Meg. I would estimate I have some 10 thousand images of Meg. From 35mm to 8X10 cameras and all points in between.

This image is on 4X5 inch Polaroid Type 59ER (ER= Extended Range) material. The unique quality of the formed image is by way of the merger of an old dirt cheap Kodak Box Camera lens, and no shutter. The lenses diaphragm was also discarded. This type of optic is extremely basic and offers certain qualities of a 'soft focus' nature. I coupled this lens to the vary flexible Linhof Karden Bi view camera so that I could explore certain optical effects that the simple and anastigmat design offers. The Karden Bi is a bout as close to a working 'optical bench' that is a working view camera.

As you view the image look to the lower part of the image where the different cloths are arranged. This is where the disintegration of both color and image structure exist.

Taken from the 'classical' definition of what a model incorporates, we get the term 'Clothes Horse" from the world of fashion. Clothing on a mannequin is one thing, but not much better than seeing an article of clothing on a wire hanger. Clothes MUST be worn to have any true value as an art object. The body in wearing clothing activates and reveals the purpose that is the art of the clothing.

The still photograph can and should speak to the cloth and how it is articulated by the body. Using still photography we have the potential for what is known as the 'tableau vivant'.

In photography, the potential for the tableau vivant can be powerful. Applying a true optical representation of the optic disintegration of the 'poor' quality optic that renders in the style of the soft focus image we are allowed to activate and educate the viewer in realms that are quite radical.

Oh I most surely know that I am leading the viewer and reader into regions that are not known to most of the photographic audience. True optical soft focus photography is and can be quite mysterious. One is offered an alternative to the notion of clarity of the world of APO optics and the desire for clarity and sharpness. Many would think and speak of the pinhole image, but that is not the realm of soft focus images. In fact the world of pinhole images is quite in the opposite and wrong direction.

The world of soft focus images is the gate way to an area of images that is quite the opposite to pinhole images. Soft focus optics and image structure is found in a vary little know optical realm tat bears the name pin speck images.

If you want to find the only published article on pin speck images you will need to look in a past copy of the Journal Scientific American, the period is the 1970's and the article will be found in the section referred to as The Armature Scientist.

To answer the question, be assured, I never publish or post anything here that is a failed image. Focus and clarity is in photography (to quote an old position in the sciences) 'the hobgoblin of fools'.