 Welcome to rational alchemy today. We're going to be talking about photography a rather special kind of photography I'm joined today in the studio by Bob Raczynski Bob. Welcome to the captain's lounge. Hi Nigel. Thank you for inviting me It's kind of interesting because you you you are doing something that not a lot of people probably would appreciate Why don't we talk a little bit about the concept that you came up with okay, and uh Show us some of your work. Okay. Great. Thanks. Well, this is my latest series And I've been working on it for a couple years started before covid hit the scene So I got this idea to make pictures of uh, ufo's And uh, I just thought it would be fun You know sort of a tribute or a tip of the hat to be movies from the 1950s Nice, uh, loved the old all the uh cold war Stuff going on the the 50s, you know all the fears and paranoia But there's a certain kitschness about it when you look when I look back on it So I thought it would be fun to just throw these ufo's Into the pictures Uh, I draw the ufo's by hand on a tablet then merge them Yeah, and with the photo and software and print them out Okay, so why don't we talk about the first one we have on display here Now, obviously you do all of the shall we call it background Aspect of the photograph, which is the main scene. Yeah, okay So everything we're looking at is a hundred percent your work. Oh, yeah, some are digital But some are also filmed. Well, most of the ufo pictures are filmed I did that for because I wanted the stuff to look like it was from the 50s, right And I couldn't understand that. Yeah, and I just couldn't get the look with digital This is I love this image. It's got a lot of gray tone nice tonality in it But it's still a little bit too clean Too smooth too refined And again, I like the idea of this imaginary person. Yep walking around with a camera And he likes to hike and then just walk around and occasionally he comes up Usually when he's setting up a scene that he likes and then oh my gosh Look what just flew into the frame click click and it's a selly Precept but you know, selly is good. No, I I like it. I really like it because I mean you you are keeping the conspiracy theorists going now You know, what's really interesting Nigel is I an article mine got published last May Highlighting some of the ufo pictures And I got a lot of hits From the uk I should be marketing these fine art prints to the uk. Yes Warminster, uh, which is in the south of england is our most famous UFO spotting place. Is that where the the the drawings on the The farm drawings the circle drawings the pub guys that we have a few and they go out and do Circles in the in the cornfields the thing that you have to understand about the uk is is it's a damn small country So everything's close together. Yeah, so it's very difficult now warminster's probably about 20 miles away from stonehenge To give you an idea. So yeah, but warminster's famous for its ufo sightings Of course, it's never been proven that there are actually Aliens Because people do tend to forget ufo an identified flying object. Yes, however I know if we move on to your next picture Just give you a little background on this. This was shot on film. Mm-hmm Uh, and it's a square negative. So I like the square format. It's my favorite format Okay, you're not committing to or to landscape or portrait, right horizontal or vertical is our generation Yeah used to specify So i'm out there and shooting this and I wanted a color shot So i've been playing around with 19th century color photography techniques. Ah Outcome the colored filters. Yeah, so I had a red filter a green filter and a blue filter And I shot each frame through the appropriate filter So I had all the color information stored monochrome and I was able to recombine that in photoshopping Bell the full color image Sad thing about it is it came out great, but it's a monochrome It's all blue It draws your eye to the center. Oh, thanks It really does. Thanks. This is called optic Because there's like oh, yes, the ufo is like I can see that I can see that yeah And people say well, what what is that and I say it's a beam. Well, what kind of beam? I don't know It's a beam. How would I know what kind of beam an extraterrestrial? Tell me no, they didn't tell me but this has been a very popular print. I've sold Uh, quite a few excellent excellent This is pandemic Ah, it's certainly a lot of panic in the air during the early days. Oh, yes of the showering in So I started thinking about ominous Things coming from the sky and covet, you know being an airborne virus spread through the air It seemed like well ufo's coveted from the air. So, um, it's kind of this innocent scene of a couple people fishing and uh, uh this ufo is just Strangely appears in the scene. What's it going to do? There's a certain bit of suspense. I think that picture I also like the way that you've designed the ufo in this one because it's it's it's It's not your standard. I particularly like I call that the crown. Oh, okay. It's kind of like a crown And actually that's a day for night picture that was shot in broad daylight loving cinema Yes, I've been wanting to do a lot of day for night shots And that was my first foray into it Yeah, I I often tell people it's far easier to take a bright photograph and make it dark than it ever is to take a dark Photograph and try and make it light. It's just one of the little tricks that we play. Yeah Definitely and of course if you see the old cowboy movies when you see them riding at night You know damn well, it's in the middle of the day Oh, yeah, well even in a lot of film noir movies, you know, there's day for night techniques Yes, and so let's move on a little bit. Yeah, sure. Okay Invasion of the body snatchers Yeah, uh, this is called the boulder county field. Most of these were shot in boulder county Oh, okay a few in jeff county and a few in larimer But colorado is such a great Fertile place to take these kinds of pictures especially You know being in longmont. Yes, because i'm on the edge of the prairie and on the edge of the mountains So there's a lot of geography to choose from as go east go west. