Showing posts with label Leitz 50mm Elmar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leitz 50mm Elmar. Show all posts

Friday, October 19, 2018

Still Here; Still OK.

Far from it for me to wax lyrically about the mundanities of life, but this morning, I had a sort of
Wow! Cosmic!
Moment.



Taken At Dawn
Heavily Cropped Negative, But . .
I Like This - It's WEIRD!


Y'see there I was, at 6.30AM hanging out a line of washing in the preternatural dawn light, that I think is peculiar to Scotland . . not that I've been up before dawn in many places, but certainly comparing it to my experience of English mornings, it's different. Helluva different.
Firstly, there's the smell.
If you've ever read Ray Bradbury, you'll know that a lot of his stories are based in Green Town, Illionois; a sort of distiallation of his childhood, good and bad, all in one place.
It's a place of soda fountains and small town life; parents who love you; friends; adventure; beauty; awareness.  Just plain growing up!
Now that might sound rose-tinted, but it isn't, because there's nearly always danger too:
Weird canyons and strangers, murders, space, ageing, pretty much every single thing of life, good and bad, served up like the supplies in one of those long-vanished Mom and Pop stores you always see in films. 
But above all else in Ray's writing, was his sense of nature.
There's trees and meadows, cliffs and hills, and the one abiding thing above all else, is smell.
That life-infusing smell you get from grass.
All grass, not just freshly mown stuff (though that, of course, gets into your blood).
It's that smell.
A freshness like a world broken free from the shackles mankind is imposing upon it.
There's no fumes, no over-blown artificial scents, no pollution.
Just pure freshness.
And that, to my mind and schnoz, is the Scottish smell.
If you live here, try it.
Get up early and go and have a sniff.
Anyway, there I was with a pair of socks in my hand, sniffing the air, and I glanced up at the pre-dawn sky, and for a couple of minutes or so, the stars were intensified.
Not just bright and clear, but unnaturally so.
It was so noticeably so, that for a moment I was catapulted back in time, to the late 1970's and myself then.


As you might have read elsewhere on FB, I used to live in a semi-remote cottage.
It was a middle of nowhere sort of place, surrounded by trees and hills and a river and space.
There was nowhere quite like it in the Winter and I have only rarely since experienced the deep awesomeness of those Winter skies.
My bedroom had a fairly deep window-ledge - the cottages walls were around 30 inches deep in total (two stone walls, with a rubble infill) - so could accomodate a fairly large arse.
And it was on this I would sit, and (and I know this sounds weird) gaze into my mirror.
Now unusually for me (and my poor Mum and Dad . . . no, they weren't poor as in ill-health, I am talking about church-mouseness) this wasn't a cheap mirror at the time, it was Danish and plastic and made by a company called Termotex.
Here's some images of what I am talking about - mine was PURPLE! to match my purple carpet and lime-green walls . . .




OK,  so it's a mirror - SO WHAT?
Well the whatness was that you could tilt that mirror and fix it so that the mirror was horizontal.
Put this on a window-ledge, angle it slightly towards the darkened sky, position yourself on windowledge, get your headphones on (and a mug of Camp Coffee) and gaze downwards, without neck strain, into a bowl, brim-full of stars.
Ah, y'see, got you there - you thought I'd gone all Narcississsisssi didn't you?
I was quite proud of my improv. skills in this.
It worked wonderfully and I was able, over long hours, to infuse my soul with the movements of planets and stars; cold, hard moonlight and that strangely intense quality of light known as The Twinkle.
I was frequently astonished by meteors.
Of course, the showers are all named these days, but to me they had no names at all.
They needed none, because they cemented a feeling that as a human, you are (no matter siblings, names, parents, possessions) ultimately alone in all this awe-inspiring order and chaos.
It was beautiful, and formed a deep well of peace inside me that I was to draw upon heavily in the Winter of 1979 . . but you've maybe read about that already on FB, so I'll not bore you.
(If you haven't search 1979 at the side . . . it'll bring it up).

Watching the skies move every night made me feel infintesimally small.
I guess that feeling that everything is, ultimately, finite, has influenced my (surprisingly to me) lack of ambition.
But is it a lack?
I am rather proud of the tagline of FB "More Detritus For The Skip Of Eternity".
Is there any point in ambition when it all ends in dust?
Well, it is hard to say.
Certainly if you want to move ahead in this loose conglomeration of folk we call 'society' then lacking ambition is seen as a serious fault.
You can't progress anywhere unless you have 'drive' and 'grit' and that old fashioned word 'vim' and even more un-PC, 'spunk'.
Yet to me that looks like folly.
You can see it on The Apprentice - all these young people, driven to the point of madness, to get a payment off an (admittedly interesting and funny) old man to further their ambition to make a mark on that cold hard sky of stars.
For what?
Self-affirmation?
Money?
A hot urine stain on  the lamp-post of life?
I don't know - it's their lookout and each to their own.
As I often say in the face of everything, you can't judge someone by your own set of ideas, because EVERYONE is different.
Live and let live.
But really, is a lack of ambition that bad? I'll leave that to further convos, and anyway, I have wandered and ambled and look, we're lost in deep country and a heavy mist coming in.

Back to Levi 501's, Dunlop Greenflash and home-dyed t-shirts!
I think that 1970's mirror influenced me in ways I could never have realised at the time.
Let me explain myself . .

Yes, go on then you wittering olde git, get on with it . .  

