Category: History & travel

The world around us has dissolved into a milky haze, and we can barely see the ends of the wooden planks we're balancing along as we venture deeper into the plateau. The silence is deafening. Every now and then, a twisted branch emerges faintly from the whiteness, or a muffled splash breaks the stillness. The boardwalk ends, and despite my tall waterproof boots I can already feel that dry feet are becoming a fading memory. We're either sinking into the peat or pushing through stunted vegetation, which lovingly strokes us wherever it can reach—and with every affectionate caress soaks us a little more. Only a few patches of my body remain dry, beyond the reach of the little trees. It starts raining.

The rain drives away the fog, and we can finally see how far this patchwork of moorland stretches, interrupted only occasionally by a rock or some stubborn little tree. Waterproof Gore-Tex is completely fucking useless, and by now I couldn't care less. Water inside my boots, with more now pouring in from the tops of my trousers, is my old sworn enemy, so the north wind carries an uninterrupted torrent of Czech swear words off into the distance. Including, I suspect, several that have yet to be documented.

Indifference is liberating in the end, so off I go, path or no path, plank or no plank, fully appreciating the magnificent inhospitability of the fjell. I set up the Gibellini (which I have to anchor firmly and keep an eye on, since the bog is slowly eating away at my tripod legs) and realise that this intoxicating nothingness is beautiful to behold but rather difficult to photograph. Eventually I find a few stubborn birches standing alone against the local conditions, and grant them immortality on my negative. Back at the car, I pour roughly a saucepanful of sock-infused broth out of each boot, and we head back to fully appreciate such marvels of civilisation as a duvet and a hot shower.

Well then, off to the Giant Mountains! We choose a longer but correspondingly worse route across the desolate Aurlandsfjellet plateau. The scenic road crossing it is called Snøvegen, the Snow Road, and it lives up to its name by remaining impassable for most of the year. The beginning of the drive above the town is enough to give you a heart attack, because somebody apparently thought it would be a splendid idea to build an extremely popular viewpoint up there, complete with a tiny car park, a ridiculously narrow, winding mountain road, and an endless procession of tourist coaches trying to turn around in the resulting chaos. I give the viewpoint a murderous glare and happily surrender our parking space to the next vehicle in the never-ending queue behind us. Fortunately for us, this rather uninteresting stop is the most interesting stop for everyone else, so as cars and people rapidly disappear, rocks, lichens and… magical flying Christmas quadrupeds begin to multiply!

Climbing onto the plateau feels like entering another world. The weather up here is devastatingly hostile. That bog was paradise by comparison. It's raining (again? Still? I've lost track), the cold rapidly gnaws its way through every layer of clothing, and the wind is so powerful that it almost tears the car door off when I try to get out. Yet the more inhospitable the landscape becomes, the more its beauty grows—there's almost nothing here, and I wouldn't add so much as a single pebble. It's always pissed me off that I was born too late to explore our own world and too early to explore others. But here I feel as though I've finally had my chance—here I feel as though I'm standing among the icy furrows of Nippur Sulcus on Ganymede.

At the northernmost point of our journey, a hike is waiting to sink its teeth into us. They say that anyone who hasn't completed it has no right to call themselves a proper mountain hiker—the dreaded Besseggen ridge. We soak up the wisdom of those who have conquered it before us and anxiously watch the weather forecast change with alarming speed. Several things are conspiring against us at once, particularly the considerable distance, elevation gain, rain and wind. You can swear your way through the first two, but roughly halfway along the route there's a highly exposed ridge where you need all four limbs even in dry conditions, never mind on slippery rock. The final nail in the coffin is the ever-strengthening wind, so perhaps unnecessarily scared shitless, we throw in the towel. With tears welling up in my eyes, I bid farewell to my chance of becoming a genuine, bona fide mountain hiker and resign myself to remaining some sort of half-formed creature that merely gets about on foot. Time for Plan B.

• Distances feel completely different in Norway, and not just when travelling by car. A kilometre back in the Czech Republic is definitely not the same kilometre as one here. Trails tend to be extremely vertical, technically demanding and full of obstacles—whereas at home I can manage 20–25 kilometres in a day, here I'm happy with ten. Seriously.

The Besseggen ridge rises above Lake Gjende, and on the opposite side of the lake, within sight of it, stands its only slightly lower but considerably wilder little brother, Knutshøe. What an idiot, I hear you say. He won't attempt one ridge because of the weather, but he's willing to tackle an even rougher one practically next door? Put down your torch and pitchfork, dear reader. Knutshøe is indeed far less frequented and considerably more untamed, perhaps even more technically demanding, but it's also shorter and involves less elevation gain. The second half is then a pleasant stroll through the flat meanders of the glacial river Leirungsåe. And although the peaks are close enough that you could practically wave to someone on the other side, the weather can be entirely different. And thankfully, it is. Off we go.

We can see the exposed Besseggen getting its arse thoroughly kicked by wind and rain, but we have the advantage of being sheltered from the wind blowing off the lake for a good part of our ascent. Almost as though mocking its bigger brother across the water, our little ridge even treats us to the occasional patch of sunshine. But it won't be that easy, oh no… Just over a kilometre from the car park lies such an ugly, nasty, almost wicked—wicked, I tell you—a thoroughly unpleasant thing—a smooth diagonal rock face with no alternative route around it. We know about it in advance, but that doesn't make it any less of a bastard. There's very little to hold on to, and to get your feet properly braced against anything, you'd need legs like a daddy-long-legs in the loo. My feet keep slipping, my backpack is pulling me backwards, and it's best not to look behind me—directly beneath the rock face lies a very large and very deep nothing. Helping each other, we literally scrape our way up those few metres and give thanks for the dry rock—otherwise we'd have enjoyed a very short slide followed by a very long flight. One thing is clear: whatever lies ahead, turning back is no longer an option.

