This was my first portrait with my new Petzval 58 Russian lens, I called Dominick at the Round House this afternoon. It was pizza night, and Maria and I always go order one of Scott Carrino’s wonderful pizzas on Friday night. Dominick often pretends to be someone else when I call and usually completely fools me and catches me off guard. He is a rascal, but we each tap into the rascal in the other.

I told him I just got this new wild Russian lens and I wanted him to be my guinea pig, to stand for my first portrait and he’s used to me by now, and he agreed. Sure, he said, he pays me no mind, also good for candid portraits.

I played with the background focus and I like the way it blurred the sign on the wall and made Dominick’s face clear, it stood out.

In the Petzval manual, it suggests standing back a ways, and I couldn’t do that in the Round House kitchen, I think it will be great in the woods and also for many portraits. This is good for the first day, but I have to say this is a huge stretch for me, there is no image stabilizer, no automatic focus, to change the Aperture setting you have to insert one of seven different metal plates while simultaneously turning the gear mechanism and setting the Bokeh (background) settings.

And you need to do this all at once. I think I lucked out on this shot, I’ve decided not to bring this lens to New York City tomorrow, I just need to get to know and all the plates and gears better. It is exciting to use a lens just as it was designed in 1840 by Mr. Petzval, a photographic legend.The glass and lens were both made in Russia. So were my grandparents, so this feels like blood in a way.

I’m in love with this lens and the possibilities of it, but I will have to work plenty hard to get the kind of photographs I want. I’ll share the process.