Leica Fanboy

Bold and italic and even bold italic alert

OK - I think I have probably held back long enough on this one, but it doesn't seem to be getting any better, so here goes.

Like a raw open wound, the art and hobby of photography has long been both a rich man's sport and something filled to the brim with disappointment. Really. You don't believe me? Well off you pop and have a word with yourself in that cupboard and then come back to me.

Is that better? Good.

Really, it is dead sad.

You know, when you look around you, our hobby/passion is littered with the broken dreams of:

"If only I had a such-and-such" 

and

"Oh for a Super f0.2! It would make my life so much easier" 

and

"I really want one of them . . . blah blah uses one, and I know they cost a lot of money, but if I get one of those I will take great pictures".

Does this sound familiar?

Thought so. The obsession with getting 'the best' in order to make your vision better is all too common, and a lot of the time, it doesn't even have to do with that. 

Obsessed with bragging rights a lot of photographers literally have to be seen to be carrying 'the thing', the latest and greatest, and sadly, in the case of Leitz, oldest, greatest/greatest, greatest camera and lens combo they can buy.

After all it's Leica, isn't it legendary?
Well yeah, natch, goes without saying! And the thinking seems to be that surely if you use it, some of the legend will rub off on you and you too can become a legend. Seriously - you are using a legend - ergo you are automatically a legend yourself - ergo your images are simply brilliant. 
Thus are Fanboys made. Like some weird form of possession, they come to eat, sleep, breath and just plain live for the marque to the point of total obsession. After all when God calls, would you want to be found wanting?
And from this come the reviews (done that myself), details, back-patting, testing, blogging, testing again and again and again.

Man, I thought I could be obsessive, but there's some real fruit-loops out there. You can find them under any picture sharing stone.

You know, there's another expression I heard recently: "All the gear, no idea".
Hmm, dontcha think it pretty much sums things up?
Really, when it comes down to it, isn't photography ALL ABOUT self expression and making your mark in the annals?
Isn't the camera JUST a means to an end to stop a moment in time?

Well I thought so, but looking around it often doesn't seem like that. 

I know I've mentioned this before, but it is like that stupid thing on Top Gear - the Cool Wall - I won't explain it as you've no doubt seen it, but basically it was a bunch of wee lads peeing up against a wall, except it was about cars - who can get the highest (fastest); who can splatter the most (biggest engine): who can miss dribbling on his shoes (bodywork) . . . you know . . . the sort of thing you thought you left behind when you were seven.

What we are seeing in photography at the moment amounts to the same thing - nothing to do with photography at all, just endless testing and re-testing, endless droning about bokeh and sharpness and just plain boring boring boring images being posted left right and centre.

I don't know about you, but it sucks the life out of my eyes, because it seems like the more money you have to spend on gear, the (mostly) more boring images the zombie photographer inside you is forcing you to take.

Goodness knows, some dullness is acceptable - it is part and parcel of the nature of the beast - but man does it get rammed down your throat, when in reality it should just have been kept under wraps. 

I suppose the ease of creating images these days has part to do with that too . . . tis a piece of cake to scan a bit of film and then show those results to the world, or upload some images to wherever, but I ask you this:

If you had a darkroom, would you truly have bothered to print them? 

Hmmmm - thought not.

It's this casual blaséness of snapping away and then parading the umpteenth picture of a pile of leaves that gets me.

Who cares?

Who's interested?

Not me.

 ***

Don't get me wrong, I love photography and I love photographing. I love seeing other people's GOOD photographs and for myself, I love seeing compositions in a viewfinder and wondering how it will look as a print or on screen, and I feel a real hunger to keep on doing that - to try and make something that is my own unique take on the world, and to maybe make people go "Gosh!"
I also love the gear - it can be seriously beautiful and is often a pinnacle of mechanical genius, and when I look around my small photographic world I see some people who are in love with photography too. They love all the things I love, and do all the things I do, but they are doing so in a relatively humble way. They're not testing or posting pictures of nothing, they are photographing their world.

I've a Sheephousian confession to make . . . I go to meetings. Wonderful, chatty, joyous affairs with maniacs like myself, all ex-Scottish Photographers. SP by the way (the original lot, not the Facebook group, or the new bunch with a website going under the same name), wasn't a camera club or anything of that ilk - it was and is a serious and utterly dedicated bunch of people who live to photograph. I can't put it in any better way.
These people exhibit, teach, create and generally pass on the baton.
Dedication is the thing.
It is really quite something.
Were I to draw a parallel, I would say it was almost like The Linked Ring, except we aren't really breaking any new ground, and we definitely aren't all moustachioed and done up to the nines in proper removable collars and brilliantine.
Nope, the one defining thing is hunger.
Even with a lifetime of photographing behind them, the need to make images and produce work is all there is. Take for instance Peter and Aase Goldsmith, a couple who have photographed their whole lives through and still in their older years are producing essays and books, prints and presentations. They live photography. Truly. Every time I meet them, there's new projects . . . whether it be a selection of prints made with their newly acquired Holga Panoramic cameras, through to wonderful handmade books, spiral bound, with pencil marks and hand annotation detailing something that was so important in their lives that they had to photograph it. One particular book was made with a knackered Leica III and a knackered Jupiter 35mm lens and it looked like nothing I had ever seen - it was exciting and beautiful and totally individualistic.

Isn't that surely the nature of photography?

To stop that 1/125th of second and permanentise it?

To say to others:

"Look at this. What do you make of that? Isn't that just an extraordinary and exciting and thrilling thing?"

To further stretch this already stretched point, last week I met Malcolm Thompson on the bus.

Malcolm is another person who has dedicated his whole life to photography, from photographing for a living through to running Studio M (a print and process studio) through to exhibiting regularly, through to teaching the craft of photography and printing at the DCA through to print sessions at same.

Dedication is the thing, because he still lives and breathes it, despite now living with Parkinson's Disease, and rather than focus on that (as most folks would) he sadly recounted that he had just sold his 5x4 as it was just taking too much out of him, and that he felt that was a real shame, but he still was in love with his Rollei SL66 and would continue using that, and that he was finding FP4 ridiculously expensive but had recently started experimenting with Fomapan. In other words, though Parkinson's is a terrible disease and is robbing Malcolm of his physicality, his photographic flame still burns as bright as anything I have ever seen.