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah The only thing we really don't have here is the ocean, but what made you decide to now go with three? I like three Okay, you know for when you go with even numbers. It looks a little too Uh contrived. I think you're always playing around with the expectation of symmetry Especially with depth, uh, not so much in this shot, but you know, you could have one flying saucer Really small. Yes, and then one a little bigger and then one a little bigger and that gives you nice spatial relationships And you can get a nice ground figure Right separation What's impressing me the most is the fact is the way that you have done the art of the euphos themselves Because if I tried to do that we would have a mess Well, I went to art school I actually went to art school. So this is my latest one and it's called midday abduction Or maybe it's daytime abduction. Anyway, I haven't issued this yet. These are all, uh, one of 25 locations, yeah Sign numbered and this is kind of a a test print an artist proof you might say But I really am interested now in having some form of encounter Yes And so here we have two people sitting on a park bench and the ufo is beaming them up or down or Doing something with their dna god only golden pons No, that was a pela crossing. Ah, okay. Yeah, I love pela crossing. Yes, great I love golden pons. I did too. My wife goes there and walks the dog just got every day. So yeah So, uh, yeah, that's the latest. So the one that's going to come after this is going to be my first alien Okay picture and i'm thinking of modeling the alien off of mark zekkerberg's face Because I don't think you'd be modeling an alien. I think you'd be reproducing an alien That's debatable But I like the hairdo, you know, yes Now it won't be so obvious where you know, I Might get in trouble right but certainly that's the inspiration Oh, I I don't think you possibly get in trouble unless you did something really crazy Because he's a public figure. Yes. He is a public figure and he's so yeah Right always I mean a number of times he's been in congress trying to explain what facebook's doing. Trust me. He is a public He is a public figure. Yes, or a disfigure. I don't know I don't really feel uh See what I like what I like about this and and you don't sort of notice it, but it's the it's the Like a shadow of of the UFO moving into position like it was very very fast Well motion is something that I am trying to convey in some of these edges And conveying motion in a still image is difficult. It depends. I mean it's easy to Take a picture of a plane in the contra a jet in the contra and you right you expect. Yes. Oh, yes, it's moving That's why there's a contra there Uh, but making a UFO look convincing. Yes It's it's a game of imagination. I really like that. Oh, thank you. That's beautiful. I like the bucolic setting You know, it's very bucolic and then there's this ominous. I like that tension. Yes So what I do is I shoot the backgrounds first. Yes And now I'm liking the background so much. I'm wondering if I need to put Like, you know, I love this for what it is It's probably hard to pick this up on camera, but that's a really windy day So that yeah, that's a tenacious tree. You know and you could say there is a UFO in that picture Unfortunately, it went behind. Yeah, I went behind the tree. I was yeah. Yeah. It was a little too late or too early So that that's been an issue coming up with these backgrounds that I love. This is the sugar refinery here in Longmont and I Rarely cheat but in this case I did remove The structures on top of the silos right, you know, because that makes sense And I do think I'll put UFOs in that that deserves one You know, yeah, see I'm I'm really appreciating looking at high quality prints Oh, thank you because I believe it's the only way to ever look at a good photograph well, I take a lot of pride in craftsmanship and I learned how to print Really young. I had this great instructor in Omaha, Nebraska and He offered these courses on Saturday afternoons Right and he taught me how to make a good print Well, Bob now that we've talked about your incredible artwork, why don't we talk a little bit about the equipment? Okay, that you actually use So you brought along three different cameras here. Yeah, so why don't you give us a brief overview? Okay. Well, this is digital That's film and this is film My latest acquisition. I think this is a 1989 Hasselblad And I like the camera because it gives me a nice big negative. Yes, so I can blow these things What size is the is the negle on that one? It takes 120 films six by six centimeters. It's about like that big Okay, and 35 millimeter is about like that big. Yeah, and this digital sensor is about Size of maybe see yes a couple maybe a thumbnail and a half right And that's probably the highest resolution But it's not all about resolution. No Not if well, I don't want to go down that road, but a lot of people confuse megapixels with uh quality Yes, and that that's the wrong way to look at it. Absolutely As I explained to people it's all at first off It's not what's behind the camera. It's what's in front of the camera And if you've got good glass That is going to do a lot To improve the quality of the image Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because that's really why I went to the Hasselblad. Oh, absolutely Most of these shot. This is a recent purchase And most of my square shots and I love that format were shot with a 60 year old roly cord camera It's very much like your ishika over there But it's got and it's not a roly flex. It's a roly cord. It's the economy version of roly flex So the lens it is not as good as this lens And I wanted something with a little bit better characteristics As far as contrast and sharpness, so I wanted to I wanted to Hasselblad for that reason Hasselblad is a is such a superb camera. It's fun to shoot with it As far as I'm aware, it's the only camera that's