New Lands, Sleeping Bags And Big Cameras Part Four (Go On . . Pull The Trigger Now)

Well folks - the Karavan Khronickles is back!

Wot's that Sheephouse? I hear you cry

Blimey - haven't you been paying attention? 

Oh, you haven't have you. You dozed off didn't you (and I don't blame you actually, because I did too . . . and I was writing it). 

If you want to bore yourself rigid, you can read the lead-up to this one here, here and here.

This Khronickle though is a little different (and you had better be wearing a stout pair of rubber pants, because the tale I am about to tell is faintly** hair-raising . . and if you aren't particularly scared, then it's OK to take the pants off and pass them onto someone else, just remember to give them some talcum powder too - they can get awful squeaky as we well know). 

** Oh go on then . . . it isn't remotely hair-raising in the slightest

Anyway, as a famous man once said 'Enough o' me shite . . onwards!'

Right, as you'll no doubt now know, I spent a week on holiday, making 5x4 photographs . . . 20 of them. 

Fortunately for me, there's was little lugging of gear for miles . . I was able to stroll out in my wellies and have the camera set up in under 20 minutes - this was pure luxury. 

And as you can maybe see from the two stitched digi-things below, I was lucky with the lie of the land - this was a two minute walk from where we were staying.

Yes I know they don't fit the frames . . but they were too small otherwise

In the top photograph, you see the uprise of land with trees on it at the left-hand side? That was my destination, and whilst there I encountered something, how shall we say, unusual. 

The second photograph is what it was like on the top of that piece of land - certainly its loveliness gives little away to the depth of feeling that lurked in the surrounding tonsure of ancient woodland..

Now if you're looking closely (and of a curious mind like me) you might be thinking there is something rather strange about this parcel of land. It isn't obvious from the wide-angled nature of the stitches, however it is entirely walled off from the surrounding country with proper dry-stane walls of approximately 200-odd year old heritage.

Doesn't mean anything to you sitting in a Starbucks with all the world has to offer at your fingertips?
Thought not, and understandable, well let me explain: despite the fact that the rest of the surrounding farmland is lush and well-cultivated, this piece of land has been blocked off. It's a no-go area and it is very unusual these days to find total wildness. Land is too precious, farmers like to have it farmed.
What you can see in the first panorama is a true mix of ancient bog and wood, and I would say little unchanged (obviously apart from growth and die-back) for millenia - the trees are small and grubby, stunted by poor soil and the bog itself is a mish-mash of proper peat and ancient tree roots. I suppose that is maybe why it hasn't been upgraded. However, its isolation picqued my curiosity and made me want to explore. 

The land rises from right to left in what the Scots call a 'shank' . . yep . .a leg. And it's like that, a leg of land heading upwards. 

So suitably prepared for adventure with a Wista and all my gear I set off to ascend via The Shank, however my travail was stopped dead pretty quickly by the sheer amount of difficult walking - gorse and dense trees, stones and boggy bits - in fact it was so dense that I stopped, turned back and skirted the walls instead.

Anyway, after a short, steady climb up through a mix of Oak and Apple and Alder and Beech I made it to the top. 

Now, according to my memorised map, this might have been the remnants of a Norman Motte, however it wasn't - for a start I was way off in my reading of the land and it was way too large. And secondly, it just didn't feel right.

I'm not sure whether you've stood on top of a Motte, but they are pretty much devoid of feeling - all history is gone, bar the massed earth of the footings. They are interesting places, but you can't get a true feel for the history of a place from them (at least that is my experience) - but this was different.

I place a lot of value on feelings and especially so in the countryside. My inner countryman comes to life and keeps me right and on the top, I was thrilled by a sense of peace and wonder, however that wasn't all - there was something tickling at my subconscious that I was initially entirely unaware of. 

The light was falling to a proper gloam, but it was a beautiful evening and very clear. I surveyed the top, thought about making some photographs, dropped my rucksack and tripod, scouted around a bit more and set up. 

There was still a reasonable amount of sun behind my back and I felt that I could capture some of the very real atmosphere that I was feeling. 

With camera set up and a suitable tree selected, image composed, light acceptable,  I paused for a moment from my pottering and tinkering.

And that was when it hit me.

If I could have voiced it, it would have said this:

"Begone!"

