The Whole Of The Moon

Morning folks - I've been thinking lately about what happens when we reach, say £10 for a 120 roll of FP4+. It's a frightening prospect isn't it? 

Though in reality we've been on £10 rolls of film for a while now, and I have started to ask myself what sort of justification both Kodak and Harman can make for, for instance:

TMY 400 - 120 Roll - on average £11

Ilford SFX 120 - on average £14.

You see, I understand costs have gone up - everything from energy to raw materials to wages - I do understand. 

However when you are pricing your main products (duh . . film) beyond the reach of a lot of people, then I think you need to sit down and have a rethink.

Frozen Out
Manufacturers Beware

I have recently been described as a "luxury photographer" in that I use film exclusively.

Well, I do.  

I get no enjoyment from digital, so I use film and I print it in my own darkroom. 

I'm also VERY fortunate, in that last year I was gifted a lot of outdated film and paper and I worked my way around its losses in speed and grade to produce very decent prints. 

I've printed more recently than I have ever printed purely because of that . . . and trying to produce 20x16" prints in a darkroom not much wider than the average understairs cupboard has been as much a challenge as it has been total fun. 

However, I haven't had to pay for this stuff - I have operated on a freebie basis all through the cost of living crisis - thanks to the extreme generosity of a friend.

The thing is though, now, rather than spending my pocket money on a nice new (old) camera or some useful filters, I am starting to think:

STOCK UP.

The one big thing the film I was gifted has shown me, is that despite all the online claims of being able to squeeze out something useful for ever, film will eventually 'go off'. 

I had some Tri-X that was so old that it was in a paper wrapper. It was fogged to feckery. 

Weirdly, TMY 400 which expired in 2009 was (and is) fine, but TMX 100 which expired in 1990 was pretty gubbed. 

Agfapan 25 from some very distant point in time was really fine, whereas Pan F, 10 years out, was fairly dull. 

When I am describing their states, I don't mean they're unusable, just that you couldn't use them for mission critical work. 

Stuff that is a few years out of date seems to be OK unless it is Ilford and then you might be struck by the dreaded mottle, which seems to strike completely randomly, even on film which expired in 2022! My own stock (roughly 100 sheets) of 2006 expired Kodak TXP320 which has been kept cool, is fine, but in the end I know entropy will get it.

A small part of it!

As for paper - Multigrade from over 10 or even 20 years ago, drops a couple of grades - yes, you can compensate, but I find myself regularly printing on Grade 3.5 or 4.5 and I'll tell you truthfully - it can be a complete fecker to deal with! 

Graded (such as Ilfospeed) seems to last a very long time indeed, as does a lot of old Agfa paper.

So why stock up?

Well, it ain't getting any cheaper. 

That's my entire argument. 

Nothing ever reduces in price. 

I remember when a roll of SFX was about £4 and it seemed extortionate then . . add on an extra tenner and I am glad I bought 20 rolls for £30 from the late-lamented Silverprint! It's all frozen too. 

There's a lot to be said for pleading with your partner for freezer space and filling a couple of clip-top hermetic boxes with film.

Paper though is a different matter, unless you can afford to run a small chest freezer, but even then, you can mitigate entropy in buying say Graded paper (if you can find it - Ilfospeed is being discontinued as we speak) and storing it as cool as you can. 

In the giftings I received last year, was a box of 12x16" Grade 2 Ilfospeed, "at least 10 years old" (actually, probably nearer to 20!) and it prints like a champ. 

Any loss of speed on a graded paper can be mitigrated by brewing your own Dr. Beers developer - that'll grab you at least another grade if you're careful.

So I think that is what I am going to do - take the defensive position. 

I really don't want to, but once I've retired I've got on average, what? about 20 years whist I can still be bothered to do any of this.

There's other casualties in the defensive mode too - I'm sorry for Kodak, because as a life-long Kodak user, I stopped using their film after the Alaris revamp simply because of their need to make money on the investment that buying a bankrupt company entails.

As you'll no doubt know Kodak film became almost entirely unaffordable overnight. And I now find myself driven the same way with their chemicals (indeed, if you can get them - Selenium seems to have been out of stock for a long time and the same with Polymax developer) they're pricing a loyal customer (and very regular user) out of the park! 

And I am not the only one.

I'm now finding myself in a similar situation with re-stocking photographic paper when this lot runs out. My dream of printing an archive of my 6x6 negatives at an image size of 8" x 8" on 9.5 x 12" FIBRE paper (it looks great) is fast disappearing down the swanny at a current cost for 50 sheets of somewhere in the mid-90 pounds (that's £95 for 50 sheets - yes you did read that right.)

If I wanted to do the same on Ilford's premium RC paper (Portfolio - it really IS lovely stuff and easy to use, but at the end of the day it is only a resin coated paper) then I would be exactly the same price. 