***

I know that was a wee meander, but it is to draw a point.
Dedication, craft and a love of producing good images; a willingness to try the new, and retrench in the old if necessary, but above all the hunger to photograph the world, to inform, to present to others that which you find interesting surely has to be your whole raison d'être as a photographer.

Surely Shirley.

SHIRLEY?

Well, were I being naive I would say that is the case, however we move in strange times, and much as the same way my old hobby and love of guitar playing has been taken over by a billion marauding hordes with squidoons of cash to spend and not a clue what to do with the fucking instrument except post 'unboxing' videos on YouTube, the world of photography is sort of suffering the same fate.

Go on . . . I dare you.
YouTube.
Type 'Unboxing' and then your favourite camera.
Or the cracker . . the shutter/mirror movement/penny test.
Well?
Sad isn't it (I seem to be typing that a lot recently).
OK, I am ranting a bit now (what's new?) but I see people spending really considerable amounts of money on cameras and lenses and then going out and photographing the likes of this:

Or this:

Wait a minute, and as they used to say - Ayeee, carumba!
In the words of Aimee Mann:
"What a waste of gunpowder and sky"
Because those two 'photographs' were made with the same lens that made this:

Does that look familiar? 

Of course it does - its my old mate Ralph Gibson and the Leitz Dual Range 50mm Summicron - one of the greatest lenses ever made. A lens designed to make photographs and art and stunning images, now slapped on a digi-body and relegated to the new gladiatorial arena of 'testing'.

Look, just to over-egg the pudding, here's some stuff made with the lens that made Leitz famous - the 50mm f3.5 Elmar (obviously shoved on a digi-cam because they've cropped the proportions all wrong):

And this:

And then . . . there's this one:

Familiar?

Yep - it's me old mate HCB, and what a photograph!
It has everything in spades; tone, light, composition, timing - it is the utter antithesis of the two 'photos' above it. No lens testing here, just good ol' HCB, wandering around, waiting, waiting, then, making the likes of the above.
You see, that history is part of the problem (if you want to call it one) with the Leica -  sadly its caché and all the baggage it brings with it is so huge and almost archetypal that it is hard to get beyond it.
As a marque it has been responsible for some of the finest, most memorable, exquisite, exciting, beautiful, thoughtful and downright entertaining images EVER made, however every year I see less and less of them and more of the inane, banal, dull, bland, totally-lacking-in-vision 'testing testing 1, 2, 3' type.

When you think of what the system is capable, I think it is a fucking waste.
As an antithesis to the 'testing' pics above, look at this image made by Rax from Iceland:

I don't really need to say anything do I? It is right up there in the Leitz pantheon.
Ragnar (Rax) has a superb eye and is an all-round nice bloke to boot and if you like the above, it can be found in his superb book Faces Of The North, but the thing is, rather than standing around looking for the 'where's the leaves? testing-testing-testing' sort of image, he goes out and makes photographs. Ones you would want to hang on your wall or travel miles to see in an exhibition, and though he uses Leica I don't think he is too hung up on it - it is a tool to realise his vision, not an effet accessory.

***

Y'see (allied to the historic importance of the marque) is the Leica's perceived other-worldy qualities. There, I've said it, been there, done the worship thing, come out the other side, still in love but more aware.

There seems to be a perception that some of the magic will rub off on the user, and they'll be able to have some sort of prescient, all-seeing, magical vision bestowed upon them by the Gods of Light and Timing. That simply because Leitz lenses just 'are', anyone using one will automatically be inducted into the Leitz Hall of Fame.

In other words, simply by the act of owning a Summilux or a Summicron, YOU WILL BE GREAT.
Full stop.
No work required.

So the mania creeps in - testing central websites (you know who you are and you should be ashamed really for toting such shite where the object becomes more important than the end result); the need for the most expensive Leica objet d'art you can afford (or not). And then the hunting for subject matter (when there are photographs everywhere) and rather than training their eyes to see something that might make a decent photograph, they just go and snap at any olde shite . . . but remember . . .

It's got the glow! 

It's got the bokeh!! 

My 'Lux took this picture of some leaves by the light of one candle!!!

You know what I mean.

I do despair actually.

A photographer will do his or her best to make the most of what is available.

Granted it is wonderful to own some beautiful tools too . . . I am as bad as anyone from that point of view - my M2/Elmars/Canon set-up is a joy to me (and I've recently had the pleasure of geeing up confirmed SLR user Bruce at The Online Darkroom into enjoying using a rangefinder, and he's enjoying it because he is a photographer) but I spent my formative photographic years operating an Olympus OM10 with the standard Zuiko 50mm f1.8 (total cost in 1980, £99 . . .) and some ancient Pentax glass married with a college K1000 . . . so I was making the most of what I had available.

But more importantly, I was training myself to see.

I don't think I have got there yet, but I keep trying, and that is the thing.
Simply by acquiring something as lovely as say an M2 and a suitable lens do not a good photographer, or even a decent Leica practitioner make.
Maybe if someone had handed me a M6 and a Summilux back in day I would have gone off snapping away at uninspiring drivel too, but they didn't and that didn't happen; my hunger to produce better images than I had the week before was what kept me going, not the need to grab the best stuff I could (n't) afford.
I wanted to take photographs and I still do - that hunger still drives me, and I'll use any of my cameras to do it, but at the end of the day, I have to take photographs I am happy with, otherwise what's the point?

***

Deary me Sheephouse, you've really gone off on one haven't you?
Well yes, and far be it from me to tell you how to enjoy your hobby - after all, you have to want to aspire to something don't you - I just felt that standing back and having a look at how things are and then saying it how I see it, might put a different spin on things for people.
For my own aspirations, a DR Summicron, a nice Hasselblad and a decent Rollei are hardly cheap and cheerful acquisitions, but life is short and I feel they'll further my vision. This being said they aren't the be-all and end-all - they're fine tools for executing what I can imagine myself taking - but I can just as easily imagine myself getting good results from Ye Olde Knackered Minolta Autocord and one of my Nikon Fs.
I do know one thing though - THE IMAGE IS ALL - it is the only thing that counts.