The views are magnificent. The closer we get to the summit, the more of the dark aquamarine lake reveals itself on one side, while on the other the occasional rays of sunlight illuminate the river's winding course. The mountain massif opposite is hidden in clouds, and our own summit is obscured by a false peak. The wind is beginning to give us a proper battering, but the walking is pleasant enough. We're only about a hundred metres from the top now. But it won't be that easy, oh no…

The terrain becomes more exposed and technically difficult, forcing us to use our hands as well. The gale chooses its moment, the path narrows, and directly ahead of me three sides out of four simply disappear into the unknown. My decisive moment has arrived. I'm so high up I can barely swallow, my backpack, camera and tripod are all trying to kill me, and I'm shuffling around a loose, rocky bend in a crouch. I climb the last few stone steps on my knees, the litany on my lips, surrounded by all those bloody lakes and rivers and fjords and waterfalls, everything so terribly tiny and so horribly far below. Shaking like a shitting dog, I somehow find myself at the top, on a wonderfully wide little path. The ridge opposite is now visible in all its glory, and if you strain your eyes you can make out tiny ants scrambling up its slopes. On the other side, the meanders of the Leirungsåe form a delta as the river flows into another lake, Øvre Leirungen. It seems that Skaði herself has finally deemed our mountain endeavours sufficiently satisfactory, for the sun is breaking through the dark clouds and a rainbow arches over the whole scene. Like something out of a ridiculously kitschy greeting card. Perhaps Heimdall has allowed us a brief glimpse of Bifröst, the mythical bridge leading to Ásgarðr. I appreciate the opportunity to climb somewhere else, but thanks. Not today. Downhill only.

Back Towards Midday

Tilbake mot middagssolen

Our journey turns back towards the south, where the Ouroboros will finally get to bite its own tail. But which way? Nobody seems to recommend anything other than the eastern route, past the capital, Oslo. But hang on—what about cutting straight through the middle, across the interior? There must be something there. It's almost as if somebody is keeping a secret from us! You're not fooling me—I stab a finger at the town of Rjukan on the map. There's bound to be something there.

Well, fuck me, there certainly is. When Nazi Germany carried out its Weser Exercise in 1940 and occupied Denmark and Norway, its principal aims were to secure access to Swedish iron ore, control the Norwegian coastline and its naval and air bases, and prevent the Allies from occupying strategic ports. But it also got its hands on something that would soon play an extraordinary part in history: the Norsk Hydro plant at Vemork, which produced precious heavy water. This very plant was to become the setting for one of the most famous acts of sabotage of the Second World War, Operation Gunnerside.

• Water again! But this time it's heavy water, D₂O. The factory produced hydrogen for artificial fertilisers by electrolysis, a process that naturally concentrated rare deuterium oxide in the remaining water. And thanks to their hydroelectric power station, the Norwegians had such an enormous surplus of energy that they decided to go to extraordinary lengths to extract the stuff. Probably out of boredom. They were virtually the only ones in the world producing it, and nobody really knew what it was good for. People drank it, rubbed it on their cheeks, experimented with slowing tumour growth, but nothing much came of it—until the world discovered nuclear fission and realised that heavy water could be used effectively as a neutron moderator in nuclear reactors. And so began the race to build an atomic bomb. The eyes of the world turned to Rjukan.

The Germans wasted no time producing the stuff, while the Allies struggled to put Vemork out of action—until a handful of Norwegian alpha males on skis came along. They dropped from the heavens, scrambled up a steep winter gorge to the power station (so inaccessible that the Germans had left it unguarded, having concluded that nobody could possibly get through that way), planted explosives, blew up the equipment along with the entire stock of heavy water and, without a single casualty on either side, vanished like phantoms in the snow. Production was eventually restored, but after an American bombing raid, the Germans decided to call it a day and attempted to transport barrels of D₂O aboard the ferry Hydro. The ghosts in woolly jumpers struck again, however, planting explosives in the hold and sending the vessel and its precious cargo (and this time, sadly, civilians too) to the bottom of Lake Tinnsjå.

Before leaving, we also admire Rjukan's solar mirrors. The town has a rather complicated relationship with the sun—it huddles in a valley so deep that from autumn until spring, direct sunlight never reaches it. The idea of installing enormous mirrors on the surrounding slopes to reflect sunlight down into the town dates all the way back to 1913. The technology of the day wasn't quite up to such shenanigans, so instead they built a cable car to take the inhabitants up the mountain to the sunshine. Only a century later was the original idea finally realised—three computer-controlled mirrors now track the sun and reflect its rays onto a small patch of the town square, while the rest of Rjukan remains in shadow. So the Norwegians first built a cable car to bring people to the sun, and then mirrors to bring the sun to the people. Well, why not.

The trees begin to return, and in places the landscape starts to look a little like home. We swim in a lake, pass an enormous meteorite crater, visit some unique and extraordinarily beautiful stave churches, and discover a graveyard of beetles. Volkswagen Beetles. They have racing numbers, covered-up headlights, roll cages and all sorts of modifications for bilcross, the Norwegian equivalent of the Finnish jokamiehenluokka—rough-and-ready, low-budget motor racing. I'm immediately overcome by nostalgia for Herbie from Herbie: Fully Loaded. After all those kilometres travelling with my antique photographic junk, I've finally stumbled upon another collection of machines whose owners apparently didn't consider technological progress an essential part of life either. I cue up Jump by Van Halen in my head, photograph old things with old things, and wave them a grateful goodbye.

It's a beautiful, warm, colourful, sunlit evening. We walk along the coast, hopping over cracks in the smooth, polished rocks, slowly approaching Ansteins Lighthouse. The sky glows with every colour of the fading day, and I take my final photograph. Such a tiny little lighthouse, such a modest ending to such a magnificent journey. Beams sweep across the horizon, and the sky paints in just one colour now—the colour of night. Before we've even had a chance to take it all in, we're suddenly crossing the border back into the Czech Republic. In the distance, the other Giant Mountains rise before us.