Portfolio in postcard size (10x15cm) is nearing £70 for 100 sheets!

Even a box of 100 sheets of bog standard 10x8" MG Fibre is around £130. 

You really DO NOT want to make any mistakes (surely the way that ALL beginnners learn) at £1.30 a sheet. 

Align that with:

"I have just cut a sheet of paper that cost £1.30 into quite a number of bits for test strips . . . GROAAAN!". 

And when you start thinking like that, you start (EVEN AS A PASSIONATE, EXPERIENCED AND COMMITTED DARKROOM WORKER) to think:

What the fuck is the point?

Trust me, the major producers are running a very tight line of:

Affordability vs. Fckck it, it's too expensive.

I would warrant that a lot of consistent Ilford (et al) shooters are of the, how shall we say, old git variety. 

You know, Mesdames et Messieurs like us. 

You started in 1970's or '80's and you still enjoy it. 

Maybe you have a darkroom, maybe you don't, but no matter what, the process of taking photographs is as much a part of you as breathing and no matter how advanced digital photography has come along, there's still nothing better than that release of the shutter, with some, but in reality little, idea of exactly how something is going to come out. 

You still buy film because you always have and you think you will, for as long as you can see clearly, and even then (like Bruce from T.O.D.) an autofocus Nikkor can help things along nicely.

In other words you are a KEY Ilford (et al) customer.

Yes, there's always the younger photographer . . the "Analog Revolution" (sic), but even then, factor in the cost of film against say, housing costs or trying to keep a young family above the tide line . . . well . . . see what I mean. 

The term Luxury Photographer has never been more apt.

For my own generation, despite what people think, we're really not all well off. 

Not by any means. 

A large chunk of us boomers are either on pensions or heading towards that phase of our lives on a lick and a promise - no tasty personal pension in place; maybe cut adrift from your work above the age of 60 and little chance of finding more because of the endemic ageism in society (it is there - trust me on that one too); on benefits or slipped between the cracks.

Yet there's one thing we want to do.

What's that Simpkins? C'mon lad, spit it out . . louder, so the whole class can hear you!

 

We want to take more pictures! 

And more importantly:

WE WANT TO BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO TAKE MORE PICTURES.

I want to make more prints and I want to be able to afford that for as long as I am able to lift a Beard Easel, so it is really hard coming smack up against the profitability vs. affordability thing.

Mark my words, I reckon when we get to the £10 roll of FP4+ some people will throw in the towel. 

£100 for 10 rolls of film - CAN YOU IMAGINE????

Yes there is of course Foma and numerous fly-by-night names out there (operating at a price slightly below, but in reality not that much different from the big ones) and good luck to them, but the thing I have found, certainly with Foma film (not the chemicals or paper) is a bit of a lack of Quality Control. I remember walking for many miles, taking a 5x4 camera with me and DDS's with Foma 100, taking some pictures, developing them, only to discover the emulsion was scored and pock-marked. 

GREAT QC is why I like Ilford and why I liked Kodak. Although, then again look at the mottle issue.

Kentmere as an Ilford brand is top-notch stuff btw.

What I would say to all manufacturers of film and paper and chemicals is this:

PLEASE - YOU NEED US JUST LIKE WE NEED YOU. 

We your customers understand the costs, but you also have to understand our costs - the current inflationary position of the world hits both sides of the coin. 

If we can't afford to buy your products, then YOU DIE. 

It really is as simple as that. 

I would never have bothered normally
 but it was 'free' so why not?!

I have found myself perusing my old archives recently, chucking out tons of shitty prints and thinking, actually, is there any point to this other than I enjoy doing it? 

Will anything ever be left, or discovered down the line? 

I doubt it. 

So if that is the case, is there actually any point in me spending a VERY large part of my disposable income on something that is akin to a dead end? 

If it were cheaper, I'd think feck it and keep on!

But when you sit down and factor in a lovely 8x8" image on fibre 9.5 x 12" paper all toned and everything, and then add in the pre-parts of that:

Camera; film; time; chemicals for processing; storage; enlarger; lens and darkroom equipment; paper chemicals; and finally archival storage, I think you must be heading towards at the very least £6 a print! 

And when you get to that . . well. why not just go digital? It's a shitload cheaper!

But like I said I don't like digital, so when I get to the point where this is getting financially crippling I might start to think:

God that's a massive wall of unaffordability I am heading down this hill towards . . I'm going to put on the brakes now, jump out of this vehicle and head uphill to where the sun is shining and I can enjoy a bottle of wine without thinking, gosh, that was around the price of ONE print.

It is a sobering thought (or it should be if you're a consumables manufacturer) that even someone like me (a core customer) with two really great enlargers (a DeVere 504 and a Meopta Magnifax) a decent selection of great lenses and all the gear and the passion to use it, is starting to think twice,

Thinking that the financial viability of what is really just a hobby; certainly a pastime that I love, but a pastime all the same, is headed towards the shitter. 

