The Limbo Connection's photos with the keyword: hands

Fujifilm X-E1 with Fujinon 35mm f/1.4 lens.

Taken with a Fuji X-E1 and Fujinon 35mm f/1.4 lens.

The art of Stanley Spencer exhibited in Sandham Memorial Chapel at Burghclere, near Newbury, came to mind when I cropped a significantly larger picture of a charity car wash and revealed this detail.

This started from an advertisement for a beauty product called Proteinail which appeared during 1969. There may have been a colour version, but the one I saw was in black and white. I thought it would make a pretty picture if the model was repeated four times, like a tetraptych, so I found a way of doing that. I left it that way for several years. More recently, on a whim, I combined the still black and white tetraptych in a double exposure with a vivid colour close-up photograph of an old matchbox. It's not apparent in this depiction, but for information, the matchbox featured a cartoon-like painting of six dancing girls. It is very attractive on its own, just as the original Proteinail advertisement was. I think this is probably the culmination of the project, but you never can tell.

The corduroy bag is not original equipment. Nikon D3s + Nikkor 35-70mm f/2.8 AF lens at 70mm. 1/125th; f/4; ISO 900.

Nikon D90 + AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED lens at 105mm (157mm full frame equivalent).

Nikon D40 + Nikkor 18-70mm lens at 70mm (equivalent to a field of view of 105mm in a full frame camera). 400 ISO; f/5; 1/400th.

I bought this secondhand at perhaps a bit less than the going rate because of the damage to the filter mount. I have had worse: at least it remains possible to mount a filter or a screw-in hood to this one. This lens dates from the pre-AF era. It remained in production from 1970-2005 but was not made in the volume that its f/2.8 companion was produced. Opinions differ over which is the better lens. Professionals often went for the f/2 on account of its faster speed and good image quality at all apertures. It was of course more expensive. Amateurs could not set its purchase off against tax.

I bought this lens from a company specialising in secondhand photographic equipment of all brands. Shortly afterwards I saw and purchased an f/2 Nikkor-O.C 35mm from another company, and so I used the first lens only infrequently. Later still I entrusted it, along with a batch of other kit, to the company I had bought it from originally to sell on my behalf at their usual rate of commission. To my surprise, they said the lens was faulty; they could not offer it for sale; however to save return carriage costs they would add it to their 'recycling' box for disposal. As you can see, I paid for its return. It works very nicely despite dating from 1971.

I remember your hands, white and strangely cold. [Roger McGough: 'A lot of Water has Flown under your Bridge'] Nikon D2Xs and Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AI lens.

Nikon D700 + AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D lens.

Hands Across the Water, Hands Across the Sky. Weymouth harbour. Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro camera + Nikon DX AF-S Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED lens.

Canon EOS 30D + Chinon 55mm f/1.4 lens.

Photographed with a Canon EOS 40D + Canon 35-105mm f/3.5-4.5 EF lens. This is a very good lens, although sadly my copy is temperamental and won't function at all in manual focus mode. It has had a long and hard life, yet can still turn in a virtuoso performance. Sadly the number of missed opportunities, where it seizes up, have led to it being designated a paperweight.

Nikon D700 + Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 AI lens.

Manual dexterity extends also to photography. For this picture I used an Auto Chinon 55mm f/1.7 lens on a Canon EOS 30D camera. Focussing is via the twiddle method, and a bit hit-and-miss. Yet it feels as though I am more involved in the process of making a photographic record.