• Mental preparation—you'll become a grandmaster of combinatorics. You'll constantly be trying to solve the problem of insufficient space. Or you'll forget something and have to improvise on the spot, because the shot won't wait. Am I seriously going to tackle those wet chains with all this gear? And should I photograph this now, or will there be a better composition later? I've only got four shots, forfuckssake²!
• Physical conditioning—my head already has enough weight to carry, now it's my spine's turn. Can I conquer that wet, windswept ridge with this infernal contraption on my back, while the tripod strapped to it tries to drag me backwards? I'm scared of heights, forfuckssake³! A whole day through difficult terrain in this bloody weather? And why am I sinking into the bog with peat up to my ears? Right. I weigh considerably more than usual.
• Reassuring my girlfriend. An important part.
  – “It'll be a piece of cake. I managed that little hill to the castle last weekend, didn't I?”
  – “At most, you'll have to carry some glucose tablets for me. Everything else will fit in my bag.”
  – “Obviously I won't hold us up taking photographs.”
  – “There aren't any bears around here.”
  – “All good things must come to an end. Leave me here, but at least take my negatives and develop them, so the world won't forget me.” (Proved ineffective—do not use.)

It's quite a lot, I dare say. And now add food, water, cooking equipment, clothes, and all the other (non)essentials for a full day's trekking. During a Norwegian summer, even while the Czech summer is scorching hot, you may quite commonly encounter snow. And temperatures barely above freezing. And it pisses down constantly. Not in a gentle, garden-watering sort of way, but violently and horizontally, thanks to the fierce winds. Or relentlessly, in fine, needle-like droplets that somehow penetrate materials considered completely waterproof back home. Water flows and falls from every (un)imaginable direction and makes confetti out of Gore-Tex. So don't even think about stepping outside without clothes for all four seasons, which can quite happily take turns several times in a single day. It's quite a lot, I dare say.

But enough scaremongering and self-pity about how terribly difficult I had it. We're approaching the Skagerrak Strait.

Towards Midnight

Mot midnatt

Much like Jonah, we're swallowed into the belly of a ferry (getting in and out of this metal fish turns out to be considerably easier than getting in and out of a shopping-centre car park), and several hours later we're unceremoniously spat back out onto the shores of the Kingdom of Norway, in Kristiansand.

• Until now, I'd been a complete ferry virgin, so perhaps my two most important observations will come in handy: the cars stay downstairs, you stay upstairs. If you're hoping to nip back to your car for a bite to eat during the crossing, tough luck. Either starve now or starve later, having spent your entire life savings on a Scandinavian snack aboard the ship. I choose to starve now and decide to nourish my body with some Danish caffeine instead. I'll take my coffee up on deck, enjoy a little sunshine, and everything will be lovely. No, thank you, I won't need a lid for the cup. I'm only carrying it a short distance.

The Water’s Embrace

Vannets favn

We choose a more than worthy substitute for the stone tongue—the Folgefonna glacier. It's enormous (well… it used to be even more enormous…) and is divided into three main sections—Nordre (northern), Midtre (central), and Søndre (southern). Our destination is the glacier tongue descending from the last of these—Buarbreen. The trail is all smooth rock and chains, which for a beefy Norwegian carrying equipment that probably weighs about as much as my shutter is a pleasant after-lunch stroll, but I'm fighting for my very survival. I need both hands for the rocks and ropes, so I move the tripod around to the back of my backpack, from where it spends the entire time trying to move me backwards onto my own back. Nevertheless, thanks to my iron will and body of steel, I soon get used to it and start scampering about like a mink.

We wake to a gloomy morning, and while Prague, at 38 °C, resembles Arrakis, it's decidedly chilly here, and what comes to mind instead is a certain scene from Forrest Gump. Taking full advantage of the sort of weather that would send any sensible tourist running for cover, we set off towards one of Norway's most visited natural wonders, a series of waterfalls surrounding the Måbødalen gorge.

The main walking trails run above the gorge (including a Y-shaped footbridge connecting two cliffs carved out by the raging river), allowing us to admire the spectacular scenery from almost a bird's-eye view. For much of the walk, we have to imagine the most breathtaking views, concealed as they are behind a curtain of mist, but even so, it's an extraordinarily powerful example of those moments when a person feels very small. The misty veils occasionally part, and through the ragged gaps emerge the vague outlines of a deserted footbridge, far, far below. It seems that this bridge might—though nobody knows whether or how—lead towards the great attraction we've been walking above all this time without ever properly seeing it. The Vøringsfossen waterfall.

To the final part, this way.

• Camera obscura—a dark chamber. It consists of a hole in a wall or in a box and that's it. Light passes through a small opening inside and an inverted image of the outside world appears on the opposite wall. No magic, no electricity, just a bit of darkness. The principle has been known for millennia; later simple lenses were added and eventually photographic material. It is the foundation of all photography, and modern cameras are just slightly more sophisticated boxes. Anyone can make a pinhole camera from anything, from a matchbox to an entire room. Or cut one out of a magazine. Or buy a nice wooden one made by Czech hands.
• Camera lucida—a "light chamber," a gadget for draftsmen. A glass prism or mirror projected the subject in front of the artist's eyes, and he could see both the model and his drawing at the same time. The subject was easier to trace, and he could pretend to be an artistic genius. Then all that remained was to enjoy countless exposed ankles and bulging corsets of enchanted ladies. The device was constructed by the Renaissance-minded William Hyde Wollaston. He also created the first landscape lens, Wollaston—in 1804, more than twenty years before photography. You can still buy a reproduction today.
• Laterna magica, or magic lantern, or skioptikon, or the great-grandfather of the projector. Inside was a candle, in front lens and a transparent image. The image was enlarged and projected onto a wall, and in the 17th century people would go hysterical over it. For greater effect, smoke was sometimes used during projection—at that point the entertainer was also playing with the Inquisition. A similar shock was probably only experienced later when a silent train by the Lumière brothers came rushing at them.

That great, enormous leap, then, was not in the invention of the lens or the camera; it lay in the fact that someone finally appeared who didn't let the image disappear.

I. Limits of the time

Until recently, the first surviving original photograph in history was considered to be View from the Window at Le Gras by Nicéphore Niépce from 1826–1827. Recently it was beaten by a year by Boy with a Horse (1825), and then there is also Still Life of a Set Table (1823–1825). But there's a bit of boeuf bourguignon in that.

• The Still life of a set table would be considered the first known photograph (heliograph), if the original hadn't somehow gone missing. The current form is a 19th-century reproduction.
• The horseboy image is again an imprint of an older engraving. It is the first image created by photochemical means, but it is not a capture of reality nor an image from a camera. The first Xerox. Proof that light itself can draw an image.
• The roofs of Le Gras are thus, in the judgment of my highly esteemed authority on world photography, the first true surviving photograph. The image was created by an eight-hour exposure on a pewter plate coated with an asphalt mixture. Today you commonly have 1/8000s on your camera. That's more than 230 million times faster. And without asphalt.