***

Anyway, enough of me olde manne guffe - you'll see below a couple of examples of me learning my way around a lovely old gentleman.
Steady at the back . . . stop that tittering.
He's a 1934 uncoated 50mm f3.5 Elmar that I bought from Peter Loy for a very reasonable price. The history of the lens is what got me - imagine what it has seen! However it is not a lens for the faint-hearted, as I learned quickly.
You need to up the oomph.
What helped initially was the acquisition of a lovely, mint, boxed, FISON lens hood from the lovely people at Red Dot Cameras, and then the oomph was further  . . er . . oomphed by a new development regime.
Flat, low-contrast negatives are the order of the (normal) day on an uncoated Elmar . . however rate a 400 film at around EI 200 and give about 10 to 15% extra development time and you'll get some gutsy negatives that will transform it.
It still has the glow, but it also has some other character which I can't quite pin down. I love it actually. As with all Elmars I really do think they were optimised as 'People Lenses' - that is my own expression, because they tend to work best in the 4 to 12 feet range, in other words the sort of distances you'd be using to photograph people.
So there y'go, have a butchers at the photos below - they do illustrate one thing. And it's an important thing - even learning to use a new lens doesn't mean you have to take pictures of piles of leaves or monitors or dashboards or the first thing you turn your camera on - you can try and make interesting images.
Just use your head, your heart, your eyes and go out and take some fucking photographs!

Well that's crude-boy me talking . . I think it is probably more eloquently expressed by a true master - Wynn Bullock:

"The medium of photography can record not only what the eyes see, but that which the mind's eye sees as well. The camera is not only an extension of the eye, but of the brain. It can see sharper, farther, nearer, slower, faster than the eye. It can see by invisible light. It can see in the past, present, and future. Instead of using the camera only to reproduce objects, I wanted to use it to make what is invisible to the eye, visible."

Testing, Testing, 1-2-3.

Testing, Testing, 1-2-3-4

TTFN - over and out and remember that the yellow pills make your tummy feel awfully wobbly.

The Ralph Gibson Experiment (Part Three)

Mornin' Maties.
Eggs
Or in the words of me old mate Gollum (the original one, you know the one that has lived in my head since I were young, not the fake New Zealand one):
Eggss's!
Oh yes, Easter is a comin' and there's nothing yer Cap'n likes more than a nice Easter egg. As many as possible so that I can put me ol' seaboots up on my cabin table come Easter morn, give thanks to the Lord and stuff myself full o' Albumen and Yolk.
Chocolate I hear you ask?
Nah, not here.
It gives me the monster-jips. I remember a time when we was runnin' a Brigand full o' Cacau beans down in the Southern Seas - oh yes. Very nasty. But you don't want to hear about that. Suffice to say I can't look a bar o' Lindt in the eye in the same way no more.
Nope, a good ol' hard (or soft) boiled hens egg, and as many as you like.
That does for me at Easter and bless the chicken that lays 'em.
Remember Cool Hand Luke? He's got nothin' on me come Easter Monday.

***

Well, as regular FogBlographers (why didn't I think of that before?) will know, I can drone on with an intensity which could send a caged and smoking lab Beagle to sleep, so today I am going to do something different.
In the words of the world-renowned Buitoni Ravioli TV advert from the early 1970's:
Don't talk . . . Eat!
(Actually, go on, search for a picture of a tin of Buitoni . . I dare you . . you won't find one . . again . . why?)
I am going to let the pictures do the talking and save my fingers the walking.
I will refer new readers back to The Ralph Gibson Experiment Part 1 and The Ralph Gibson Experiment Part 2, in which the whole ludicrous thing is explained, but if you are short of time, here's a précis:
The preface is simple:

Make photographs with a standard shutter speed that does not change and a standard aperture that does not change. All that needs to change is the focus, and even then . . .
Have a standardised processing procedure.
The camera I used is a 1960 Leica M2 - it's as sweet as a nut and I love it. The lens is an uncoated 1934 Leitz 50mm Elmar. It lacks contrast, so to help things, it is also fitted with a FISON lens hood.
The film is developed in a particularly strong solution of Agfa Rodinal (or R09 as it is now known) - Mr.Gibson's objective was to achieve a dense negative, and strangely this has helped me, delivering better results from the rather soft Elmar that are more akin to a modern coated lens.

I'll detail the procedure now:

SHUTTER SPEED: Well Mr.Gibson states his sunny day shooting speed is 1/250th of a second, however this is Scotland (Hoots!) and I chose to use 1/125th of a second, just in case.
APERTURE: Ralph uses a standard f16. He believes this gives his pictures a uniformity. It is a very cleaver move because it removes all faffing around and means you concentrate on the picture. I used f16 for every picture on this film.
FILM: he uses Kodak Tri-X, with EI's ranging from 400 down to 100.
DEVELOPER: Agfa Rodinal (or R09 as it is now known). He uses this at a dilution of 1+25 and a temperature of 68° Farenheit, with a 10 second agitation every 1 minute and 30 seconds, for a total time of 11 minutes.

And that is it.
Simple?
Well yes.
Brilliant?
Well yes, because you are freed of the general process and apart from focusing can make images pretty much on the fly.
My variation on this for this post, is that I had no Tri-X and was down to the last roll of fast film in the house, an expired (November, 2010) roll of Kodak TMY 400.
Because of this, obviously development times were different from Tri-X, so I roughly grabbed a figure out of the air, and settled on 9 minutes, with Ralph's agitation regime. I used 10ml Rodinal to 280ml water in a small Paterson tank. The Massive Development Chart recommends 5 minutes for this combo at EI 400, so this is well over!
The other variation is that for some of the last shots, I took the shutter speed down to 1/15th and 1/60th at f16, simply because the shots were of interiors and through windows. Yes I like the idea of a set speed, but I am not stupid and film is expensive.

Contact Sheet

***

After making two shots at the bus stop, I hit the upper deck of a bus on the way home from work. And as you can see, it has been fine in one shot, but, worried about the unholy way in which the bus was throwing me around and camera shake, I upped the shutter speed to 1/250th and with f16 the combo hasn't worked for shadow detail at all.
The sun was low, but it wasn't exactly dark, but it was a stop too far!

This being said, Frame 3 (the only one at 1/125th) is a corker.
I'll call it The Buddha On The Bus, simply because the rear of the man's head reminds me of Buddha's serene pose.

What isn't seen is his young son, who was running around causing chaos. I think the guy just closed his eyes for a second and assumed this serene pose!