Now I know you're out there scoffing and stuff, but to my inner countryman it was a real command, enjoined with a feeling like I was being watched.
My hackles arose and I felt (from that bit of land you can see in the second photograph on the left hand side and to the right of the tree) a very definite 'presence'. 

That's the only way I can describe it. 

And I wasn't welcome.

I fumbled, inserted my film holder, called myself stupid and started to make an exposure, only to realise that I hadn't closed the shutter and was exposing the film whilst removing the darkslide! 

I HAVE NEVER EVER DONE THIS (not even after the time I nearly killed myself lugging a Sinar up a Munro). 

I always double check everything. 

Ergo, something had unnerved me. Not just unnerved me, but had downright made me break out in a bit of a sweat. 

I cursed, closed the slide again, reversed it and made a proper exposure and then, collecting myself and my stuff made off with haste into the oncoming twilight with my camera still affixed to the tripod.
The stupid thing was that I still had to photograph though, so I searched for somewhere as photogenic but with less weirding.

The thing is, no matter how much I searched, the feeling still came with me. 

You know when you feel like you are being watched? that was how I was feeling, and the more the gloam settled the worse it got. 

Frank Herbert's Bene Gersserit saying 'Fear Is The Mind Killer' came to me . . . I tried to talk myself out of my funk, but after surveying a massed collapse of ancient dried trees, and desperately trying to find the correct angle and then feeling it again, I settled to fate, took my camera off the tripod packed everything away as fast as possible and headed downhill as quickly as I could.

Reaching the bog at the bottom of the hill, I set up again and tried to make another photograph - you can see the shite results here (it's the fourth contact print down).

There was a real sense of time being erased in that bog - if a mounted horseman carrying a short sword had galloped up, I wouldn't have been surprised.
Panicking a bit more and stumbling off from the bog, I knew had one more chance to make a photograph that day, so in near darkness and using a small torch to check my focus (honest) I set up by a wall, composed (with extreme difficulty), took a meter reading, was astonished at the reciprocity characteristics and exposed for as long as I could (1020 seconds - 17 minutes to you and me was the corrected exposure - No Way Hosepipe, I thought . . so I opened up the lens and made it about 5 or 6 mins. Luck wasn't with me though - it wasn't nearly enough (and even selenium toning the negative hasn't raised the highs above their deep, dark roots) - the hundred or so sheep that were watching me must have been laughing all the way to their troughs.
As a crescent moon arose and the night settled in proper, I made my apologies (for trespass) and packed up with a quiver in my hands (no, not a quiver of arrows y'berk), thoroughly bristling hackles and exited as quickly as possible, only slowing may pace as I got into the caravan park . . but even then I didn't really want it to be known which van we were in . . .
Oh I know, you are laughing quietly to yourself . . but you know what . .when I lived in the middle of nowhere, some nights you could sleep with your curtains and windows open . . other nights you battened down the hatches and didn't look out till morning - the countryside can be a very weird place, but then again, inside my head is weirder still . . .

***

Anyway, holidays finished, back home and reviewing the results. I did the processing, did the stitching and had a bloody good think. That think has taken months actually, but I've come to a sort of conclusion.

You see in the second stitched photo, what you are seeing is a flattened hill top, with a circling of trees around the edges, Alder, Crab Apple and Oak. The top of the hill has at least two springs. (that I was aware of - they weren't rinkling tinkling ones either but big solid invisible ones - you knew they were there though).
You probably don't get where I am going, but the varieties of trees alone (and there were many and very old) suggested something to me.
Now I've thought about this (and I am not going to voice my absolute conclusion in public) there was a very definite feeling to the place that was both uncanny and protective, unfriendly and yet tolerant. It toyed with me. It rejected me with power, and yet when I returned during daylight the day after, I felt welcome. Well, not entirely welcome, but tolerated.
What ever presence I had felt was still there, but dozing . . that's the only way I can put it.
I was able to enter the grove from where I had felt something and make some photographs and as I explored the area and gave thanks for it's overwhelming peace and feelings of security (! really), I felt accepted and at one with the Earth Spirit.
There . . . done it now.
How is that for flying against rationale and reason?
Sounds fanciful?
Sounds like New Age Shite?
In a world where everything is known, where everyone is connected?
Fanciful notions from a middle-aged man desperate for quieter times?
You know what? the stone-age man in me says "Ug!"
We know what we felt - it was older than anything and demanded our full attention and awareness . . .
And we weren't the first - the trees and walls and land told that story. There was something here that I felt sure had drawn people other than myself over the centuries.
Having given it a good long thunk, our reverence remains unashamedly unabashed.
UG!
We're shamelessly unapologetic, so get over it.
(That's a lot of un's isn't it!)