As you can see, the first photographs looked similar to the first digital photographs. Man is driven by the desire for improvement, so it stands to reason that the dawn of the photographic craft was generally devoted to achieving perfection—this fit into the emerging era of realism and the effort for a faithful imprint of the world, for accuracy and objectivity. The stumbling block was the insufficient maturity of the technology of the time. The first achromatic designs were very simple little lenses suffering from all possible optical errors. Lens speed was more like lens slowness (at best ~f15) and sharpness wasn't exactly present either. Pictorialism was still far away, but already now photography was somehow blurrier—not intentionally and beautifully, but accidentally and ugly. Realism was still more in the heart and mind, certainly not in the result. Photography softened as soon as it was born.

The heads of physicists therefore tried to crack the three most uncrackable nuts of the newly born photography: lens aperture, sharpness, and the largest and flattest possible coverage—and how to combine and improve all of it. It didn't take long before the work succeeded.

II. Triumph of perfection

There's probably no need to introduce Joseph Petzval—he created in 1840 the first mathematically calculated lens in the world, the Petzval. It was a revolution in optics, sharpness and speed, which at f3.6 was something unseen until then. However, somewhat unjustly, an earlier giant is a bit forgotten, who just before Petzval significantly advanced usability and photography as a field—Charles Louis Chevalier.

Charles Chevalier was playing with glass even before photography was discovered, and titans such as Niépce, Daguerre, Talbot, or Bayard worked with his lenses. Like others, he started simply and reached more complex designs with better optical properties in the same year as Petzval. For the French academic society SEIN he presented his magnum opus, the double achromatic Verres Combines. It allowed changing focal lengths by swapping parts of the lens, and the speed improved by several orders of magnitude to f5. Its versatility and elegance impressed the jury so much that Chevalier dominated the competition and won the contest with a Médaille d'Or.

• Verres Combines was one of the first truly practical photographic lenses. Compared to his colleague, it was less sharp but more uniform across the field and more refined in rendering. Thanks to modularity, it could serve as both a landscape and portrait lens—basically the first zoom.
• The Médaille d'Or was the highest industrial award granted by French scientific and industrial commissions, which often rewarded unconventional approaches and progress.
• In early evaluations by the Société d'Encouragement, Chevalier's optics were often considered technically superior to Petzval's design; however, the latter, thanks to extreme speed and better sharpness (albeit mostly away from the edges), ultimately dominated practice and the market. Chevalier won the medal, Petzval won history.

One last major flaw remained to be cured—a flat field of view—and that took a long time to treat.

• Lenses corrected for a flat field bend the plane of focus less, and it has a smaller tendency to curve toward the edges—the entire image is sharp and rendered within a single plane. They are very suitable for photographing multiple subjects at once and are essential, for example, in technical and reproduction photography.
• Designs with a curved field typically let the center stand out—the farther from it, the steeper the falloff in sharpness and the harder it is to bring the edges into focus, even with stopping down. This behavior is typical for Petzval lenses and old meniscus optics. They are particularly suited for characterful portrait photography or more artistic genres, where achieving the most faithful reproduction of reality is not necessary. Once upon a time this was considered undesirable—today it is exactly what people want.

Progress came in 1866, when Dallmeyer, in parallel with the German Steinheil, introduced to the world the Rectilinear/Rapid Rectilinear, also known as the Aplanat. A number of problems (spherical aberration, coma, distortion, size, weight) were practically solved, while others (astigmatism, field curvature, speed) not so much. The real breakthrough came with Dr. Rudolph, who in 1890 pulled the Anastigmat out of his pocket, and with the Protar (and later the Dagor), everything advanced (I know, I promised not to be dull, so if someone wants to dig deeper into this, let someone else bore you). True reproduction lenses came much later, but already now photographers could break the chains of creative limitation and, through the ground glass, see the ideal sought for over half a century.

The journey, however, is often the destination, and after reaching it, many realize that they have long since outgrown the milestone they had achieved, and it no longer fulfills them.

III. The aesthetics of error

Photography first could not be impeccable. Then it learned to be flawless. And then it decided it doesn't always want to be perfect. Soft photography did not arise in a single moment, but through an organic and gradual friction of at least three forces:

• A new fashionable era—pictorialism is a photographic style heavily inspired by painters, especially Impressionism, Symbolism and Tonalism. I don't want to copy an encyclopedia here, but for the idea: photographs are often (not always!) characterized by a flowing, blurred, dreamlike appearance. They evoke imagination, pensiveness, melancholy, atmosphere and the spirit of the good old days (which of course will never return). Many other approaches strive for the most accurate depiction of reality and claim "this is how it is." Here the center is mood and state of mind—"this is how I feel." The image becomes a carrier of state, light, and experience.
• Rebellion of artists—when something becomes too popular, a countercurrent appears of people who stubbornly and viciously howl in favor of opposition. Reminds me of someone. Once photography could mercilessly reproduce every grain of reality, part of the authors rejected the role of a mechanical recorder and began searching instead for emotion, expression and intentional difference. Only once photography could be faithful could it afford to be deceptive.
• A byproduct—what was originally a consequence of technical limitations gradually transformed into a consciously sought expressive tool. (Im)perfection transmuted into a new aesthetic ideology. Or, in other words, how to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

IV. The problem of two kinds

Flaws, in the name of beauty, began to be refined and cultivated. But similarly to Homo sapiens vs. Homo neanderthalensis, one path, although not worse, turned out to be a dead end. Everyone gets their turn, and the French drew the shorter straw. Any resemblance of the French to Neanderthals is purely coincidental.

Since I am about as much an optician as a Pole is a highlander, I'll try to explain this as simply as it once had to be explained to me: there were two kinds of softness—chromatic and spherical. Let's take chromatic first: light is a dumbass. It isn't just white, it's made of different colors, you just don't always see it. Take a look at the cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. Each color bends differently—red goes one way, blue focuses somewhere else, green decides to sit in between. Instead of meeting in one place, the colors gather like folks going for beer. Each ends up in a different pub, and the image is blurry as if they'd already come out. In color photography it's ugly—it creates colored fringes, nobody wants that. In black and white it's not ugly, but nobody wants it either.