The Buddha On The Bus

Now certainly, on my monitor at work, this seems too contrasty, and very dark (and the same for the rest too - you might need to adjust accordingly) but at home and of course in the actual print, there is a nice glow and the subtleties of the shadows work very well.
I am also happy with the fact that it looks kind of weird because of the composition.

Printing-wise, I tried to get as Gibson-esque as possible with this. It was printed on Kentmere Fineprint VC fibre-based paper at Grade 5. Now that is a nominal Grade 5 simply because the paper is really old. Filtration was 130 units of Magenta on my DeVere 504. The lens was the El-Nikkor 50mm f2.8, new version. It looks quite contrasty doesn't it. I think it has almost transformed the look I get from the Elmar, and yet at the left of frame, there is that lovely Elmar OOFA (out of focus area).

I was pleasantly surprised.

***

Cheese

Next up was a grabbed shot in St.Andrews of a Saturday morning. It was one of those things - a whole bunch of people were gathered around this bloke applying window stickers to a bank. It looked quite surreal, so I just set a hyper-focal distance on the Elmar and went in like a sniper, one shot. The chap on the left looks like he has been stuck on, and strangely the shadow inbetween the two men looks like it is something out of Peter Pan, if you know what I mean.

I love the super-cheesy look on the model's face, don't you? and also the fact that someone has smeared the remnants of a 'kerry-oot' over the window near her face . . .

The world's (nearly) richest students?

Come on guys . . . keep yer lovely town clean.

Again, this is on Kentmere and a full-on Grade 5.

***

The next frame I am saving till second last as I am very happy with it. So I'll substitute in this one:

Cardboard Cat

Why on earth someone would have a cardboard cut-out of a cat in their window, I have absolutely no idea! But they did, so I took a not very good picture of it. As you can maybe tell a bit, the film/dev and lens combo have made sterling work of the tracery of the curtain.
Old Elmar's seem to work very well in the medium/close range . . in other words, really, I believe they were optimised for people photography. Too close can be a bit mushy, infinity too, but in the 5 to 10 feet range, marvellous!
This was a Grade 3 print, but I reckon could have done with more, so I gave it a sharpish bath in Potassium Ferricyanide to tickle the highlights up a bit, and it has sort of worked. As I say, I don't think I am getting the full range of grades from the Kentmere paper as it is a number of years old.

***

Self Portrait With Dirt

OK - another one of my dirty window pictures. I tried to get in as close as possible with the Elmar, but I have just mucked it up as the dirt isn't as crisp as I wanted it to be.
This being said I rather like the ominous look of my reflection in this - it suggests something 'other-worldy' if you get my drift. This was a Grade 4 print.

***

Now I am going to shove in the print which should have come before the cat. I love this. 

It was one of those photos: I saw the shop display of the girls whispering, saw the street reflected in the window, and waited till the woman was walking in the right part of the frame and bingo.

Have You Heard About Her?

What I just love about this is that you can see the girls whispering to each other "Have you heard about her?" and there she is reflected . . Walls have Ears etc etc.

I did actually print this a tad too dark, so have had to selectively pot-ferry the faces. This was simple enough to do - about half a teaspoon of crystals to about 300 ml of water; mix well; remove print from wash, let its wetness stick it to the back of an empty developing tray and use a shower head to wash the print as you are doing it; then paint the solution onto the areas required and almost immediately wash off - keep repeating till desired lightness is achieved; give print a good final blast of water and pop it back into some film strength fix for a minute or so. 

If results aren't still to your liking, then repeat the procedure. 

It is important to return the print to the fix, and the reason I use film strength is so that the print isn't in the fixing solution for a prolonged period of time..

Sectional Enlargement - 800 DPI

The sectional enlargement of one of the girl's eyes gives you an idea of how big the grain can be with this combo . . it isn't alarming. Also bear in mind that scanning isn't an actual substitute for seeing a print. In the print, the grain is super-crisp and quite a delight.

***

And onto my final frame, although it was an extra one, so number 37.

This was taken at Vision - Dundee's 'digital hub'. 13 units to rent, and only 3 occupied. It is a beautiful looking building inside and just the sort of place that should be rethinking its strategy and using its great space for exhibitions and workshops and things. I was so taken by the light and the reflection in the window and also the look of the window through the window and the tree in the car park that I had to make this. It was made by bracing the camera against the window and taking things down to 1/15th. This is easy to do with a Leica as there is no mirror flapping around making a nuisance of itself. I will happily say I love it.

By Evening's Light

I made the print darker than I should have and again there has been selective bleaching to the window and the highlights, but I feel it works. It is sort of a 'nature is just waiting to reclaim all this' picture, and I am fond of making such images.

Again, Grade 5 on Kentmere, oh and I forgot to mention - all prints were developed in Kodak Polymax and fixed with Agfa Agefix.

***

And that's it folks - hope you enjoyed it.
I suppose it does take a modicum of courage from me to stick the contact sheet at the start - my heart is on my sleeve . . . you can see my rubbish as well as my decent bits, but hey that's walking around with a camera!
Again, any questions or anything, please feel free to ask!
You should have a go at using Ralph's regime - it is surprisingly flexible and gives results which can surprise and please.
As usual, take care, God Bless and thanks for reading.

Say Cheese! It's Leica Time.

Hoo Har, scuse me maties.
The spitoons are fairly o'er flowin' with the gobbings of a chesty crew.
Oh yes mates, we got the lurgy real bad. Something to do with pullin' into Liverpool and too much Brain's Bitter in them pubs, and then some rather dodgy kebabs on the way back aboard. Then Sheephouse appears, having visited his Aunt in Chester and brought us back something rather nasty in the form of the worst cold we's ever had.
The riggin' was slippery with cloughers, the decks awash and truly awful.
It's been a nasty week no doubt about it - we even had to use up Mog's collection of small bear costumes to deal with the sputum . . very very nasty indeed. They solidified fairly quickly and got chucked overboard as we were leeward of the fair town of Morecambe.
Ambergris?
My arse.

***

Well it's a cold Tuesday morning here below decks and as usual, I could think of nothing to write. All I had in my head is an image I made on Saturday, which I have rather taken a liking to. It isn't in focus, there's a twisty camera shake to it, it doesn't even look like a 'proper' photograph, however I do know that I will print it to my best ability and keep it with my other prints.