been to the moon Hasselblad I think you're on the on the Apollo missions. Yeah. Yeah, and they have I've reissued many commemorative cameras. Oh, yes Yes, uh, they're probably designing one right now for the the moon missions coming up. Yeah, and who knows 50 years from now, they'll have a Mars camera or maybe 20 years. I won't be around I'd like to be around but you're right But I've shot with just about every type of camera by the time I graduated high school I mean I I had shot four by five eight by 10 two and a quarter 35 Six by seven You know, I worked part-time jobs and everything went towards cameras right so see I I started off with a pentax When I was 14 given to me by my grandmother. Yeah Oh, I then went and worked in Norway Why Norway you ask it's a long story And I I spotted this Canon f1 sitting in a camera shop Mm-hmm So I ended up buying the the Canon f1 and and some of the accessories that go with it And I have never bought another manufacturer because I like what Canon does. Okay. So you're you're loyal to the brand. So they've earned your loyalty And ironically I'm not like that. I've had more makes of cars and there are hot dinners lined up at the Salvation Army um So I I do I am not a brand loyal person Interesting when it comes to my camera. That's why it's never let me down. Well, that's interesting because I'm totally agnostic when it comes to cameras Yeah, uh, just in the last 15 years. I think I've gone through Canon 5d. Mm-hmm, and then I replaced that with a Nikon Uh, I can't even D 800. I think it's a full frame 36 megapixel camera never liked the color out of that thing And then I went to sony's right and I've been with sony since oh gosh, maybe 2016. No 2012. Okay Yeah, I I don't know. It just works for me and I've corrected the lenses As as we are talking these old cameras. Yeah There's there's one thing that we you know these cameras. Yeah Require except the sony. What do you think those are? Well? Well That doesn't have autofocus Doesn't have auto exposure doesn't doesn't Don't these funny things have to they have something that sort of rolls up very tight film film and of course, um Light meter. That's a nice successor. It is a nice accessory. I mean actually to be fair. Yeah, even when using fully digital Light meter is good to have well. I use the histogram. Yes, which is A light meter. Yeah, of course. Do you have a light meter with you? Yes, I do and I just got this guy. I mean not many people know what these are. Yeah. Well, they read light This one will read flash So if you're using strobes in the studio and it'll also read reflective light nice So let me turn this on and I'll tell you what we'd be taking a picture at with iso 100 film At f 0.5 At 125th of a second. Well, that's not practical So we could go to a quarter of a second at f 11, right? Yeah There you go, but you know, I had a an instructor when I was in graduate school. I was taking a Cinema verite class You know taking films from life as as it happens. Yeah, and the instructor was fantastic Richard lee cock He was pretty well known documentary filmmaker Uh, and he would always tout that you don't need a light meter. There are only 12 basic Exposures And if you're shooting cine You know in the arctic Yeah, you know, especially black and white. Yeah, you're gonna have a lot of latitude But what I found is um, I wanted to be Really consistent You know, I can eyeball something and come within an f-stop of what the meter but that f-stop is significant. Oh, yes It could make or break a picture And and so that people understand this the f-stop is is how big the aperture is going to be Yes, and this controls your depth of field. Yeah, I you know, I've taught photography He's a teacher at a college down south and one of the things I would do to Introduce students to the concept of depth of field Is I would say hold a finger like your index finger about a foot from your eye And focus on the background You're in perfect focus, but my finger is blurry. Now if I make a little tiny hole Like that My finger is razor sharp and your face is razor sharp because I'm viewing the scene through a small hole a very small aperture Yeah, yes, so that is a good demonstration of that must have been your uh, your pinhole thumb Yes, I did a lot of work with pinhole cameras. I played with those as well. They are so much fun I love camera obscura pinhole cameras. Yeah, I've always loved photography ever since I was a little kid I don't know why I had a toy camera when I was like three or four Wow, you'd press the shutter and then you'd pull out like there's a there's a roll of paper in there and different drawings pictures I love that toy. Then I had a little projector for film strips. Yeah, I don't know how I remember those Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had a really Bright little projection book. I used to hold that thing and show the movie. So the project right onto my retina crazy I mean, I was always fascinated with the light. Yes And here's another kind of odd story the phenomenon of light There all the phenomena phenomena associated with light has always Just captured my imagination and interest as a little boy. I shared a bedroom with my brother and we had curtains And the street it wasn't real busy, but it was busy enough so that there was a stream of traffic And I'd look up at the ceiling and you could see projections Right fuzzy projections of the cars going in the opposite direction. Yeah, because you know optics flip and ever and that was sort of an awakening and I remember Lying in bed one morning. It was like seven o'clock and the cars are going by I said to my brother That's a green car that went down the street. That's a blue car. You want to bet? How much did you make? Uh, probably 10 cents. He was he was a welcher. Well, it's been really wonderful having you come into the studio Your work talk about your cameras Especially your art. I still love that. I still love that print. I think that's a beautiful print. Oh, thank you That was a show about photography. I hope you enjoyed it. Goodbye