Today’s thoughts by Joe Farace
“I don’t have the words to describe it, but I know it when I see it.”—former Shutterbug Editor
This post was originally part of a column or article, I don’t remember which, and was written in 2001 when Shutterbug was a real magazine. Lonnie Long, one of my Instagram followers, recently asked what my favorite camera was. After some thought I couldn’t decide between my Contax G2 rangefinder or Contax Aria SLR film cameras. So I decided to dust off this piece for a weekend post.
That was a question I Asked (back in 2001)… when this was going to be an article/column tentatively titled “The Contax Effect.”
The first person I talked with was a former Shutterbug editor (quoted above,) who originally introduced me to Contax cameras. When I told him that I found using these cameras had improved my photography, he told me that other Contax photographers he knew discovered the same thing but they weren’t sure why.
So I asked a few others including a highly placed executive in one of the largest camera stores in the United States. He came into the retail world as a working professional photographer and I was surprised to learn that he was originally a Contax user. His theory about the so-called Contax Effect had to do with the aesthetics of the camera itself. People smile when they see “pretty things,” he told me. “When a person looks at the beautiful Porsche-designed shape of a Contax SLR. They just naturally smile and relax.
How I Made this Photo: I photographed Kim in the living room of my former home with a Contax 167 MT and Carl Zeiss f/2.8 Sonnar Lens using only window light. It was originally shot on I think, Kodak Plus-X black and while film, with an unrecorded exposure. The Kodak Photo CD scanned image was opened in iPhoto, transferred to Photoshop then slightly tweaked using Define and Vivenza before being toned in PhotoKit.
I then asked legendary camera repairman Vern Prime what he thought. While he agreed there was something to these theories, especially the “beautiful camera” idea, he suggested the camera’s fine construction and Zeiss lenses “bring out the best” in a photographer. He suggested that a camera built as extraordinarily well as Contax SLR and rangefinder cameras inspire a photographer to work harder to try and exploit the best these cameras have to offer and thus create more aesthetically pleasing images. Vern believed the right camera can improve both your photographic outlook and the images themselves. He cites the first Exacta camera that he owned; he was so impressed with the engineering and precision of that camera that he worked harder to make images worthy of it.
All of this speculation is just that—moot. There have been no Contax digital cameras since 2004’s bizarre Contax i4R point-and-shoot (at left,) but wouldn’t it be something if there were.
PS. I have recently been trying to catch some of that Contax Effect and recently purchased a Contax 167 MT to, you know, see what happens.
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