How did I take it? Well, this article is either going to be about surreptitious photography or, probably more likely, an anatomy of a trip out with my camera. It'll probably be the latter, though I have to warn you in advance, the scans of the negatives are shite, courtesy of my Epson V300 scanner. It is fine for certain things, but for film not so good. And I'll add to that, that I only made the photographs last Saturday (the 26th of January) and have only made a contact print so far.
I'll also not bore you with the jetsam but I will go through the contact print and present the larger images . . . so here goes . . got your hard hat ready?

Regular FBers (there are such people . . what a strange bunch!) will know that in recent times I have had a dalliance with Leicas - it just seemed like a good thing to do at the time.
I really saved up for one, at not a small amount of difficulty, and then had to send it back (Leica Sniff Test) which made me sad as I had really enjoyed using it.
So I scrimped even further and added some more money and bought a 1960 Leica M2.
Now I will state this here and now, undoubtedly they seem to be regarded as rich boy's playthings, however don't knock 'em till you have handled one. I have used a lot of cameras over the years, but I have never used one which was so beautiful to handle.
Yes mine is what they term a 'user' - it has been well-used over the years, but the rangefinder is accurate and the viewfinder is relatively clean.
The film advance is like nothing you have ever tried - my Nikons are smooth, but this is like mechanical butter. It actually is a joy to use and considering it is a tad older than me, I think, pretty remarkable.
To put it into perspective, it was made before Vietnam, before Kennedy's assassination, before the Beatles changed the world, before Psycho became a benchmark . . . and it hit the world running.
It was a not inconsiderable investment by someone at the time, and it has been used, a lot.
It hasn't been treated the way Leica collectors seem to do things by putting their precious investments away in cotton wool, nope, internally, parts of the film advance are worn away to their brass. It has a few scratches. it has a slightly wheezy 1/15th of a second, but when I use it, it feels like an extension of my hand and eye. And to be honest, if you are a photographer, that is surely all you could want.
Those craftsman in Wetzlar who made my M2 were the real deal.
It is in fact so well put together that to my strange and romantic mind, it seems to have transcended it's highly machined physicality to become something other.
Can machines have a soul?
Yes, I truly believe some of them can.
I have been tempted to return it to the vendor and say "Oi, why is the shutter wheezy like that, when you said the shutter was serviced?" but to be honest I have already become attached to it.
I would dearly love someone from Leica to read this and say, "Come on then, send it to us at Solms and we'll give it a going over . ." and restore this amateurs instrument of joy back to its former glory . . . but dream on Sheephouse, it isn't going to happen.

Anyway, onwards.
The camera as stated is a 1960 Leica M2.
Lens is a 1934 Leica 50mm f3.5 uncoated Elmar, fitted with a FISON lens hood. The lens and hood predate the Second World War . . that too is incredible.
Film was Kodak Tri-X, which I rated at roughly EI 320.
The thing with using the camera the way I am going to describe is that film speed is a nominal, relative thing. I take a meter reading before I go out, and then adjust from there. As you'll see from the contact print, it doesn't always work, but then the overexposed images are still useable. You just have to up the exposure when you are printing . . simple.
Film latitude is a thing that not many people bother with. But certainly if you are using black and white, then you will have enough to deal with a huge range of lighting conditions.
It is all very flexible.
I used to meter everything, but have moved through all that in 35mm work to realise that roughly anything you take will be ok, so long as you follow the one cardinal rule:

Do not underexpose!

Overexposure is fine. Even that dread combination Overexposure and Overdevelopment is fine . .

One of my heroes is Ralph Gibson.
I never knew photograph could be so lyrical until I sat down one day and looked at his essay 'The Somnambulist' . . suddenly a large number of cogs moved together, like a smooth-working Leica advance, and I knew that I could make a photo essay.
I haven't yet, however I am getting there . . there's more than enough images to be gone over.
The key is, that for me it isn't a deliberate journey. I have a lot of similar images that will serve each other.
Anyway, I am digressing again - Mr.Gibson's key thing is that he deliberately Overexposes and Overdevelops!
It's mad.
It is so against what you are supposed to do, that it is like heresy, and yet, there is a lyrical intensity to his images. They are like a waking dream. They are all his own.
He said that he only discovered he could do this when he was watching a lithographer ink up some plates for the first publication of The Somnambulist. The extra ink created rich deep blacks, and it hit him that he could use broad expanses of black against highlights and get to where he wanted to go.
Whilst I might emulate his approach, I am not copying him, so you won't find anything like the depth of what he does . . but then, I am just me.
Anyway, intention set, camera loaded, my little key turning on my back . . off I went!
Two sessions/walks.

Film developed later in the afternoon.
Developer was Kodak HC 110, Dilution B at 20 degrees Centigrade.
I used a very small tank, so it was 9ml developer to 298ml water. Agitation was constant and gentle for 30 seconds, then I did 4 inversions every 30 seconds, halted at 7 minutes and poured developer out at 7 minutes 30 seconds.
A lot of people would say that I have overdeveloped this film, however to that I will add that everyone is different.
In my case, because of the extreme lack of contrast from the Elmar (due to its age and being uncoated) I felt that developing for longer would be the way to go to gain extra contrast and accutance.

Anyway, Tri-X and HC 110 is a classic combination - I like it, and to be honest looking at the lack of fog on the film base, I think the time is just about right actually!

Right, here goes.

Don't panic!
Contact prints of a film invariably look rubbish.
This is because there is just too much going on and your eye can't settle on anything.
Ilford Multigrade RC, Kodak Polymax, Agfa Ag Fix.

This is my contact print and as you can see, I have slightly underexposed the print.

The key thing with contact prints is to use the old maxim 'Minimum Time For Maximum Black' (MTFMB), basically meaning that when the unexposed edges of the film are indistinguishable from the exposed black density of the paper, you have exactly what you have shot.
Obviously film does develop some fog when it is being developed, however it is something you don't really have to worry about.
Try and get that film edge indistinguishable from the density of the paper. MTFMB is a useful base point and means you can read your negatives on the contact print, relative to something.
You don't get this frame of reference with scanning negative strips.
As you can see from my contact print, some of the frames are a tad underexposed and some are overexposed, however given that I haven't given the print enough exposure, then you can see that the overexposed frames will print down slightly more.

I wanted to try something with my lens on this journey, and that was to keep a set aperture and vary exposure by using shutter speeds, which is what I did. I tended to keep the f-stop at f9 (it's an old lens - and doesn't adhere to modern settings). The only frame I didn't do this on was number 16 which was approximately the equivalent of f5.6.