I chanced upon a chat with the illustrator Keith Walker today - you'll not know him, but if you read Commando comic from around the number 500, you'll definitely know his work; he said:

"What could be cheaper than a pencil and a bit of paper?"

and he's absolutely right. 

When I was small my hobbies were drawing and calligraphy - they cost peanuts . . . I'd hate to say I can feel them coming on again, but being a creative person I have to do something. 

If this continues I can see that happening. 

Really!

Anyway, I know nobody "up top" will read this, but I think, as a community, we REALLY need to talk about it. 

It's simple - if people stop using film because it becomes too expensive and manufacturers find themselves in a vicious circle of lower production and higher prices, what happens to the value of say your M6, or your collection of working Barnacks, or your Hasselblads, or your superb (but dead-ended) specialist cameras like a Fuji or Linhof 6x17 pano? 

Even the plain-Jane K1000s or Nikon Fs? 

They'll just become worthless lumps of metal and glass consigned to display cabinets.

You're talking about the collapse of a (albeit small) part of a profound, life-changing art-form. Yeah the digital stuff will continue, but it ain't the same . . well it's not to me.

This is serious stuff.

It's worse than that though, because I think the traditional 'wet' darkroom will kick the bucket first. 

Darkroom-based photographic print-making is heading the same way as the Dodo. 

I can see it almost gone in 10 years time.

Who do you know that prints?

I go to a Photography Forum every month, and of the average of 20-25 regulars, there's about two of us. And if I can't afford to . . . . well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that one out . . .

I learned my craft on Ilfobrom and Kentmere Bromide (they were as cheap as chips) before heading up to the heady delights of Galerie. 

But even then with the incredible tutelage of Joe McKenzie I made a lot of mistakes. 

We all did. 

It was part of the learning curve, but the mistakes were affordable, not eye-watering. 

I was able to hone my craft at an early age on a student grant! 

It's been a gift that has repaid me in spades over the years, but I was only able to do it because the stuff was relatively cheap . . though still a (small) luxury!

Things have got to change before it really is too late.

Over and oot . . . you ain't seen me . . . right?

H xx

Occam's Razor (ish)

Morning folks - well I got there eventually - sorry for any tardiness in publishing, but sometimes, well sometimes you're busy.

Anyway Spring is a Springin'!

Mornings are getting lighter and every photographer worth his salt should be getting out from under that thiosulphate-stained quilt and heading out with some fresh film and an attitude!

Attitude?

Oh yeah.

You've got to get moving!

Over the latter Winter months this year, I photographed seriously around (on average) three times a week. Now that's a lot for me, but it was good from the point of view that it helped sharpen my compositional viewpoint and instilled in me a realisation that I am really not getting any younger, and any day lost, is one less day of light.

Oh what a yawn dahling, what a lazy use of English.

It is true though, because it is the light that defines us.

It's easy for me to write that this morning, when the sun is up, but it is still brisk outside, but trust me, the light 'round these parts has run the gamut from utter pish through to heavenly. 

Overcast ghastliness and liquid silver; chucking rain; hard, low Winter sun; calf-length snow and bitter winds - I did them all.

It's been fun though; intensive and hard, and I discovered I rather like photographing buildings. 

I've done the found objects to death, so concrete stone, glass and steel it was. 

But rather than boringly detail each and every building I thought I'd get this melange of photos together and  show you what I did with relatively simple (albeit exquisite) equipment.

Oh, and why Occam's Razor? 

Well its underlying principle is that the simplest explanation is often the most correct. 

Not only that but I like the expression!

Photographically, I think there's way too much guff spoken about photography, both in the execution and also in the production of an end product. 

For instance, regular readers will know I have a total aversion to split-grade printing as I think it may possibly be useful, but on the whole feel it is far too footery for my ends. 

In the darkroom, and paraphrasing my old mentor Joseph McKenzie, simple is best.

I also re-read some of Fred Picker's Zone System Manual recently and oh boy, no disservice to Mr. Picker, but it really makes you want to put your lens cap on. 

Well it does me, even though there's plenty of useful stuff in there, the sheer complexity and footeriness really is enough to send one running.

So, simple is the by-word and without further ado, here's the pics!

Wall

Extreme dullness in the extreme, the above has something about it I like. I think it is the off-kilter banding from a mixture of pillar shadow and low sun.

This was made with a newly acquired, super-cheap 250mm CF Sonnar. It's got a couple of cosmetic issues but is a fine lens. As sharp wide open as it is stopped down, it has made me reconsider viewpoints. 

It was taken on HP5 rated at 200, processed in Pyrocat-HD and printed on Grade 3 Ilford MGRC.

1960's Concrete Brutalist

D'amore of a D'asame, as me old mate Sting used to say. 

Sonnar 250, HP5, Pyrocat and MGRC.

