load it with will shoot a negative (or transparency) that is 2¼ by 7 inches.
In that trip I took the Noblex, two Nikon FM-2s, one Pentax MX, and one Mamiya RB-67 Pro-SD.
Picking up any of these cameras transported me (via a gentle suggestion by the camera in question) to do this but not that. And that but not this with another camera.
While it is possible to take b+w and colour pictures and, panoramics with my Fuji X-E1 and X-E3 (I did not own a digital camera then but did use my iPhone 3G with some interesting results) the variety of the photographs that I came back with could not have really been done with one camera. Switching cameras, not using zoom lenses, forced me to pause and think.
Perhaps that is what is wrong with many photographs taken in this century. There is no pause and think.
A pleasant failure with a Noblex
The Noblex in our former garden
On using varied equipment
What the Noblex 175 looks like
A Noblex Mashup
An aged Monument Valley
Shiprock New Mexico with a Noblex and aging process
Meteor Crater
Rebecca — Brice Canyon double exposure (accidental) with Great Salt Lake
Gran Canyon, North Rim
Grand Canyon
Meteor Crater
Shiprock, New Mexico
Shiprock, New Mexico
Top (I don’t remember), below near Spokane
Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon
Somewhere in Washington State
With Buddy Lytton in Sarita, Texas
Bryce Canyon
Near Gallup, New Mexico
Originally published at blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com.
