My wife bought me the DVD one Christmas, and very good it is too, have you seen the extra's, with Olive Bennet swearing at everything and her cows. But I think James Ravilious was careful not to show the other side to the countryside, death, blood etc, instead he had a John Constable meets Edward Elgar approach, which I like. If you compare his work to Chris Chapman you will see what I mean.
My most treasured book is a signed copy of Heart of the Country, by James and Robin Ravilious - divorce proceeding would commence if my wife found out how much I had paid for a paperback book!
I must admit, dealing with contrast by using old lenses does seem a bit odd, I would have thought experimenting with different film's, filters, developer, paper etc, in order to reduce contrast would have been preferable, but I suppose he tried all that and decided it must be the optics, unless he had been misquoted.
But I agree, it would be interesting to read what other people think about this.
Carl
|