There's something gruesomely beautiful about the 'new' building at Duncan Of Jordanstone.

I think there's an air of Cold War stoicism about it.

Dundee has actually modelled for Russia in TV and film a few times - weird eh!

Progress

Back in the 60's the old Hawkhill was a mix of cottages, lanes, tenements and mills. It had character in spades and was torn down in the name of progress. 

When i arrived here, the last of the Hawkhill was condemned buildings, small shops hanging on by the skin of their teeth, and major works.

A great shame.

The modern thing in the background is part of the Life Science Centre and is a world leader in all things, er, life sciency.

Tree And Wall

There's something about the juxtaposition of tree, shadow and wall that I really like.

The sun was low and hard and weirdly I was wielding Ilford's SFX with a deep red filter. EI was 6!

The lens was a CF 150mm Sonnar. Hasselblad's cheapest secondhand lens on average and a sterling performer at all apertures.

It was processed in Pyrocat and printed on Ilford MGRC again.

I use the RC to make work prints, which I'll turn into 'proper' prints on fibre paper when I get the time.

Making work prints this way on 5x7" paper is a quick and easy way of working that doesn't cost a fortune.

Again the old simple is best epithet applies.

Occam's Razor!

Winter

Yeah I know you Pickerites, there's no texture in the snow. 

Well actually you're wrong - there is, but this was just a quick print to assess things, so I shall burn the snow in slightly when I print it properly.

The snow is actually quite gungey and ugly from slush - maybe it's better pure white?

Film was HP5 in Pyrocat,  printed onto Grade 3 MGRC.

Lens was the 60mm Distagon - as fine a lens as anything you'll find. 

Zeiss recommended it for weddings, but I think it works brilliantly for landscape and 'tecture.

Future Dream

I haven't taken reflection photographs in a while, but I was so taken by this, that I had to take it. 

Sadly the double glazing has totally mucked up the quality of the reflection as it always does - bring back Victorian Plate Glass!

This was the 150mm Sonnar again and pretty much wide open.

Film is SFX and a deep red filter is in use.

Oh Yus . . .

The Hanged Man

Can you seen him? 

Me too, well I would wouldn't I because it was me. Not that I was hanging or anything . . .

This was taken about 2 weeks on from the last one - amazing the changes Winter will wrought. Snow was calf-deep in places, but I didn't let that stop me. 

The light is what I wanted to capture, but sadly it hasn't appeared here - maybe a better print would do it.

Lens was the 60mm Distagon.

It's a simple straight print on Grade 3 MGRC.

What If They Gave A Party And Nobody Came?

This was off the dreadfully under-developed roll of FP4. 

I now know my timings for next time so all is not lost and at least I hadn't walked 10 miles!

It's actually pretty underexposed too, but them's the breaks.

Camera was the SWC/M, and it was handheld at 1/15th at f8. 

It's very sharp.

The print was Grade 4 on MGRC - no need for split trousers or bleaching.

What The F?!

I really didn't realise I'd captured a Wild F, but I had. I just liked the shadows on the wall.

It was a tricky shot, me being on the ground and this being halfway up a fire escape.

I developed the film and lo and behold a Wild F!

Sadly the print is nothing like the contact print - could do better is what I'll say.

Lens was a Sonnar and Ilford SFX again.

Tunnel Of Weirdness

You know where dogs keep going back and peeing on the same wall?

Well . . . 

Though it doesn't look it, again this was the 150mm Sonnar with Ilford SFX.

I've tried to keep the composition as simple as possible, yet it's an enormously complex image.

Grade 3 print on MGRC.

Dead simple.

I.T.M.A.

Whilst technically not an architectural photo, I feel remiss for not including our old mate.

There's been many photographs of him since I discovered him, but this is one of my favourites, and I suppose that IS a building so I am excused a bit.

This was 1/15th at f8 with the 250mm Sonnar. 

I was a loooong way down the lane and it sort of shows what a long lens can do to space.

I actually like it very much.

Film was HP5 rated at EI 200 and developed in Pyrocat.

Print was a Grade 3 on MGRC just to snap things up a bit.

There was no wafting or wizard cloak involved in making the print: set grade, shove paper into easel, expose, develop. 

The whole thing was done in a few minutes.

Where Man Meets Nature

This isn't technically a 'simple' photograph as it is from the fogged and yucky roll of Bergger I detailed in the last FB, however it is a simple photograph.

Camera was the SWC/M, print was about Grade 5 on old Tetenal MGRC, which was already a very contrasty paper.

My nose was nearly touching that right hand wall!

Aliens At The V&A

The above is my absolute favourite. That marker post is so inutterably 'alien' that is sets the whole thing off.

It was taken on Ilford FP4 rated at EI 80 and developed in some really ancient HC110. 

Sadly the film is well under-developed simply because I couldn't get the right time. 

