We’re back! We hope everyone had family-filled holidays and have embarked on a promising New Year. We’ve lined up some pretty incredible and diverse artists for the Monday morning feature, and are excited to start the year showcasing so much talent. As usual, we’re always looking to line up artists in advance. If you or someone you know is interested in being featured, send a photo and a short information piece about said photo to [info] [at] [duckrabbitdigital] [dot] [com]. We get together every few weeks to consider the submissions. Without further ado, today’s feature, Les Lengyel.

Artist Feature: Les Lengyel

This shot, Tidal, comes from a continuing series I have been working on entitled Shorelines. The series started as a documentary of unusual finds that have washed ashore and has expanded. Living close to a number of Great Lakes in Canada gives me the opportunity to not only enjoy the beauty of the many fresh water lakes surrounding me, it also gives me a great opportunity to use these shorelines for recreation and to fuel my love of photography.

The images in this series were all shot with analog cameras which I collect. This particular shot was taken with a “Diana” plastic-bodied camera utilizing 120 roll film which I developed myself. The dreamy image quality that the plastic lens of the Diana creates was exactly the mood I was looking for in this image.

The majority of my images are still recorded on film as I personally feel that digital photography does not convey the mood that I am looking for. I do own and shoot digital however, the digital image looks somehow too “clean” to my eye so I usually reserve digital photography for sports or for my commercial shoots.

There is also something about holding a beautiful old camera in your hands, the camera itself is a piece of art. The 50 year old Leica or 30 year old Hasselbad, the chrome, the workmanship that went into these cameras is something I really appreciate. Much like admiring the workmanship and thought that someone puts into creating a great image.

My workflow consists of 90% analog photography, my film is usually developed in Kodak HC-110 or Rodinal. I scan my negatives on an Epson V500 scanner and the only editing I do takes place in photoshop where I remove dust spots. My new years resolution is to extend my workflow in the darkroom and make my own prints as I recently acquired an enlarger.

Les Lengyel resides just outside of Toronto, Canada. His main body of work focuses on certain ongoing series such as Shorelines, Treasures Lost, In the Shadow of the Greenbelt and ShitCams. He has exhibited a number of these series and his work is also available as limited edition prints. You can view more of his work on flickr, and he can be contacted at Lengyel.photo [at] gmail [dot] com

Duckrabbit Digital would like to offer congratulations to the following photographers for winning this year’s Portfolio Project:

Lucas Cotterman
Guillermo Martin
Erin Goldberger
Fighting Fish Studio : Arlo Valera & Hyeyoung Kim
Michael Knapstein
Vivienne Maricevic
Danielle Baudassi
Allan Ayres
Yu-Chen Chiu
Craig Blankenhorn

The winning photographs will be editioned, printed, and sold on Duckrabbit’s website starting August 1st. The prints will be released weekly and be accompanied by an interview right here on the blog!

Please use our contact form to sign up to be notified when a new set of prints is released.