The French pilgrimage of chromaticity

Soft-focus lenses intentionally based on chromatic aberration were few, scarce and rare. Most disappeared with the arrival of color photography, because that colorful mess on the edges was apparently not desirable. And just like then, today they are, as they say in Afrikaans, So skaars soos hoendertande—rare as hen's teeth. The people of the Gallic rooster always went their own way, so most of these had no lineage somewhere else. If you want to play with chromatic softness, look for Berthiot Color, Boyer Opale or Puyo/Pulligny. Good luck.

The most famous of them was the Objectif Anachromatique d'Artiste by the duo Puyo/Pulligny. The history of this brassy tube is exceptionally tangled—I'll try to shed light on it in another article. Behind it stood the hardcorely soft-minded Commandant Puyo, who really wanted it. So he teamed up with optical nerd Jean Pulligny who designed it, and then they turned to Alphonse Darlot who built it. Production later expanded and various offshoots appeared—M.G.O. (Manufacture Générale d'Optique), Derogy, Gaumont, Turillon & Morin etc. They usually had a correction scale for focus shift and were modular—the front element used a bayonet instead of a thread, allowing easy swapping of focal lengths. The lens thus resembled so-called casket sets or early zooms. Finding one is not easy. Finding one complete with all focal lengths is not easy. If you speak a language where nothing is pronounced as written, go read more here. Hon hon Gaston, omelette du fromage.

Either way, one path, though not worse, proved to be a dead end. Chromatic error died, spherical fault took the throne. The aberration is dead—long live the aberration.

The Anglo-American path of sphericity

This train was started by Dallmeyer with his innovative Patent Portrait series. He took the original Petzval, shuffled the rear elements a bit, tweaked it and voilà—by rotating the rear element, one could now control spherical aberration and thus soft focus. It wasn't the main purpose, more of a bonus, but it didn't matter. The foundation stone was laid and chaos ensued.

Gradually, more types, variations, copies, improvements and fixes appeared—the Earth spun and lenses spun. Women, children, everyone frantically twisting rear elements and reality went soft. And once again it was Dallmeyer who, toward the end of the century, stoked into the locomotive's boiler. The Dallmeyer Bergheim saw the light of day. John Simeon Bergheim, a mining engineer, painter and photographer, was the impulse behind the first lens in history deliberately designed for pictorialism. A visionary whose work became a bridge between two originally opposed crafts—the brotherhood of the brush shook hands with the guild of the bellows. Ideas merged and love reigned. History nearly forgot him, but that doesn't change the fact that the name Bergheim will not be erased from books nor scraped off lenses. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't mean to offend, but how many of us can say the same?

The lens itself is extraordinarily peculiar. It achieved its desired look through the cooperation of both defects—chromatic and spherical—and most models had variable and very long focal lengths. It was also a telephoto design, so focusing did not require such a long bellows. Given the extreme focal lengths, that was quite useful. It suffers from focus shift, aperture changes with focal length, the aperture scale isn't standard, focusing is extremely difficult… The interplay of all this makes it the most complicated lens I've encountered so far—before I took my first photo with it, I managed to get soaked, dry off, and get soaked again.

Non-epilogue

The past of artistic photography reminds me of Hegel's dialectical system—history sometimes moves forward only through the clash of opposites.

• Thesis—dreams of flawless photography. It must be perfect. Forward!
• Antithesis—a split and apparent retreat. Perfection is suddenly sought in imperfection.
• Synthesis—the realization that the ideal is achievable, but not always desirable. It is a matter of choice and sometimes coexistence.

Like many other movements, even this one experienced rise, peak and fall. Its popularity soared, until dreamy ornamentation was brutally cut short by the harsh reality of World War I. Afterward, photographic impressionism sang its swan song, but briefly. So perhaps it would be fitting to carve an epitaph on the tombstone of pictorial photography and finally ask, when soft photography died:

Act I—Cities

ΠΡΑΞΗ Ι—ΠΟΛΕΙΣ

Athens, an eclectic city full of contrasts and opposing scenes. A mix of ancient columns, cats, coffee, heat, majestic monuments and a sweetish stench. Under the Acropolis, I sit on the steps between the ever-blooming bougainvilleas with a cup of Turkish coffee (sorry, Greek coffee!!), while cats lazily lounge around, and from the balconies above, old men rustle their newspapers with their typical Greek breakfast—coffee and cigarettes. Or just cigarettes. The peaceful morning atmosphere is punctuated by a crew of workers with a jackhammer, seemingly determined either to piss me off or to dig out a new archaeological site.

In just an hour's walk, I can pass through several dramatically different spheres—from the ancient hilltop, I descend into the marble-white terraces of Plaka, only to continue into the modern banking district that seamlessly blends into areas riddled with open sewers, trash, and hepatitis. From the place where civilization was invented, you can find yourself, just a few steps later, in a hole that makes you wonder if they might've invented it but also forgot about it. Oh well, I think of Prague's Florenc, tighten the strap on my camera, and zigzag onward.

For the photography-inclined, here's a tip - someone has probably already told you that it's hot in Athens, but also keep in mind that this metropolis is mostly cloudless. This, along with the harsh light and brutal contrast, isn't always ideal and requires some preparation. Especially when it comes to careful metering and choosing the right film - assuming you haven't yet strayed onto the digital path.

• And perhaps one more personal, bonus notice—occasionally, the wind in the city can kick in unexpectedly strong and out of nowhere. I can confirm this precisely from my experience at the Acropolis while photographing Athena's olive tree, where I found myself chasing, bent over, after my new, original, expensive, and now airborne SL66 polarizer—at that moment more aptly named "get back here, you round bastard." The guards were momentarily baffled, thinking I was some sort of chicken-performance artist—but fortunately, I caught it before it rolled down into Plaka and the security guards brought out their batons. The filter disintegrated into atoms during its tour, but I have to say, I reassembled it, and there's not a single scratch on it. Thanks, Athena.