Times these days are all over the place - I think the assumption in all the literature out there is that you will be scanning the negative rather than actually projection printing them. 

Oh how the times (!) have changed.

I have to say, that I err on the side of Ralph Gibson and prefer a negative to be slightly on the cooked side - it gets you more meat and potatoes in a print. Not only that but a more developed negative is more easily correctable than an under-exposed or under-developed one. 

Oh and you might be wondering why I am talking like this - it's simply because I have nearly run out of Pyrocat, and am using anything and everything else I can find, and not only that, a change is as good as getting arrested.

Anyway, given the thinness of the above, I had to execute a swift side move. 

And what was that? 

Well, simple really, given the lack of snap in the negative I just printed it on Grade 4! 

It's a straight print apart from a wee bit of dodging to the out of focus beam at the top left.

That simple.

I really like the tonality.

It's weird really, FP4 is the most reasonable, consistent and reliable black and white film out there. I am stating that as a fact. Why waste your time testing films where the QC isn't a patch on the Mobberley Mob?

I am done with spending time composing, only to come back and develop something either flawed or inconsistent. I would use Kodak films too, because the quality control is impecable, but since they've decided to be so expensive, I'll no longer use them - shame.

Anyway, FP4 - its tonality can be wonderful. 

In my opinion, it is the pinnacle of monochrome tonality.

Photographically it couldn't have been simpler, albeit I was lucky with some really wonderful light and an eminently photogenic building.

The camera was my Hasselblad SWC/M and the photo was handheld, 1/15th of a second at f5.6.

As those bleedin' meercats used to say "Simples"!

And that's it really. 

Occam's Razor. 

Keep it simple.

I could probably have done the same with a Holga or the old Rollei T, or even the knackered Autocord . . . in fact that's a thought . . . . 

You really don't need bells and whistles to make images you are happy with.

There's an acronym: K.I.S.S.

Keep. It. Simple, Stupid.

I totally agree with that

Till next time, try it.

Unburden yourself from technicalities, sub-plots, menus, footeriness!

Go simple, and if you have a darkroom, get rid of all the stuff they tell you you have to have and have to use to get a result.

Use a single grade and your gut feelings about how the image should look, and have a go. 

You might well be surprised.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that at the end of the day, the final image is all that counts - if you can get there with the least possible number of complications, then that is all the better.

Why?

I don't really know actually, but probably backing it up is my old college conundrum whereby, given a problem to solve or a graphic to create, the more processes that went into the final thing, the more that thing was rendered null and void. 

Enthusiasm was sapped.

Energy drifted.

Creativity was stifled to the point of tedium, and at the end of the process, the initial thoughts and roughs seemed to be the ones that worked best.

Mies Van Der Rohe's epithet "Less Is More" rings true in so many situations, both literally and metaphorically.

Over and oot - beam me up Scotsman!

Infamy, Infamy . . They've All Got It In For Me

A-har me beauties. The teapot of life is overflowing and there's fresh scones on the gridle.

This weekend's tickling of the trout of memory be such a wide-reaching article that it could well change your life, or maybe even your point of view.

Come and join us and get some folk down by the docks as the Goode Shippe FB wends its way into port! 

Hang up some bunting. 

Dress up yer babes in their Sunday best, because when this comes into town, you don't want to be seen to be wanting!
And as for your Your Majesty . . if you fancy comin' and havin' a chat with the Cap'n then feel free, though in truth, the lack of an invitation to the Goode Shippe FogBlog for the flotilla on Sunday was a bit of a let-down.
Never mind . . I've got rigging to mend anyway.

***

A few months ago, I discovered something very interesting about myself.

It was something I genuinely didn't know and it took me by surprise because the thing I discovered was quite big.

Well it seemed quite big to my mind.

Apparently, I was part of a movement.

And it wasn't just any movement like 'moaning old gits vs. society in general', no, I was part of a movement that was named with a rather important word:

Culture.

Not only that, but it was preceded by a weighty word from the 1960's and also hyphenated:

Counter -.

Not only that (as if it wasn't enough) but that world-weary and heavy word was preceded by something even weightier from a far earlier time. A word smelling of cloth and sweat and the adoption of violence for the simple reason that your livelihood was being threatened by change:

Luddite.

But just to make sure that I (and the likes of me) weren't going to smash the servers and chain ourselves to the ping-pong tables at Google, they preceded that with a hyphenated disclaimer:

Neo -.

So there you have it, I, to my surprise, was a member of a 'Neo-Luddite Counter-Culture'!

http://www.blogger.com/goog_1127232314

http://nymag.com/shopping/features/analog-2011-7/

By this I am being defined as a person who eschews modern gadgetalia in favour of good old fashioned methods. And to an extent this is true, but to an extent (and just because I hate being pigeonholed) I'll beg to differ.