***

And so the KK's comes to an end - to be honest folks, I have struggled to print the photos from that week - that has been a major delay in finishing this series off.
I can't figure why either - they're fairly decent negatives . . . OK, the pics aren't brilliant, but they (to my eyes) seem to have captured some of the atmosphere from that wonderful time.
I think the problem has been my ongoing love love/find difficult relationship with the 5x4 negative.
Printed at 10x8 it just doesn't look right - I daresay it would at 11x14 and larger, but nope - my standard size (10x8) just doesn't quite cut the mustard . . so to that end, I ended up contact printing everything on old Agfa MCC of approximately 5x8 size (a torn-in-half sheet of 10x8) and you know what? It fit. they work as contact prints.
They are funky, tatty, physical objects that invite handling and close viewing (they are small after all). they're archivally toned in Selenium too, so all I need is some sleeves to sort them out nicely.
Below is how they look and then cropped-in images to enlarge things a bit.
Hope you like them.

 

OK - in hindsight I think I would use a little liquid lightning just to tickle up the highs . . . and if I could actually print as large as my enlarger can print (it's a DeVere 504, so can print really huge, but unfortunately I can't - no sink for trays, I just have them on small shelves, so 9.5x12" is my maximum!) I would print a fceckin massive print of the last one. That was made (as were all these images) with my Super Angulon f8 - it is an incredible lens, however just a tad dim on the olde GG, but failing eyesight is another story. 

Anyhow, to my eyes at least, it has captured the atmosphere of that late Autumn evening, as the gloam was falling on a special Scottish place, and the berk behind the camera found himself in a state of rising panic.

Well, that's it - you've done well.

Next time, less reading, more photos . . promise . . and yer Uncle Sheephouse says to remember to write to Aunty Bee and to keep taking the tablets.

The 1960 Space-Age Time Machine

Morning!

Regular readers will know that a while back I bought a rather nifty old Canon 28mm f3.5 LTM lens. I was chuffed with said lovely piece of brass, chrome and glass and said so here.

Well, since then I've been bad . . nay . . not just bad, but neglectful . . you see I've barely used it, and I can't quite figure out why, because it's lovely to use and adds a certain air of early 1960's gentlemanly charm to my Leica M2 - they look the part don't they!

Tip Top - the 1960 Space-Age Time Machine.
(OK, so the Canon is a Type IV, mid-1950's model, but it didn't have the same ring to it)

I think my problem is, that up till now, I hadn't actually printed anything properly that I had photographed with it.
Notice I say printed, because although I had scanned some of the negatives made with it and had done a few initial crumby work prints on RC paper, I hadn't actually spent a huge amount of time in the darkroom with real quality photographic materials.

Well more fool me, because as such, I was entirely unaware of how fantastic the little Canon was for (how shall we say) . . ahem . . 'vintage tones'.

There, bugger it, that's all the remaining nice ones in the world snapped up by digi-twitchers in search of the unattainable. 

Oh yeah I can hear it now, "It's a bargain in current terms  . . . blah blah blah . . . impeccable build quality . . . blah bloody blah"

And you know what, for all that the world has progressed; for all that digital photography is the be-all and end-all; for all that all but a hard-core of junkie film users even pay attention to such things, I still think there's a hankering for The Golden Age.

You know, Eugene, HCB, Ansel, Wynn, Minor, Paul, Walker etc etc etc.

Their photographs have 'that look'.

"What's that Sheephouse?" I hear you cry .. "What look might that be man, and how does one attain it?'
Well, it's the look of liquid silver.
Of greys that shimmer with depth and airiness.
Photographs of timing and composition and skill made by people that relied on their innate human creativity and not the splurge of a billion frames a second in the cause of hoping to 'capture' something . . anything . .  worthwhile.

It's THE LOOK man, and if you need an arse like me to explain it to you, then you jolly well need your eyes tested!

