Simon Nathan,
pioneer in wide-field photography
With the interest shown the last two classes on panoramas, I offer Simon
Nathan. Lots of credits, but little known in galleries. Self-taught photographer. Dyslectic. Prolific writer on technique.
Early need for wide-field images derived from an association with The Flying Tigers. The desire to photograph airplanes, long and narrow. Cropping negatives, especially large format was a clumsy solution.
He experimented with several designs, and one
gained some recognition, the “Simon-Wide”, which took 2¼ x 7 inch images on 120 film. The
original was hand-made at Mamiya in Japan, and now resides at the George
Eastman House.
His design led to the
development of several now commercially available cameras by Linhof, Fuji,
Tomiyama and others.
His
most noted image was turned into a 1989 United Nations postage stamp. His most impressive work was a portfolio of German cities done in the
early 1960’s. He was negotiating with several German companies to
re-photograph those same scenes a third century later when he passed away in 2004. Now being 'curated', so no pics, unfortunately.)
Nathan
was probably best known for his column “Simon Says” in Modern Photography, and
a series of Fawcett books. One documented the unknown (at that time)
world of Soviet equipment, and a 35mm format panorama camera, FT-2, which took
24x110mm images.
In searching for more images, I came across another special-made Simon-Wide clone. This one made for photographer Michael Burrows.
And some wide-field images by .Burrows.
Bill Kraus, second try.
Barbara hands off.
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