This hankering after a golden age of LED's, and Selenium Light Meters and Gramaphones and Valve [Tube] (and Transistor) driven technology can, as far as I can tell, be traced back to a certain musical movement, that for all its down-at-the-heel appeal and dark thoughts of a future devoid of joy (ok . . nihilism . . . to an extent) still has echoes ringing down towards us - namely: grunge.

If you've never heard of it, then fine - here's a potted history:

Checky shirts; making music for the sake of it rather than for chart powerplays; old and often cheap guitars because that was what you could afford; a feeling for melody and the power of a guitar amplifier; turning your back on the traditional music industry (a bit of anathema that one, because it became an enormous multi-billion dollar behemoth); Seattle.

There, a potted history for you.

The most famous band being Nirvana who you will probably have heard of, but prior to, and alongside them, there were a ton of bands. Here's one of the earlier ones - Mudhoney. Their 'Touch Me, I'm Sick' single predated Nirvana's first SubPop singles club release (Love Buzz) by a number of months.

(You've got to love the look. They could be anyone, and that was the beauty of grunge!)

If I remember rightly from my reading of Guitar Player magazine at the time, there was a word that started to appear like an infestation of fleas. It was quoted with regard to guitar design, and these days  has become so far reaching it is now a by-word for anything that looks or feels old (and by old I mean 1960's and nowdays that has transgressed into the 1970's too) . . careful though, it's dangerous and over-used . . . so dangerous and over-used that I am not sure I should tell you about it . . . oh go on then:

 . . . RETRO.

The savvy guitar companies of the time (ever the drivers of taste believe it or not) were so incredibly sussed that they realised quite quickly that all these kids with dollars to spend, were actively turning their backs on the generic Floyd Rose Tremolo equipped guitar with pointy bouts and spangly colours and were buying instead the likes of Naguahyde covered 1960's surf specials!

It really was something else.

A world packed to the gunnels with cheap and ugly, (sometimes) awful playing and sounding instruments had opened up, and more importantly was being actively sought. Guitars that had languished in the back of pawn shops and cupboards were suddenly dusted down because they harkened back to a golden age of finger-clicking, goatee-ridden, Chelsea-boot-wearing hipster, Way to go Daddio!

Ever wonder why the key films that slopped a massive splurge of homogenised 60's 'cool (Austen Powers) into society at large were made? I can't prove it, but I have to draw a conclusion somewhere . . . it has to be down to guitar design and the search for all things older than the 1980's.

So, thank you Mr.Cobain*, for Kurt's far-seeing use of a Fender Jaguars and Mustangs and old-ish effects pedals started the fairly large moss-covered boulder (that had been sitting at the top of a mountainside) rolling, and checky shirted youths everywhere went in search of something 'retro' to prove how cool they were.

Well-read and intelligent older guitar collectors realised that there was a pretty penny to be made from this yearning for something from rock and roll's golden ages . . . and thus a grasping, lucrative sub-section of guitar collecting was born.**

Actually, you have to admire the guitar makers, because they managed to turn around designs pretty damn quickly, and before you knew it, designers worldwide were using it - 'retro' was being applied to everything from toasters to TVs, haircuts to watches. 

Here's some de-evolution . . .

                   
                       





(To the left a Hamer Scepter from the late 1980's (actually a very well made instrument and typical of the sort of instrument yer average pre-grunge player lusted after) and to the right a collection of Vintage Silvertone guitars from the 1960's . . .David and Goliath anyone?)

But all this is rather drawing aside from my main theme, which is me being a member of a counter-culture. Well, in the same way that the back-turning, and head shaking happened in the field of guitars, slowly, it is happening in photography.

For the general everyday photographer digital and all that that involves rules the day.

Camera manufacturers are selling incredibly high powered computers with bits of glass on the front and whilst that is fine, you only have to look at the rise of 'Lomography' as a by-word for anything made with film to realise that there is a pretty serious depth of feeling in the world for all things of a pre-digital age.

And having  poked away at old and crumby cameras for quite a while now, I kind of feel like one of a semi-elite group of elder statesmen of Neo-Luddite Counter-Culturalists.

I love that actually - it makes me feel important (which I am not in the slightest).

It makes me feel that in using film and old cameras I am somehow bracing up the old world (where people did things with the help of machines) against the new world (where machines seem to do everything for you)!

I can wear my cloth cap with pride Mother.

But tell me lad, is there Trouble at t'Mill? You betcha. Trouble down t'Pit too? Och Aye.

You see, we . . that is you and I dear reader, if you like using film, are dinosaurs.

We are perceived as eccentric.

Pursuers of art in an old-fashioned way.

Upholders of the faith.

Defenders of the realm.

And despite our obvious (ahem) charms, we are now being priced way beyond any sense of reason out of our passionate vocation. It is quickly coming to the point where every roll of film is a definite consideration, and where every frame is a financial burden.