In short (or long) it is nothing short of why I wanted to photograph in the first place and why I don't think I have ever really achieved my goal and go on searching. (There, how's that! I've hobbled any photographic achievements I have ever achieved). But it's true.

It's also a look I don't really see at all these days and I think the reason for this (apart from the obvious one of completely different materials from then to now) is down to a certain hiccough in the world of glass: coating.

An uncoated lens as you'll no doubt know delivers flare and often low contrast (caused by the flare).

A single coated lens will deliver more contrast, and slightly less flare.

A multi-coated lens has precious little flare, but tons of contrast. True, the little Canon is I believe multi-coated, but it's 'soft' (not physically, but visually) - there's no way you'd get the same look from a modern lens . . 

And then there's coating and coating - stuff that is so soft you could just stare at it and it marks, stuff that is so hard you can smash it against a brick wall, but all of it made with the thought in mind that contrast is better than flare.

(There's a stupid caveat to this too - I recently had the chance to handle and see the results from a couple of Lomo panoramic cameras . . and you know what . . they didn't have the look, even for their so-called 'lo-fi' cache . . . and actually, thinking about it, pinhole camera results don't have the look either  . . at least they don't to my eye. I experimented in pinhole years back and found it to be a faff for something that I just thought was so-so. If you want dreamy and out-of-focus, you'll have to go LF and back to the earliest of barrel lenses (or the misuse of close-up lenses) in my humble opinion . . . anyway . . that's another story!)

So what is the dashed lens bringing to the party, given that a pinhole has no glass??
It's impossible to quantify for me - maybe if I were to read Arthur Cox's Photographic Optics, I'd understand completely, but for now, let me say that the lens acts as a (oh goodness . . . here he goes again) sort of surrogate portal to a different reality.

Now if you could just hold on a min whilst I get the sleeves of this straight-jacket sorted, I'll try and explain myself. Think about it, it does. You're shoving a three-dimensional world, down a narrow piece of metal and glass, to work its magic on a piece of sensitized material and then you are chemically altering said material, and then you are bringing what was once three dimensions into the 2D spotlight of a piece of sensitized paper. In other words, you've stopped time, and transformed 'reality'!

Hah, bet you never thought of photography like that and to me, it is all the more incredible for it.

Your print is an alteration of reality. Yes it is reality (mostly) and yet it is far removed from it.

Of course I could just be wittering a load of old shoite, but if it gets you thinking differently, then I am happy.

Ah, that's better, the tea is starting to kick in and whilst I've spilled half of it down the front of my nice new jacket, I can feel its calming properties . . . so, where were we? Ah yes, coating and contrast!
I think therein lies the problem.
The world simply isn't a contrasty place. It can be, but on the whole, no, it isn't, not really.
Same with your eyes.
Can you honestly say you see everything in razor-sharp, super-contrasty HD? Nope, me neither. Infact, centrally whilst everything is fine, peripherally, the world is a blur.

Stare at something backlit, and I have a low-contrast, flare-ridden mess with blur and my eyelashes take on sunstars!

Totally imperfect and that to me is what is lacking in most photography - that air that the world is imperfect and that light is transitory and always changing. I'm sorry, but the hyper-sharp, hyper-toned, hyper-coloured "reality" that gets toted as photography these days looks to me as fake as a plastic surgery disaster. 

It has nothing to do with how humans see the world and everything to do with the damned idealism with which we are encouraged to view everything in life. I mean, what happened to human frailty and mistakes?

You know, I almost hate "perfection", but I really LOVE real perfection.

To wit, I recently ate a Spanish vanilla cheescake at a tapas restaurant that was so good I started crying - it was perfection - you can ask Ali. Honestly - it sounds daft but it is true and gives you an idea of the sort of person you're letting inside your head with all these thoughts.
I'm thinking about it now, and I'm also thinking this picture by Mr. Edward Weston from 'The Family Of Man' exhibition and book, this too is perfection:

If there is one picture in the world that has made me want to sell everything and purchase a 10x8 camera, it is this. When I first encountered it in an original copy of 'The Family Of Man' book, I was gobsmacked - the composition and the tones, the artful 'looseness', the light and simply everything about it states "Master Craftsman At Work". It looks casual but is anything but; there's contrast, yes, but it's not too contrasty. You don't get the full measure from the screen, but there's suitable detail in the shadowed trouser area, from correct exposure, and there's also flare, but skillful processing and printing have rendered that a pleasing part of the whole - it's pure craftsmanship - the contrast is provided by the light and the processing, not the lens.

