Submitter's name:	Fernando Gonzalez Gentile
Title:	Wishing Machine.
Gear used:	OM-2 + 85~250 @ 120mm aprox., + tripod + T-32.
Diafragm:	f5
Shutter speed:	1/15
Film used:	Fuji Velvia 50 ASA.
Technical information:	I chose to use a long lens after much consideration. This structure has a heavy three dimensional character which would be impossible to capture with any lens so I decided to emphasize this by omission, compressing depth and shooting wide open. I also chose to use flash in manual mode, to crop the machine from the background and to emphasize its metal construction and synthetic painting. I also wanted the written words to be clearly visible.
Subject information:	I had seen this object a number of times before, near the entrance of one of the many buildings at the psychiatric hospital where I work. This was a building for female patients. Once, I stopped to observe it closely and to read what was written on it. I felt surprised when noticed I couldn't spell the name of her son. Moreover, the text characters were meant to be unreadable. An attempt to translate to English would say: "My son's name is xxxx" I promised myself to picture the object sometime, and began wondering how and why. Then came this TOPE theme. I arrived there with all my photographic paraphernalia on an unusually hot day. A crowd quickly surrounded me feeling curious about what was the chief psychiatrist doing. I shot several compositions, in the meanwhile the NiCds of the T-32 died and had to put the alcalines from the winder into the flash. At last I felt I had finished. Then, when the crowd began getting lost a middle aged women came and asked me what had I done. When answered, she told me she had made this metal sculpture herself shortly after being admitted to hospital as part of rehabilitation activities some five years before. She felt proud about knowing how to combine the different metal parts together and choosing colors. I told her this was the most interesting machine I had ever seen and asked why didn't she clearly write the name of her son. "He cannot have a name, he's the feeling of being pregnant and I never was, he's a wish, I wonder if you're able to understand".
Here you can leave some comments about this picture. Please fill out all the fields before submitting the form. Once you're done filling out the form, click the "Leave comments" button, after which you can see your comments down below.
Your name:
Your e-mail:
Comments:

Comment left by: Olaf Greve (no e-mail specified)

Well, some people say that there's only a very thin line between ingeniousness and insanity. Perhaps this machine might work after all. Excellent subject!

Comment left by: myself (no e-mail specified)

Hope it's only my monitor which shows green in blue. Example: x = 6cm, y = 22cm: R = 23, G = 12, B = 16. The original Velvia is quite accurate, belive me.

Comment left by: Brian Swale (**)

A nice photo of a monument to a poignant, tragic story. I hope she felt somehow mentally restored, having told her anguish in this way to the world. The lighting doesn't enable the camera to do justice to the subject. I think it really needs side lighting as well or instead of the frontal lighting - but for the sake of your medical reputation I guess you couldn't spend too much time on it. Brian

Comment left by: Fernando (no e-mail specified)

Thanks for your comments, Brian. I was in a rush really, must finish this work as quickly as possible. Agree that a right side lighting was necessary (not instead of...) but I only own one T32 :-) - and noone would be a trustful assistant there. I appreciate your advice, I rely on a reflective surface when three dimensional subjects are in front of my OM-2. But seems a little less necessary on the original Velvia since much more detail was captured on its right side. When I had this talk, she was quite well (I specially noticed this) but I had the chance to see her again a couple of weeks ago, her illness had relapsed and she could hardly talk nor recognized me. Kind regards, /F.

[Previous]

[Return to index]

[Next]