I could happily shoot 2 rolls of 120 film of a weekend . . and that'll be £10 please (unless you hunt around) plus the processing costs. It's a lot of money. 35mm is approx a fiver a roll on average; 5x4" sheet film can vary wildly between 60p a sheet and an eye-watering £1.40-odd for Black and White film . . colour is even more expensive in sheet film. At those prices you are being driven into the arms of the digital behemoths. A point of fact of this is that in 2008 a box of 25 sheets of Ilford Delta 100 5x4" sheet film was £15-£18 on average .  . that self same product in 2012 is now roughly £30-£35 on average. 100% in 4 years is pretty shocking. Certainly my wages haven't risen 100%

Ilford started the ball rolling a couple of years back with claims about the rising price of silver (which it did do, however as everyone who studies the markets knows, commodities prices have a habit of rising and falling faster than a bride's nightie) and what with Kodak's financial troubles and now Fuji following suite, your average Neo-Luddite Counter-Cultural-ist (NLCC-ist for short) is finding the ability to keep the golden age going a real pain in the wallet.

It makes sense doesn't it really.

As a manufacturer, your users of film have dropped to a point where they don't make any money, so what do you do? You increase prices to the point where those that are still left stop using your products altogether!

So why do us NLCC-ists keep going?

It is hard to say really, but could it be (to paraphrase a quote from 'Moonstruck') because we are afraid of death and want to leave a legacy of permanence to the world?

Possibly.

Certainly a few years ago it was realised that there was no guarantee that your digital files of today would become nothing more than tomorrow's anachronism.

At least with a photograph and a negative, you have something tangible which can get chucked in a skip when you have popped your clogs.

It is hard this art stuff.

In my case, a self-financed struggle to make sure you can leave a massive pile of creativity that can get dumped in the landfill of life.
I suppose what I am trying to say is, film manufacturers, please, in the name of all that is good, think of the people who actually use your film. Don't price us out of what we love doing.

I like this photograph. It reminds me of childhood.

A very young Alec Turnips was chucking something in the Kyme Eau on a Summer's day in 2003, and I just happened to catch it at the right moment.

This was made in the days when you could get Ilford SFX for next to nothing.

These days it is nearly £7 a roll and I would never use it again even if I had the money. Sorry Ilford - your films are wonderful and I have used them for years, but they have now entered the realm of ridiculous pricing and I can afford to use them no more.

The camera was an Agfa Synchro-Box *** made between 1949 and 1958 - it has two apertures (one landscape, one portrait) and I like its simplicity. The film was developed in Rodinal.

It has all the attributes of retro which will delight the NLCC-ist:

It is a 6x9cm negative.

The really gnarly lens flare is like Sauron's Eye from the dreaded Lord Of The Rings films

The rollers have imparted heavy scratches to the emulsion.

There is a gradation of tones in the foliage which is nothing short of beautiful.

There.

You feel better for this little tootle into art and culture don't you!

If you are about to head out with an ancient piece of technology, good luck to you and make every image count  -I don't know how long they will let us continue.

I hope the light is with you.

God bless you.

* I have to add to this a that a certain columnist for Guitar Player magazine, a Mr. Tiesco Del Ray was also responsible, but of course not many people will know that, as he didn't have the looks, though he did have the skills, the knowledge and the collection.

** These days it has gone beyond any sense of normalacy as your younger guitar buyer who was but a gleam in a parent's eye when a lot of these monstrosities were created, generally doesn't realise what a bucket of dingo's kidneys they are buying at a massively inflated price when they get enthused about a '1978 Hondo Les Paul - MIJ Retro Cool!' guitar.

*** http://mattsclassiccameras.com/agfa_synchrobox.html

The Permanence Of Photographs (In A Chaotic World)

Greetings Ship Mates! It is time to hoist your Weekend Flag and keelhaul your Dandos, because the Goode Shippe FB is back to sail the seas of fate and chance! Yes, in these uncertain times, when all is fluxed, it is reassuring to know that if you can afford a tea bag and a crust, and can press an 'on' button before the sun crests the mizzen mast, then your weekend is sorted!
This weekends little ditty is a bit of an FB exclusive, but you'll need to read to the end to understand that.

I guess I must have known the world was entering a state of chaos as far back as the mid-1980's when someone broke the Quantel computer our college had managed to gain access to for a period of months. The Quantel was a big thing. For a start the BBC used it for weather forecast TV animations and it was the bees knees - no really it was! This was the coming revolution which no one really guessed would take off in the way it did. Back in those days all the text and other things we used for graphics roughs and presentations was done by hand (or Letraset if you could afford it) - none of this modern instant stuff - oh no, it was pure hard graft!

On the new wunderkind, being able to 'airbrush' clouds onto one of the stock pictures loaded into the machine (of say, a Spitfire) was really something - it was . . er  . .great! (Even though the end result looked  . .er . . to put it politely . . . not exactly brilliant*).  But what were we to do?  It was said that they wanted to build this new direction so that students could be up and running into the new golden dawn!