I wish I could make something as powerful

This by Mr. W.Eugene Smith, this is perfection too:

NYC Harbour. July 1956. Nun waiting for survivors of SS Andrea Doria

To me this is up there as one of the finest 35mm photographs ever made.

Look at is closely - it isn't sharp at all, anywhere, and yet, Oh Goodness - WHO CARES?!

It speaks to the soul in a way that is hard to define - pure genius.

Imperfections besiege us as photographers, and that is part of the fun to my mind. As I've said many times before, developing a film is like paraphrasing Forrest Gump 'you don't know whatcha gonna git', because your technique can be down pat and perfect, but for all that, there is still room for mistakes and wonder, for happenstance and joy. For surprise. For humanity and glitches and weirdness (like the reflections that I wasn't aware of in the third print below).

And so, sorry to say, it is on to me and my stuff, after all that's the whole point of these exercises isn't it . . me, me, ME!

These were grab shots off of two different films made whilst away in Edinburgh for a bit. Film was TMX 400, developed in 1:25 Rodinal. I reckon I was shooting at about 1/125th at f11 or f8 with the tiny Canon 28mm and the M2 combo.

Strange to say, I think they almost look made up, set up and contrived and yet these were as they happened and totally disassociated from each other. The only parameters being time and walking around in different places.

See what you think.

?

??

!

I might be marking my card here and putting myself up for criticism, but to my eye, they sort of have that look. Again, you are hard pushed to get it off the screen, but in real life handling the prints, the highs sparkle a bit, the mids are creamy and dreamy and the blacks contrasty, but not overtly so. I am happy with them, which I suppose is the main thing.
They were printed on some ancient 10x8" Adox Vario Classic - a variable contrast, museum weight paper that hasn't been made for a few years now - and developed in Fotospeed print developer and then toned in Selenium for archival purposes. It's a nice combo, and I've filed them away as a sequence in some archival print sleeves. I am a happy bunny.

Here's another print from the same films, this time made in (if I remember rightly) St Andrews - can't remember what the occasion was though . . . 

Hungry?

Again, this is filed away archivally - I am chuffed, and do you see what I mean about the look from the lens? I am delighted with it and how it has interacted with Kodak TMX 400 (a bloody fine film) and with 1:25 Rodinal. This is a seriously good combo - grain is remarkably well controlled and (with some judicious gentle agitation) very unobtrusive to my eyes.

What I like about this photograph and print is the silveriness of everything and also that the machine by the door of the 'van, looks like an abandoned robot from the 1960's. It was probably made at 1/125th at around f16 (the exposure you fool . . not the robot). Detail is great too so I am asking myself why am I not using this lens more?

Well, I suppose the 90mm Elmar supplanted it (having been bought in haste at a bargain price) and I have really enjoyed using that, but for now and maybe into the Summer, I am heading out with the Canon. It's a testimony to the quality of Japanese engineering.

Happy days!

And that's it, so till next time, take care and get yourself out and take some photographs, and if you can, if you truly truly can . . please make some prints on real 'wet' photographic paper. 

You might well get a surprise.

Normal Service Will Be Resumed As Soon As Possible

I know, I know, but what can I do - I've only got so many hours in the day. I've been cat-sitting for 9 hairy weeks, so that has sort of hampered any film-based stuff, I had DIY hell, Flat-Pack HELL (a 12 hour shift to build a 3 door wardrobe with shelves and lights) and just generally have been doing a ton of things other than photographing and writing about it. Never fear though, because like that patch of dry skin that always comes back, I'll return soon with more tales of terror and triumph . . and to be honest, I've missed you all. So until that chance turn and a meeting on the trail I'll bid you adieu (to you, and you, and you . . and you too).

Part Number 1A~438895949939

OK - I have done a wee bit of photography - I love the above - it reminds me of an Industrial Fittings Catalogue from the 1960's.
Film was the exquisitely creamy Kodak TXP 320, rated at EI 320, developed in 1:25 Rodinal for 7 minutes. Constant agitation for 1 minute and then 2 gentle tilts every 30 secs.
It's a contact print, on ancient Fotospeed Multi-Grade Resin Coated paper.
The lens was a (cough, cough) newly acquired 90mm f8 Super Angulon fitted to my Wista DX - lovely.