It was a cold morning - the snow from the day before had frozen, and there was plenty of condensation in the  shop windows, hence my first two frames. From there, I wandered up to one of the old University buildings (which is a waste of a huge building . . it is totally unused!) and from there, dondered along the back of the Wellcome Foundation building on the Hawkhill and down by the side of Duncan Of Jordanstone. From there, it was back up the Perth Road and the famous Tartan Cafe and back to the car.

Afternoon, was park opposite Tescos at Riverside and  walk along the river, skirt the Discovery, go along the back of the Leisure Centre to the Tay Bridge and then walk back.

You have to be receptive on trips like this. I view it as sort of like 'I have film loaded and I want to use it all - so let's see what we can see'. There is no set agenda as to what I will make images of. It is all down to what catches your eye at the time, and that can vary depending on your frame of mind, energy levels etc. It really is a voyage of discovery and one of the great pleasures in life. Photographing isn't the dark art a lot of pseuds would have you believe. Getting what you have on film into something you can use, is a semi-dark art/craft, but one that can be learned by anyone. I feel that I am at a stage now where making images is as natural as breathing. I have done a Joe Pass - 'Learn it all, and then forget it all.'

I have decided to limit this to 8 images as I don't want to bore you too much. This is after all all about me, and for some reason you are reading it . . .

Right, here goes:

Frame 2

Well, it was, as I have explained a very cold morning, so here I was confronted with a lovely flower shop, but, the condensation was such that you couldn't see anything. To be honest this would have worked better in colour as they were all muted and covered in whitey-grey condensation droplets. It caught my eye, I was aware of only having around forty minutes, so I made this by focusing on the droplets and as is often the case with my window pictures I am in there too! 

Frame 4

Then it was up to the Hawkhill via the lane at the side of the Tartan Cafe. This passes that disused University building I was talking about. It has become a bit of a magnet for graffiti, however and strangely, a lot of the graffiti is in chalk, so I am assuming that the artists are Art students from the nearby DOJ. 

This photo is unusual in that the grafitti is in spray paint. It could be by skaters as they use the vast expanses of concrete around the building. The interesting thing about it though is that it shows what happens when you use an uncoated lens into bright light. The shadows take on this flare of light and are almost contrastless. It is a nice effect, but relatively uncontrollable.

Frame 13

Moving on, I went round the back of the Wellcome building making another 8 pictures and headed back down to the Perth Road. 

This inspiring lump of concrete is actually the 'new' Crawford building of Duncan Of Jordanstone. The lower windows are the library. 

I like the way that the Elmar has made this look like it is a photo of the Bauhaus! Though, again the scanner has not managed to scan the full frame, so my verticals are terribly iffy.

The light was very beautiful, but I was even more aware I was running out of time . . .

Frame 18

They really ought to employ some window cleaners though . . . again the Crawford Building. 

I have cropped this, because the ****in scanner cannot scan a complete full frame. In my negative the verticals are correct . . in the scan they aren't . .so crop it was.

What attracted my eye, was the incredible brightness and that scuff in the lower part of the picture.

"Ooo aaar . . round these parts they be callin' that a waste of film . . ." 

Anyway, although that didn't actually conclude the pictures I made, it was frame 17.
I made another three and then headed for the car.
Yum yum . . lunch.
Boo boo . . housework.
Vroom vroom . . Dad taxi.
Happy happy . . Leica time.

Frame 27

It was incredibly icy down by the Tay, but the light was quite bright and some watery clouds were advancing and threatening more snow.

Again, another picture with me in though I am not nearly as svelt as that. 

Again I have had to crop very slightly because of the scanner. Incredible to make such allowances to infallible technology!

This is the back of the soon to be extinct Hilton Hotel . . it looks like a Victory V from the other side. The river side though is fortunate to have this incredible vista. 

What you can see is Fife and the Tay Road bridge. There's also a massive anchor stuck there too . . just to remind you of the area's heritage.

Frame 28

Well just to prove this is a city with its various bunches of nutters, further along by the Hilton's gym window, I discovered an area where someone had had a go at smashing what is fairly obviously safety glass. They hadn't suceeded and the crack was covered in film - hence the above. 

I rather like it as it reminds me of Minor White and some of the American photographers of the 1950's and 60's. It almost makes me want to go back with the 5x4 camera and do it as a large negative.

Frame 32

I have cheated a bit with this. I don't know why but I must have been listing when I took it as the vertical of the bridge on the left is ever so slightly squint. I can impart a bit of Gary Winogrand's wisdom here with regard to photographs. Try your best to keep the left vertical straight. The rest of the verticals in the picture and the horizontals can go to hell, but that left one has to be straight. It is sensible practice when you think about it, as we read from left to right, and visual disturbance on the initial scan will affect your whole view of the photo!

This photo also illustrates the beautiful drawing qualities of the old Elmar. 

Look at that glow from it - really lovely. 

This is under the Tay Bridge by the way - that staircase takes you up to the road level and I think it is a beautiful stair - it looks like a Mies van der Rohe two fingers to the Nazi's from 1933. Interesting to think that my lens was made one year (1934) after the Bauhaus was shut! That's that old heritage thing at work again.

Anyway . . onwards.

The following is a scan from the 1967 Edition of The Leica Book by Theo Kisselbach. It's a marvellous book and highly recommended for users of all film cameras.

It shows what I wanted to achieve.

If only photography was still like this.
The text describes very well how to go about achieving the 'walking snapshot'.

Unfortunately for me, my technique let me down!

Frame 37

When out photographing I try to adhere to my own adage .  . always keep one up the pipe. 

Meaning, save a frame for the final bit of the walk back to your starting point. I did, and there, coming towards me was the most extraordinarily shaggy and weird looking dog I have ever seen. 

I had to capture it, so I thought I would capitalise on the Leica's quietness, and do the walking snapshot:

I preset the focus to 3.5 metres and I could see from this that my depth of field at f9 would take me from 2.5 metres to just beyond 5 metres . . so plenty of leeway for things being in focus. I set the shutter to 1/60th and nonchalantly wandered towards the dog and its owner with my camera on its strap around my neck. I thought I could angle the camera down and capture it that way. Snick and it would be done. 

Well, I did all that. 