As I remember it, someone with a natural curiosity dismantled the 'light pen' (that you used like a real pen) of this new acquisition, to see how it worked. The machine thought uh-oh . . INTRUDER and entered said state of chaos and refused to work.

They had to get some guy up from somewhere down South to fix it, but it was never quite the same again.

This is the Quantel:

(This is I believe a Mk II and I am pretty sure we were using a Mk II. If  you measure proportionately and estimate that pen as about 6" long then the drawing board could be anywhere between 24" and 30" long. Big stuff eh! Our Quantel even had its own rack!)

The thing I am trying to say from this is that at the same time that people were being schmoozed upstairs in Graphics about this fabulous future, downstairs, in the bowels of Photography, budgets were being cut and there was apparently 'no money' for new gear or materials.
It was a disgrace.
My lecturer at the time was feeling increasingly sidelined and a couple of years later he was shunted into early retirement. The future was set, digital imaging had come to stay and a world of technological avarice had landed. Obviously things were never going to be the same again.

When real money could have been spent on some much needed new cameras (we were using ancient and battle-weary equipment) that would have done the job in aiding creativity, it wasn't. Instead it was spent on the new thang - a proto computer graphics suite!
This was so advanced and cost so much (and became so incredibly dated, so incredibly quickly) that the fact that large amounts of money were thrown at it and not at something of permanence still gets my goat.
Chaos had come to town and nothing would ever make sense again.
It was obvious which way the cookie was crumbling, and something as deeply old fashioned as traditional monochrome photography was seen as being archaic.

And as for the monster? No work of any use was ever produced by the big, fan-cooled box of tricks, but it did look good when you had visiting lecturers disappearing into the room to sip coffee and say 'Gosh . . they must be important . . . they've got a Quantel!'.

What's that smell? yep, you guessed it . . . pure, Grade 1 BS.

FFWD 25 years and where is that behemoth of computing now? Well the roots of it are still around in Quantel systems which are widely used (and highly regarded and British) in broadcasting worldwide, but the actual Pandora's Box itself that caused such upheavel?  I'd bet on it no longer existing.
And yet look, the permanence of photographs and the permanence of technology:

Below is a print which I own. It was given to me as a goodwill gift for my future by Mr.Joseph McKenzie, said lecturer mentioned above. He is a great photographer and was an inspiring lecturer. Were it not for him, I would not be writing this - it really is as simple as that.

(This is the first time this image will have been seen by a lot of people (well probably anyone actually) and I hope Joe doesn't mind me putting it in FB, but his work needs to be seen and he has to be acknowledged and appreciated in his own lifetime!)**

The photograph was made at Comrie (near Crieff) in 1964 (the negative pre-dating the Quantel by some 20 years and no doubt still safely stored and archived); the print I believe to be of a similar vintage.

It is a stunning photograph and also a stunning print. The scan is actually pretty hopeless as there were hotspots on it - you need to see the original!

I can actually see a lot of similarities between Joe's work from the 1960s (his Gorbals essays *** especially come to mind) and Walker Evans' masterful work for the FSA in the '30's. Joe's photographs are revealing and beautiful and tender. He gave of himself and in return his subjects repaid him with an openness that is rare.
In this photograph the stoicism is obvious. Here are two workers confronting each other, one behind and one in front of the camera. They leave their pretences behind and let light and film and time record the moment. It is such an honest photograph.
There is a care-worn attitude to the crofter that is so incredibly Scots. If you look carefully you can see that those dungarees have been carefully darned but there's still years of use in them. It is obvious that crofting is not an easy life. Hands like that are not created by desk work!

I have no idea what camera Joe used, but it looks to be large format so I would hazard a guess at a Graflex which I know he used. Film could well be Tri-X which he was fond of, and he used to use D76 a lot . . . so maybe it is that combo . .who knows.

The print is on a matt paper which has an 'almost' platinum sheen to it, in that the darker areas have that metallic matt/gloss when angled towards the light.
It is dry-mounted and personally inscribed to myself on the back.
The print size is 6" x 8" and I have it stored safely in an archival sleeve and then in an archival print box. It is a jewel to be treasured.

Given that Joe took the utmost care to fix his prints properly and selenium tone them, I have no doubt that this photograph will outlast me by a number of generations.
Remember the saying:
"He who laughs last, laughs longest"?
It is entirely appropriate methinks.

Thank you Joe (for everything). 

* And sorry graphics animation people . . . computer animation still doesn't cut the mustard as far as I am concerned.

** When the V&A Dundee opens in the city to which he gave his working life (and which he documented with such care and passion) it would be utterly remiss of them if the first photographic exhibition they staged wasn't a McKenzie Retrospective.
*** If you can find his book 'Gorbal's Children' I can highly recommend it.