The Transformed Man (And Other Tales)

Well - what can I say folks except, I am sorry to have neglected you, and hello again. It has been rather a long time hasn't it, but I'll put it down to a necessary need to pull back from writing this every week - it was too much and I felt my creative juices being squeezed dry - for me, when something creative stops being enjoyable then I have to immerse myself less. 

But anyway, that's enough of lousy excuses - I am not going to be publishing this on such a regular basis, simply from the fact that there is only so much one can write about and continue to stay interesting!
So, onwards.
I met someone on the bus a couple of weeks back - I hadn't seen him in a long time (nearly 8 years) - time had changed him - he looked old, and yet when I tickled his memory it was surprising what he was capable of recalling. His name is Malcolm Thompson and he was (and is to an extent) someone who has made their entire career from photography, which is no mean feat. In recent years he has been a printer and processor, as well as doing course work on a monochrome photography course at Dundee's famous DCA.

I like Malcolm - he can appear curmudgeonly at times and yet, underneath that surface is a passionate and experienced photographer capable of not just superb images, but some of the best printing I have ever seen. I asked him how he was doing and he said he'd retired, though he still held an informal portfolio session at the DCA (has asked me to go along . . not sure whether I will or not . . I am not a great fan of these things) and also still had his wee darkroom going at Meadow Mill, and then he said, 'Well, I can't do anything else.' And it struck me then, that his commitment to the photographic image was so total that any other way of earning a living had never occurred to him . . 

Oh Lucky Man! I thought, for that has never been the case with me, but that being said I am still rather proud of my 'amateur' status, because, strangely the only thing amateur about it is that I don't have to earn a crust from my efforts. I can just about do anything I like and the only people apt to comment are myself and my wife, and, should there be any of you left after such a break dear readers, yourselves.

Anyway, back to the grist.

Before I took my break, I had a roll of Delta 400 in the M2. 

I'd broken it out for a trip to St.Andrews extended that to a Sunday wander and then decided I would finish it off on my walk back home from Ninewells Hospital where I had had to have a cytoscope examination (surely the most strange feeling that one can ever inflict on one's urethra and bladder . . short of trying to stuff peanuts up there . . but I digress). 

I had a marvellous time on the walk back, just snap-happy snapping away at anything that took my fancy.

The walk took me through Balgay Cemetery, a place I have walked in ever since I arrived in Dundee some 33 years ago. It never ceases to surprise and that day was no different, with a drear mist popping in and out off the Tay. There was something strangely beautiful and silvery about it, so I went and took some photographs in a place I have walked past millions of times, but never entered . . a waiting room for funeral services.
It sounds quite formal doesn't it, but is in fact just like a wee rural bus station waiting room!
The light and the windows though rendered it magical and rather surreal, so I set the LeicaM2/5cm Elmar at 1/125th of a second and approx f16 and started shooting. 

I even did the unheard of and went and asked a Parky if I could take his portrait . . .anyway.

Now actually from this film something happened which I haven't really found before . . 

I entered the realm of sequences. 

However these were simple, two photograph sequences, rather than elaborate narratives. 

When I developed the film I was rather struck actually by how they seemed to group themselves together on the film, and so have paired a few of them below in what I think are nice little duets (and one triptych) of light and form.
Sequencing is an art, that I have long felt I should pursue (and as you can see below, I definitely haven't got there yet, but it is a start).
A sequence, no matter how loose, separates your precious creations from being 'just' a collection of photographs and takes them into the world of visual narrative. Now if all this sounds a bit artsy-fartsy, worryeth not, I am not going to go all pseud on you (I hate 'art-speak' more than most, having been on the end of it at college) but a sequence isn't artifice, it is a genuine and valid photographic principle, and one which is all the more valid in these days of a billion-images-everywhere-you-turn-anyone-can-take-a-photo-innit.
I mean, face it folks, we (that's you and me I am talking about} have become about as relevant to the modern world as Catweazle.

Spot the difference - both now irrelevant to the modern world (though Catweazle always was . . I suppose that was the point of the program!)