The camera was almost silent, the lens was smooth to focus, but I didn't figure for the fact I would be so shite at it. 

Hence the above photograph. 

Dog missed. 

However of all the photographs I made on that cold Saturday, it is the one I like the most.

So there you go, the last photograph of the day and my favourite!

You know reading this week's blog, it is sort of a paean to Leicas. 

I still find it hard to believe that I am regularly using a lens that is 78 years old . . and it isn't junky . . it is beautiful and jam-packed full of character. I also find it hard to believe that a camera made before I was born could handle in such a way that it is as natural as breathing. It's a testimony to craftsmanship and design and fine engineering.

I would also state that my little visual expeditions are always done in the spirit of the man who taught me - Mr.Joseph McKenzie. He always urged us to go out and make photographs of anything that caught our eye. And that's what I do.

Well as usual, God bless and thanks for reading.

Nice Weather For Ducks

Gargh.

Well, that's 16 stone o'snails consumed, and now we're back on the seas of ether!

Oh yes mates, that was a tough week.

Sheephouse is still sorting out his negatives, but in the meantime, he found time to write a little ditty about a Capn's favourite subject - Weather!

It's been bad, but it's going to get worse.

He's a sage old soak is Sheephouse, but me and Mog like him . . .
Even though he eats snails.

***

You know what - this FB has nothing to do with photography.

I know, I know, but get over it.
I have been conducting many amusing and interesting photographic exploits for your edification, but they will appear later.
I just had to get this off my chest.

The title of this week's FB alludes to the marvellous track by Lemon Jelly - you should listen to it - it has a jolly sound and a good beat, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
But in typical FB offroadness, here we go in another direction.
The baldy (but excellent drummer) Phil Collins once, in solo guise, intoned the following lyrics:

Though your hurt is gone, mine's hanging on, inside

And I know, it's eating me through every night and day

I'm just waiting on your sign

Now I, Now I wish it would rain down, down on me

Yes I wish it would rain, rain down on me now

Yes I wish it would rain down, down on me

Yes I wish it would rain on me

Well Phil, it did and it does and it will.

I don't know about you lot, but I am looking at a future of wellies and ponchos, of web-feet and oily feathers.

If I were of a scientific bent, I would say that yes indeed, the sheer amount of water vapour in the air and a warmer planet can only mean one thing - more rain.

But as a man from a Darker Age (and I do count myself amongst these out-of-time individuals) I will say that the planet is angry. Very angry.

Whichever way you look at it, I think we're pretty fcecked.

But then again what do I know? I'm just a pleb at a keyboard who thinks a lot about things.

I do know one thing though, and that is that British infrastructure is entirely unprepared for the levels of rainfall we are experiencing.
So, apart from questionable flood defences is anything really being done?

Is it going to take armageddon-style rain, a spring tide with higher sea levels and the failure of the Thames Barrier to make people realise that this is serious?
Will people start to think when 20 million litres of backed-up sewage explode out of the manholes of the Capital?

Instead of mucking around with millions and millions of pounds of public money for this and that questionable social cause, why not direct it into a mass culvertisation of the parts of the country that need it most?
Massive unemployment?
Do a Roosevelt and bring in the likes of the PWA (Public Works Administration) ** and get these works moving . . and fast.
(I know that all sounds dreadfully un-environmentally friendly, but drastic times call for dreastic measures sometimes and to be honest it could be done properly.)

Back in the day when people in this wonderful old land lived closer to nature, it was entirely obvious that a flood plain was there for a reason. In Winter or Autumn when heavy rain upland loaded the river systems, the plains took the brunt of that water, flooding over and providing a valuable resource and fertile land. People didn't live on them because to do so would have been stupid.
But the world has changed again.
The almighty monetary unit has, I am afraid, greased more palms and lined more pockets. Despite seemingly draconian planning regulations, we've built on flood plains, shoved housing estates in where there should never have been any, grossly underestimated drainage capacity, ignored all the warnings from old guys leaning on gates saying:
"You don't want to build that there . . ."
In other words there never has  been much in the way of 'joined-up' (how I hate that expression, but it fits) thinking about anything that might happen in the future. And actually there probably never will be.

Yes we build next to rivers . . . it's a mankind thing, but the river is your friend and should never be your enemy.

Unfortunately though, most rivers are now unable to cope with their original vocation, and they are starting to flood. Regularly.
And what can we do, because we've melted the ice caps; we pump gallons of water vapour into the air from our reliance on condensing boilers; we've built on land that should never have been built on; we've paved over gardens; concretised green spaces; relied way too much on the benevolence of Victorian waste water systems; we've built and demanded and raped and dug and scarred and disrespected the one thing that we need to take care of - this land.

The bones of old Albion are in a sorry state these days because few care.

Instead of looking after that which gives us our everything (and remember this is a Prehistoric Man speaking, so I mean everything, place and soul too) we've become destructive and intransigent, which is a dangerous and self-fulfilling way to be.

We actually hold our own destruction in our own two hands. We are lifting that handful of earth which we've formed into our own god-like shape into the air, and we're passing it onto our children with no thought for them.

A recent holiday helped me experience the sheer change in the weather in a very obvious manner.
We've caravan holidayed for years and yes it has always rained - that is part of the fun. But these new-style pulsing tropical showers that the West of Britain now gets in off the Atlantic (we're sort of unused to them over here in the East of Scotland - though we certainly do get incredible rain at times)  were so intense and so sharp (rather like someone turning on a tap full blast for a short period of time and then turning it off quickly) that they were actually frightening in their severity.
The Prehistoric Man that is me, felt himself cowering against the wrath that the planet was unleashing.

And curiously it did feel like wrath.
They stopped as quickly as they started, and then started again. They were relentless and unforgiving. 

So can I only assume that these will get worse?

Planetary science is a complex and interlinked subject, but as far as I can tell, more ice melt, means more fresh water in the sea and higher sea levels. A warmer planet means greater evaporation  from that engorged sea. Greater evaporation means more water vapour in the atmosphere. Water vapour creates clouds. More clouds with more water vapour, generally means more rain.

If I have been too simple about this, then please feel free to tell me - I am an everyman science person. I was rubbish at the sciences at school, but I am still interested, and I walk around with an open mind and open eyes and ears.

Whichever way we look at it though, it doesn't look very bright does it?