The second city of the trip, Nafplio, couldn't be more different from Athens. This Peloponnesian port city, which was briefly even the capital, has a history of falling under various rulers—from Crusaders, Greeks, Italians, to Ottomans—and it shows. Subjectively, the Venetians left the biggest mark here, with several fortresses and even a water castle in the bay—Bourtzi—remaining from their time. Perhaps thanks to them, the city exudes a peaceful, romantic atmosphere where there's plenty of time for everything, and the only rush you'll find is for coffee or a bite to eat.

Act II—Mountains

ΠΡΑΞΗ II—ΒΟΥΝΑ

Cats and jackhammers were plenty, so now we're torturing our Fiat as we wind our way upwards ("upwards." It feels like the car has about half a cylinder, and if we slowed down even slightly, we'd be going backward). But we're not heading for the overhyped Olympus and the mythical Mytikas, rather to the Vikos-Aoös National Park, lined with a series of scattered mountain villages boasting a population density of about -1 person per km². The archipelago of slate-roofed hamlets, collectively known as Zagorochoria, feels like someone was trying to abandon them but changed their mind at the last minute. These villages hug the monumental Vikos Gorge, which splits the entire area in half, creating a remote and unique part of the world where they could easily have filmed The Lord of the Rings and where both time and Wi-Fi have come to a halt.

From our stone cottage, shaded by a massive tree [you'll find one of these along with a little café (kafenio) in the center of every village square (plateia)!], we weave our way through polished stone alleyways. The streets here are so narrow and winding that a car stands no chance and has to stay outside the village. Not a soul in sight. Human, that is—there's no shortage of cows and cats.

• Compared to other countries, there aren't many dogs around, and the few you do see are lazy ones lounging in the shade. You'll get a wag of the tail, a lazy head turn, and maybe even a token bark, just for formality's sake. Cows are much more likely to cross your path, and naturally, the narrower the path, the higher the chances. And if there's no way around them, an encounter with a cow becomes almost a certainty. This certainty befell us too, and being raised on the Czech children's song Cows, cows, how do you talk?, I tried out 'Moo moo mooo,' but apparently, she didn't moo Czech. After a bit of gesturing to assure her I came in peace and just needed to pass, she concluded that I was an ox and stepped aside to greener grass.

The surrounding ravines are connected by old stone bridges with a unique architecture, and that's exactly our goal. The steep descent takes a good toll on us, but the bizarre beauty of the arched bridges heals us in no time—my black-and-white heart sings, and the film rolls fly. Some of the bridges arch over rivers and streams at considerable heights, which, combined with the lack of railings, alternates between tightening and loosening your nerves, but we make it without incident.

• That is, if we're not counting my bruised ego. On the way down, looking just about ready for a defibrillator, we're passed by an ancient grandpa who could easily be mistaken for an olive tree, trekking around here for four days straight as he said. We chat, he smiles, not a drop of sweat on him, and keeps marching up toward the summit. I continue my descent… into the depths of my own shame.

Act III—holy places

ΠΡΑΞΗ III—ΙΕΡΟΙ ΤΟΠΟΙ

We're swapping one rugged terrain for another as we head to our final Greek destination—the "sacred, immutable, and untouchable" monasteries of Meteora. Imagine the floating mountains from Avatar, but instead of blue Smurfs in loincloths, they're inhabited by Orthodox Gargamels in black robes who somehow managed to build monasteries on their peaks. I won't torment the kind reader with too many facts and history, but here are a few bits. Monks started coming here to pray in the 11th century, and by the 14th century, someone got the bright idea to build monasteries in the least practical place possible. There used to be 24—only six remain. How many monks remained after the construction phase is something they wisely didn't mention in their safety records.

• Great Meteoron (Megalo Meteoro)—the "Great Floating One." Also known as the Monastery of the Transfiguration of Jesus. It's the oldest, largest, and most famous, and its name gave the area its name. Naturally, it's also crawling with megalo tourists, enough to make you want to transfigurate right out of there.
• Varlaam—the Monastery of All Saints. The second oldest and largest.
• Agios Stefanos—a women's monastery. The only one connected by a road, making it the easiest to reach. And because of this, it's also packed to the rafters - like everywhere else, really.
• The Holy Trinity—along with Agios Stefanos, it's the most distant from the remaining five.
• Agios Nikolaos Anapafsa—the first you'll usually encounter on the way from civilization.
• Rousanos—another women's monastery, one of the smallest alongside the previous one.
• A little off the main path and the most distant of the usual six is Ypapantis—uniquely, it doesn't sit atop a conglomerate rock but is nestled into a cliffside in the woods. It's uninhabited and used only occasionally for prayers. It's one of the best-preserved unused monasteries, accessible via a lovely path where you're unlikely to encounter a soul.

Nearly every monastery is reached by a challenging path typically involving loads (yes, loads) of stairs, none of which are the moving kind. Some have cable lifts with hand-cranked pulleys, but unless you're an abbot or a crate of altar wine, don't get your hopes up. If, like us, you decide to walk it all by foot, the undulating landscape will have your terrain profile looking suspiciously like a stormy sea. I probably don't need to tell those outdoorsy types that starting out at dawn and covering a good chunk of the trail before opening time is a great feeling. And when you pass the barely awake tourists rolling out of the buses, you also get this rather pleasant feeling of superiority.

• If you time it right for Easter and are lucky like we were, you might even get a hard-boiled, painted egg from the monastery for the road! :)

The trails and paths we took were full of scenic, hidden gems that the average visitor wouldn't see - which is awesome. That said, not every trail or path actually leads somewhere—which is not awesome. The most blatant example was when, already well-roasted by the sun, we came up to a firmly locked gate blocking us from reaching the monastery goal just a few dozen meters away. After muttering some words my mother would have washed out of my mouth with soap, I narrowed the options down to four:

• Throw ourselves into the steep ravine on the left.
• Head back a few kilometers.
• Bust through the gate, wrestle a few guard dogs and the guard.
• Push through the unfriendly-looking bushes on the right and go steeply into the unknown.

