TFP Communique: bringing puppies back to life.

Obsessions are a weird thing. I never know when or how I will get caught in their psychedelic net. They just seem to come- out of the bokeh of life- into one's mind in stunning sharpness and color, and just f*#ing sit there for as long as they want, and then kind of fade out. Bizarre.

I am currently obsessing myself with a new lens: Canon's wide prime superstar the 35mm f/1.4 L-series lens. It's one of Canon's exorbitantly priced, super heavy and massive 'Red Stripes'. It's most famed quality is that it produces the best 'bokeh' (something with an elusive, japanese name that photographers find infatuational) anyone has ever seen. Oooohhh.... There are whole blogs and online communities dedicated exclusively to this lens. The most common words affiliated with it are 'magical', 'shocking', 'close to heaven', 'this lens gives me the shivers', even 'I hate you' (from non-35L owner to 35L owner). Then I read the following which finally underscored the miracle that this lens is, achieving the pinnacle test all lens reach for, but few arrive at:

'This lens once brought a dead puppy back to life.'


(Gus, 2.0)

Once I knew of this lens, the thought of my old, distracting, hexagonal bokeh leaves me disgusted, not even wanting to get out of bed in the morning. What I once thought was acceptable contrast and skin tonality has all turned to flat, grotesque haze. Needless to say, I must own this lens. This is a problem for me, however, because I just sold everything I possible own simply to pay my rent this month. A have nothing left to exchange with the world for my very own, perfect bokeh, puppy-loving lens. I keep searching in my dreams for something to sell my partner won't kill me over, all in vain. And so, like Nietzsche, I proclaim my pain publicly to avenge myself on the limits of my circumstance.

So why 35mm?

Like many young photographers, I suppose, my first camera was a kick-down from pops. A pretty nice one, actually- it was an original 1970s black-bodied Nikon FE w/ two lens: 50mm f/1.something and a 35mm f/2. Looking through the camera, it was nothing special. The 50mm seemed boring to me- it just looked like what everything looks like. It was like WTF, I already see so what's the point?

Then I switched lenses.

The 35mm- bless it's little manual focus heart- was like peering through a beautiful window into a whole new world, with split-screen focusing. Looking through the viewfinder brought me into a place called Photoland, where the mundane became magnificent, subtle, and deeply meaningful. I felt inspired, thoughtful, provoked, courageous, and alive. I loved it, and never used the 50mm again (17 years running...). I ended up shooting with that FE and 35/2 all over the world- at least 9 countries I can think of off the top of my head- dropped it dead onto granite and concrete and mud several dozens of times, hauling it through the rain and snow with hefty amounts of lucious Velvia slide film and a hunger for the photo that would get me a job at National Geographic, or at least out of the house again.

Years later, I thought I'd bite the bullet and saved up for a Digital SLR. And since I was moving into the future and switching to the Dark-side (not digital, but Canon! aghast...), I ditched the 'old-school' prime and bought a 17-40L lens (my first 'Red Stripe') and began to shoot with that thing. But I was already loosing steam, and slowly gave up all together on photography. I needed space from my father- and those pursuits that had some intention of tying me to him; plus, I never could get that same feel w/ my high tech digi that my old Nikon gave me.

So photography slept inside me, restlessly, until my comrades in TFP got my juices for the framed light going again. And with a resurgence of curiosity and creativity has returned my desire for the 35mm prime. Actually, the wide prime in general- I'd love a 24mm, too. More, I'm just hungry to return to that magical, wider-than-life, fixed frame of tone, shape, and light that made the world- literally and imaginatively- come to life for me.

Now, if only I could get my hands on a bit of that puppy magic...