Catweazle discovered the telephone . . or 'Telling-Bone' in a particularly memorable episode, and Mr. W.Eugene Smith created sequences of photographs (and remember a simple sequence can easily become an essay) that are lyrically beautiful and masterworks of craft and an advanced visual perception.
But now everyone carries a camera wiv 'em, innit.
We as photographers are seemingly redundant, because we have nothing to say to anyone except other photographers. Who gives a monkey's nuts about the fine monochrome photograph and print these days? Other photographers. That's about it, or so it seems.
This hit home to me over the holidays when, whilst photographing around the DOJCA building, a back door popped open and out came this young cove and we started chatting. He was awfully nice actually - I believe his name is Phillip Vaughan. Anyway, we talked for a while about cameras and art and it turned out (as far as I could tell) that DOJCA no longer has anything to do with 'traditional' photography. It is all digital and they don't use film, this being said, he did say there was a hunger amongst students to explore film . . but (and this is my own take on it) it is considered as arcane to the practice of art, as a plate camera would be to your average smartphone toting man or woman in the street.
Anyway, rant over, the whole point of what I have just said is that the art of sequence is vanishing, and I for one feel it is a great and solid shame.
Sorry - had to get that out - onwards with the shiite now.

I'll apologise in advance and say I am sorry to say that the images below aren't from prints - I have run out of chemicals and need to stock up and have spent all my recent pocket money on camping gear (more of that later) - so they are scans from my schiite scanner (verticals on the negs are correct, verticals from the scans are not . . grrrrrrrrrrrrr . . some tweaking in Irfan was necessary)

Anyway, comments welcome. Oh and the Delta was developed in good old (very) 1:25 Rodinal. Quite a remarkable lack of grain for such a supposed 'fierce' developer (the scans look rough because the scanner is simply incapable of dealing with anything remotely contrasty, without making everything look lumpy and flat).

The thing about the duets is that they weren't conscious at all, my eye just seemed to pick out similar things at relatively concurrent pieces of time and ordered me to make the photograph. 

This is actually where the method I expounded in 'The Ralph Gibson Experiment' came into play. I won't repeat it again, but knowing that you can pretty much count on the film's latitude to deal with everything except the grossest errors of exposure, you can set up at (in Scotland and on 400 EI film and with decent daylight) 1/125th of a second and f16 and just concentrate on composition and things come out pretty much OK. It is a weird thing actually, because by the rules, it shouldn't work, and yet it does.

I think Mr.Gibson should actually be lauded for his discovery, because not only does it work, but it works well.

Anyway, see what you think.

Here's the contact first of all - heart on my sleeve and all that . . warts n'all.

Contact Sheet

And here's the duets - I rather like them, even though they are a diverse bunch.

Delta Frames 2 & 4

And on

Delta Frames 12 & 13

And on

Delta Frames 18 & 19

And then a little tryptich

Delta Frames 20, 27 & 21

I am sure that every single man-jack of you has at least two or three photographs that could go together to make something more than just a single photograph. The above aren't great, but I enjoyed making them, and the fact they are on the same film was a surprise to me - they could be better arranged, but if I start farting around I'll never get this FB posted. So how about doing yourself a favour on a rainy afternoon when there's nothing better to do. Lay out a selection of your bestest prints on as much floorspace as you can allow,and grab a coffee or tea and have a mull over them and see if you can't come up with some duets or trypti or something longer and more narrative. It will set you apart from the also-rans, and might just get your brain thinking about the images you make in a less random, clearer fashion. Not nagging . . but give it a go.
Then see if you can't pursuade a loved-one to comment.
It isn't a skill learned overnight (or in my case at all) but it is something worth doing. Let me know how you get on.

And at the end of it all, wondering how I was going to use up my final few frames I had another go at a 'Leica snaphot' except this time the camera was in it's open ever-ready case around my neck, and all I did was set focus and surreptitiously release the shutter. I am not very good at this though, because shake came in again and yet it led to the photograph I like the most from this session and the one I named this Blog after - The Transformed Man. And no, this isn't a nod to William Shatner's album, this is a title from a 1950's Sci-Fi book, but unfortunately I can't remember the author's name (Alfred Bester?). 

Anyway, the pic suits the title.

The Transformed Man

And that's it folks - FB over and out - hopefully it won't be as long next time.

Take care, God Bless and thanks for reading again