I declared a reconquista and charged into the savage shrubbery on the right, scrambling up terrain even a mountain goat wouldn't fancy. Not really knowing what we were conquering, we finally crested what seemed like an unconquered peak - and, either as a reward for our effort or our audacity, we were greeted with a one-of-a-kind view of four monasteries at once. I won't tell you exactly where it is, but if you wander here, you'll know when you've found it. Take a seat, meditate. Or peel your egg.

The end

ΚΑΤΑΛΗΞΗ

There was a lot, and it was amazing. We shook with fear from the heights of the Corinth Canal, its glowing aquamarine color looking suspiciously unnatural. We crawled by car through clouds and olive groves up to the peak of Lefkada. We carefully trudged along cliffs toward a majestic lighthouse and, in the wild winds on those endlessly high cliffs, used up an entire roll of film on it (if you're reading this, Mom, it was totally safe, not dangerous at all!). We found deserted beaches, waded across a wild river (tossing our shoes across; pro tip: aim well—I threw it over but then had to fish it out of a tree). We balanced along old monk paths carved into rock or, unsuspectingly, ended up staying in the most dangerous neighborhood in Athens (last one, Mom, I swear). We accidentally took part in the demonstration. And we found draft Budweiser Budvar in a tiny backwater town (the real, one and only Czech Budějovický Budvar!!). There was a lot. And it was amazing.

What is it?

The use of pictorialism is accompanied by the use of so-called noble printing methods and especially soft-drawing optics. These were often meniscus-like and very simple.

• A meniscus is a crescent-shaped fibrocartilaginous anatomical structure in the human body, they are present in the knee. In photography, however, it is a simple lens made up of a single piece of glass or at most two cemented elements. Simpler is really just a pinhole camera. You can get a very basic overview for example here.

Soft-drawing optics—how do you recognize them? To the untrained eye, it might look like an out-of-focus photo fit for the trash bin. But that would be a sad mistake and it's more complicated than that—an out of focus photo is just out of focus, the lines are blurry, the patient is dead. Whereas with soft-focus optics, it's actually a controlled optical defect of spherical and chromatic aberration. The lines remain sharp, but are surrounded by a glowing halation effect creating unmistakable overexposed highlights and a typically "colonnaded" and "dreamy" effect. You won't achieve this result by simple misfocusing and the output will not be pleasing to the eye. 

• You may come across the terms soft-focus and pictorialist lens. They are actually two names for the same thing, although there is a sort of general consensus that the second one have a stronger "softness" effect. However, it's hard to focus with all of them and takes years of suffering and sacrifice.
• The use of soft-focus optics was especially popular in the first days of Hollywood. Soft rendering smoothed out wrinkles and made younger beauties. This probably also gave rise to the unfortunate opinion of some intellectually weaker individuals denying use for anything other than portraiture. Don't be led astray—the enchanting character oozes from landscape, still life or nude just as powerfully.

Types of mechanism?

There are several ways to adjust the soft-focus (SF) effect. The most fancy one features a separate selector on the lens body (Universal Heliar, TTH Cooke, Aldis, Crown etc.) that is independent of the aperture scale—so you are in control of everything

A popular method is to control the SF strength via the aperture scale. The more you close the aperture, the weaker the effect. The disadvantage is the impossibility of the tandem "closed aperture + strong SF" or "open aperture + weak SF". Typical examples are Hermagis/SOM Berthiot Eidoscope, Kodak Portrait or Nicola Perscheid.

Other lenses use the degree of screwing the front or rear element as a selector. Simply put, the more you screw out the lens, the stronger the effect you get. And if you unscrew too much, the whole thing falls out and you will shit yourself, because these things don't exactly come cheap. You'll find this with Wollensak Velostigmats or Dallmeyers, for example (the early versions screwed in the rear member—so the bad thing is that you have to take the whole lens out of the standard when you want to change that. Newer versions have moved this to the front and the latest ones have a separate selector in the lens chassis).

Probably the least common style is the usage of special rings regulating the diffusion rate, the fancy equivalent of the aperture. The only representative of this obscure method I can think of now is the Rodenstock Imagon or Fujinon SF, where they were snapped onto the front thread like filters or lens hoods. The downside is the need to keep an eye on them—these little buggers are conspired together with lens caps, remote triggers and odd socks for frequent escapes into the unknown.

There are of course exceptions, for example lacking the SF effect selector as well as the possibility of selecting the aperture. So you have a fixed focus, a fixed aperture and a fixed amount of softness. Now fight! For example the valued Oscar Zwierzina Plasticca or some iterations of Puyo lenses will make your life harder.

• Some optical designs (pictorialist lenses like the Puyo or Eidoscope in particular were affected) were not corrected for color photography, optical defects and the entire color spectrum. The most painful part was mainly chromatic aberration, for which so-called chemical focus had to be reckoned with. Simply put, the resulting photo appeared out of focus due to ultraviolet light—mainly because the human eye struggles to focus on the blue part of the spectrum—hence the scales on the lens chassis for subsequent correction (Puyo). With modern panchromatic films this problem should not arise, however, fans of orthochromatic films or collodion and other processes sensitive to the blue part of the spectrum should beware.

How to do it?

And of course there are wild exceptions of the exceptions stemming from experimental spirit of the human nature or deep pockets. First of all, one can experiment with ordinary lenses—just partially unscrew the front or rear member and create a "fake" soft-focus effect not unlike much more expensive specimens designed for this purpose. Take note however, that not every optical design is inclined to this, and triplets and their derivatives are generally well suited to it.

• An ideal candidate for testing might be, for example, the notorious Tessar. There are many types, they are everywhere and they are cheap.

Also, the optical members of the lens (or entire lenses) can be rotated, flipped or removed entirely. Not everywhere you can do this and not everywhere it will have the meaningful effect which one you desired, but why not...

• Rotating usually reduces the coverage and gives the lens a rather crazy character. Extraction usually takes the front member off and results in a substantial increase in focal length, decrease in lens speed and increase in coverage.
• Some lenses are designed with these modifications in mind and are purposely built for this (so-called convertible lenses), generally as a portrait/landscape tandem (old petzvals or Spencer Port-Land, from Portrait-Landscape). However, modular solutions, called casket sets, are also popular, where you are adding and removing accessory lenses and changing focal points (de facto predecessors of zoom lenses). So you can cover several lenses with one kit. But more about that another time.