Of course it is more than likely a natural cycle, but an accelerated natural cycle. There was a period in the Dark Ages when crops failed on a massive basis, leading to famine and war. This was possibly a consequence of the mass destruction of the forests and burning of wood (and they got through a lot of wood then - I know . . I was there!) combined with undocumented volcanic activity. I don't know, but what I do know is that the consequences of vast cloud cover were devestating.

Actually though, we are possibly in a worse position than our ancestors - for a start there's a hell of a lot  more of us with a greater demand on dwindling resources.

And secondly, here in the West we're also utterly useless when it comes to self-suffiency.

What was the old adage about society . . that it was three square meals short of anarchy? ***

It's not quite that bad, but it certainly isn't rosy. All this rain. All that cloud cover. Not enough sunshine.

Can you imagine the consequences of food shortages?

I mean proper food shortages - rationing, maybe even worse. Civil intervention to prevent looting?

I stood aghast in Tescos last night - I genuinly saw a squeezy bottle of Manuka honey for £13.99! Even ordinary honey has tripled in price in the last 8 years, simply because there are no bees. ****

Prices are increasing on everything because the crops have failed in such a way this year that it is frightening.

And what are you going to eat when the crops fail?

Are you stockpiling now?

Would you be prepared to defend yourself if someone found out about your horde and they were starving?
Could you kill to defend your collection of tins?

This does seem to be getting out of hand, but I am typing and thinking and musing so bear with me - I know a lot of you are probably sniggering into your mugs, but honest, society is that fragile.

And you there, whipping through pages on your phone or your iPad, don't even get me going upon the reliance on communications systems that can be destroyed by electromagnetic pulses . . is it any wonder the Russians relied on vacuum tubes for their Cold War communications? Can you imagine a failure of even one communications network?

There was a fantastic book written in the 1970's by the Italian sociologist Roberto Vacca, called 'The Coming Dark Age'. It should have been required reading in schools, but like most education, we're (to quote Ian Anderson) skating away on the thin ice of a new day . .
It provided a number of scenarios where parts of society collapsed , and I found it chilling and thoughtful and actually, very factually written . .
And that was back in the 1970's.
Imagine the consequences nowadays.

 

The Portent Of Doom

Roberto Vacca's Masterwork



The whole downfall of society was touched upon by Terry Nation in his book 'Survivors' and the subsequent TV Series (and forget about the remake from a couple of years back . . what's that smell? Phwoeargh - utter drivel!). In it a virus is spread around earth with remarkable ease leaving small pockets of survivors who end up at war with each other.

There are two other books I can recommend on this subject:
First (obviously) 'The Day Of The Triffids' by John Wyndham - arguably the greatest survival book ever written.
And then a lesser-known but still incredible book 'All Fool's Day' by Edmund Cooper.
Both deal with this theme beautifully.

There were many other books which also ploughed this furrow back then (in particular John Christopher's 'The Death Of Grass') but if you are interested in that style of book I would say go with Wyndham and Cooper.

The Trimvirat Of Doom
Epic In Scale - The Chill Voices Of Seers

Anyway, as usual this is digression, but it is founded.

You know you sometimes sense there's things going on, but you're not sure what?

That visceral instinct of intuition?

Well I feel it, but I can't put my finger on it. It isn't a positive feeling though.

I feel something cataclysmic and dreadful is lurching into life like never before.

Our planet is angry with us. And that might be the Prehistoric Me speaking, but it is also the rational 21st Century man too. Hard to know where it is going to go really. We've been here before, and personally I have weathered the naysayers and doom-merchants till I am sick of it, and haven't said a thing, but now, this time, I think we're just over the crest of the hill and are picking up speed, heading downhill without any brakes.

I'm sorry that the tone of this FB is so negative, but I worry about things. I worry how my wife and son and neices and nephews would cope in a world where the worst has happened. You have to think about these things - they aren't just going to go away!

Anyway, just to cheer you up, here's a short film I made - I think it sums things up quite nicely.

Enough. Rant over.
You know I was just going to leave it at that and sign off, but somehow it didn't feel right.
The world is in big trouble, but it can be benevolent if you are open-minded and respect it.
I felt I was a tad critical of everything in today's FB - my rant had taken me along negative roads (can you see where I am going yet?) . . s'cuse the pun, but this is FB - it has to be negative, and sure enough just when I thought it didn't feel quite right this week, I thought and thought and realised that I could shoehorn in some photography. So here it is.

The above just shows what opportunities for photos turn up at the most unexpected times.

There I was wandering along enjoying a stroll, when I rounded a corner and came face to face with nature's bounty.

Storms and worsening weather can generally mean one thing in a forest - - upended trees. And sure enough here one is, but look at the naturalistic form that has been given to the roots.

I beat my chest and worshipped and gave thanks.

Prehistoric Man will always find gods in anything natural, and here was this wonderful profile just sitting at the edge of the path.

It was made on my newly acquired Leica with the 1934 50mm uncoated Elmar. It isn't a particularly sharp lens (despite what you might read elsewhere) but boy has it captured the spirit of this form.

As I move further along my photographic journey I realise that contrast is often overdone. Coating lenses might well have helped in colour transmission, but it somehow made B&W a bit too contrasty.

One thing you won't read about the Elmar is that it is better as a people lens. In other words it seems to work a lot better in the 3 to 10 feet sector. In that range it renders things deliciously smoothly.

As a landscape lens, it can be a bit difficult to use, as a lot of variables start to come in, like lighting and contrast.

But close-up, I think it is beautiful. And stunning.

And I don't know, but it felt right to render something like this with a lens that is that old.

The negative was made on Ilford Delta 400 rated at EI 320. It was developed in HC110 Dilution G for 20 minutes at 21 C.

It might well have been sharper had I used a more concentrated dilution, but there were a lot of differing scenes on the roll, and Dilution G it was.

So that's it.

Be open to the natural scene, listen to your inner Prehistoric Man and

Respect nature, please.

Remember, we've spent a lot longer living close to our earthly Mother than we have in our concrete and stone boxes.

Until next time - take care, God bless, and keep taking the tablets.

** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration

*** This appears to have been a bit of an urban myth being attributed to either Larry Niven (the SF writer), or Grant and Naylor the writers of Red Dwarf.

**** Possible solutions to the future of bees here:

http://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org/

I personally feel that the abundance of so many telecommunications masts has something to do with it too.