If, however, you find all this too civilised, you can, like the old masters, put petroleum jelly on the front lens or pull a stocking or curtain over it. Results are not guaranteed, but the fun is 100%. Oh and when you pull down the hosiery from some poor lady under the auspices of a higher artistic principle, I disclaim all responsibility.

If you've made it this far through today's jumble and still feel pictorialistically unfulfilled, you might find this multi-part article on large format soft-focus optics useful—including examples and illustrations. For individuals who have not yet found the one and only large format true path, this book with tutorials and examples for medium format and 35mm in particular may also be useful. Just be careful, this hole is pretty damn deep—and I warned you. There is peace in my soul.

I expressed my love for impressionism and pictorialism, so I will perhaps just pass some of my hard-earned life wisdoms—Perfection is in imperfection! The world is edgy and sharp, at least photograph it softly! Even dreams can be immortalized! A softy lens for every family! Salt the water well before you boil the pasta!

Second trip

– การเดินทางหมายเลขสอง

So far the usual scenario—suffering me, covered with cameras, tripods, junk, going up, down, sun, heat, thousands of stairs somewhere to the jungle.

But suddenly some news—before the final and worst climb, comparable perhaps only to the ascent to the last metres of K2, a sign warning the faint of heart and will that this is really not a good idea. The fact that the sign is exceptionally written in English adds to its credibility, so it's clear that this is no fun. However, I was assured by my escort that I am neither a cardiac nor a weakling, but just a plain lazy pig, so the attempt failed and we move on.

And then, after conquering the last bit of the section lined with the bleached bones of the unfortunates who took the wise sign lightly, we're there. Phraya Nakhon opens up before us.

A series of caves, stone bridges and tunnels leading to a breathtaking and truly gargantuan dome whose monstrosity I won't even attempt to put into words. And above it all, a single source of light, a giant hole lined with jungle on the surface. And we're there just in time—a few minutes later, the sun reaches a position where it illuminates the inside of the dome through the hole, its rays falling directly on the gold-encrusted monastery in the centre.

What I have to say, it was worth it again. Just a good hole, 9.5/10. I'm saving the last points for the next cave.

Suffering number three

– การต่อสู้ครั้งที่สาม

First snorkeling!

We set sail for the open sea and the Koh Phi-Phi archipelago—but as the boat moves more from top to bottom and left to right than forward, breakfast soon starts to wonder what the party is like up there, and wants to take a look too. When some of the crew start puking in the trashcan and others ask for life jackets, I start to feel like I should have stayed on the beach and scared the crabs. Anyway, we arrive and off to the coral reefs we go!

Due to the lack of warning that there may be water on board the boat, I somewhat undignified and unplanned slide into the depths. Naturally and quite unerringly, I also get a single leaking mask and snorkel, so while the others are enjoying the beauty of underwater life, I willingly undergo waterboarding with every attempt to submerge my face and breath, and I sound like the filming of Deep Throat.

After half an hour of arousing general merriment among all the beautiful creatures below me, who I couldn't even see despite the salt in my eyes, we set sail again and land on Coconut Island. Not a single coconut anywhere. But I scared some crabs atleast. On land, I'm the boss, crabbies.

Fourth act

– บทที่สี่

Ranger station, deep jungle not long after dawn. As central Europeans used to deer, grass snakes and squirrels, we take the ubiquitous signs warning of tigers and crocodiles with a grain of salt and go to wipe the last white spots off the map. A couple of rangers point their fingers at us, shake their heads and smile, the few tourists who are afraid to get out of the car in the parking lot just shake their heads. Sawat Dý Khrab, you cowards, we'll see you again.

After about five metres, we both undignifiedly wash out in the first stream we cross, the aura of conquerors sinking, the water in our boots rising, the laughter from the campsite growing. Crabs the size of a hand, spiders the size of a foot (big foot, about number 46) and monkeys about the size of a monkey line our path. Only people are nowhere to be seen. Crocodiles too, thankfully. We're already in the heart of the rainforest when we hear something big up ahead. A really big one. Definitely a lot bigger than a size 46 spider. I tighten the strap on my tactical field hat to keep it from flapping as I escape and bravely climb another metre and a half. When the predator makes a second sound right in the thickets ahead, my courage slowly leaves me and a second later, with the words "fuck it, I'm getting outta here", so does my escort. I realise that I will not be able to beat the tiger with a tripod and I start a tactical retreat.

But why worry about a female escort? Why would a tiger be chasing a lettuce leaf when there was me, a greasy double cheeseburger who would get a twinge in my side after five yards of running? Easy beast breakfast. Still, we return to camp like wilderness conquerors. No one's laughing anymore. The white spots on the maps remain, the brown in our trousers has been added. Well, bye bye, cowards.

Fifth time and the end

– ห้าและสิ้นสุด

We set out with a rickety kayak for the wide horizons, specifically finding it an irresistible idea to choose an island on the horizon as our destination. What could possibly happen, right. But after the waves start to sort of get bigger, the sphincters tightens and I start humming the soundtrack from Jaws, we turn around and decide to circumnavigate the coast.

Steep, implacable cliffs, lined with gnarled trees rising out of nothing, rock overhangs and gates, waves crashing against the rocks—and suddenly, amongst it all, a glimpse of a hidden, lonely beach. We land. White-glowing sand, clear water, all enclosed by a crescent of impenetrable jungle. Okay!

On the way back we pass the Emerald Cave, where there is only one way to go—leave the boat, jump into the depths and swim in absolute darkness (okay, we had a headlamp) for a few hundred meters before we stand on another beach, surrounded by rocks and accessible only from the sea and at low tide. 9.6/10.

We sail in with the sunset, whose colours we can't believe (which I'll immortalise for you on a black and white film, you're welcome), and it's off to dinner. Christmas Eve. We sit surrounded by the jungle amongst the beautiful 120dB screeching of cicadas in the local "restaurant." We swap the schnitzel for Massaman Curry, the Potato salad for Tom Kha and top it off with Mango Sticky Rice. The power is out, so we finish our meal between the Christmas lights and roll back across the island through the dark wilderness. That was good.