As you'll maybe know I take a LOT of pictures of reflections. I used to think that that was the influence of looking at other photographers' work, like Ernst Haas and Lee Friedlander, but it now seems to me it is more than that.
Deeper, more a part of me.
I am fascinated with reflections.
As my friend Julian (a long time reader and commenter on FB) said to me recently:

"It's the levels of reality and planes of illusion layered on one another. And your presence as a photographer, literally, in the reflections and shadows."

I pondered that for a couple of weeks.
It was a touching and very pointedly observed, and Julian, I have taken it to heart.
You are right.
These photos aren't just me, they're a part of me.
So, as I stood, frozen like a rabbit in dawn's spotlight, socks in hand, with the stars making their shine, and the presence of a young Sheephouse standing there with me, I said to him, aloud in the quietness:
"Still here; still OK"
And gently beat my chest with my fist to prove it.
And we stood, me and him, and watched those stars we knew, till the dawn clouds drew a thin veil over them, and we continued, hanging socks and pants, trousers and tops, and then came in and wrote this.

That mirror was a fascinating thing.
Not just for its ability to capture the heart of the Night Sky with a modicum of comfort, but also in the way it cut off reflections with a curve; took the glow of my fishtanks and reflected all that green and silvern light across my walls and ceiling.
How it bent reality and took the vastness of the land outside my window and reflected it inward against the window glass.
How it mixed "reality and planes of illusion layered on one another".
Weird eh!

Maybe I am speaking bollocks, but I don't think so.
I do have this habit of self-examining things and trying to find an answer.
It isn't always correct, but it often feels correct to me.
And I suppose that is all one can do as a human.
Examine your actions.
Try and be yourself.
And above all, be nice to other people.
It's not long till you're worm food and bone dust and atoms of star stuff.

Anyway, enuff ov the fillosoffikal schtuff, here's some photos . . not many, but reflections for a reflective mood.
Oh and the mirror?
Smashed by accident. . . R.I.P.



The Girls Of Dundee




We're Closed




Abandoned Cottage




A Quieter Time




Big Balls




Still Here; Still OK


And that's it.
Hope this has left you in a ahem, reflective mood.

Take care, and remember, not everyone is as self-assured as everyone else. little helping hands here and there make a big difference.
Oh and I nearly forgot:

Peese Pudding Hot, Peese Pudding Cold, Peese Pudding In The Pot . . No One Eats It Anymore . . .

Thursday, April 16, 2015

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.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us

Mornin' m'hearties!
Well, Mog decided this week that he would act like a cowboy. Pretty unusual you would think, and especially because he is a cat, but there you go . . there's no accounting for some folk.
It was quite a job fitting him with them there leather chaps, especially because fur and leather are a bit of a mismatch when nature ain't taking a hand.
We finally managed to get him fully greased up with a dob o ship's lard though - he looked pretty weird, but we's got there.
Sheephouse was delighted - he thought it quite a hoot and bounced all over the midships shouting things at the top of his voice like:
"Put it there pard . . "
and
"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeha, Doggies!"
Even Mog found the last one amusing - imagine calling a cat a dog, that would be like calling Sheephouse a photographer.
We had fun though, barrel riding and having a bit of a hoe-down.
It's amazing what sort of dances you can set to a shanty. I even managed a Do-Si-Do to "That Whale Took My Boys Down To Davey Jones' Locker, Damn His Eyes" which is a particularly jolly ditty written by some cove from Kernow.
Here's a little snippet:

That whale, boys
He took us down
10 fathoms, O-hey-O.
I thought my boys
We's goin' to drown
20 fathoms, O-hey-O

15 more 

And still we dive
Hey boys, O-hey-O.
Just five more
And then we'll die
40 fathoms, O-hey-O

It's a jolly tune, but can go on a tad long, being of about 40 verses and very detailed along the lines of The Shoals O'Orkney and Lying Off The Larboard Side and all that sailory stuff.
Anyway, a good time was had by all, though we've had to scrub Mog about 10 times with carbolic to get the lard out.
He wasn't happy about that, no sir.



***



I, Herman Sheephouse, being of feeble mind and sound body, do here declare that over recent years I have been extraordinarily focused. Literally.
You see for the age of a pig (a great expression and I have no idea where it came from) I did all my printing through an 80mm f5.6 El-Nikkor lens. This covered me, as most of my photographs were 6x6cm and 6x4.5cm.
Darkroom life was happy and very simple!
But then one day I went and spoiled everything and purchased a Pentax 6x7 and when that went back to the vendor (because it was faulty), a Sinar F . . and consequently, after I discovered that contact printing a 5x4" negative didn't really work (to my eyes anyway), I ended up packing away my lovely Meopta Magnifax enlarger and purchasing a DeVere 504 with a 150mm Rodagon.
So that was me up to two enlargers, two enlarger lenses and the ability to print everything from 35mm up to 5x4.
Everything was fine, until I received the second great gift. (The first great gift, was a truly lovely Nikomat FT [1965] and an early compensating type, 55mm Nikkor [the sharpest lens I own in the close-up range - honest, they used them to film Star Wars!]).
The second great gift was a HUGE box of Nikon gear from the parents-in-law of my friend Canadian Bob. If you are of sound mind and body, look away now, because imagine being a keen photographer and receiving this lot:


Nikon F Photomic S, Nikon F2S, 
50mm f1.4 Nikkor, 35mm f2 Nikkor
105mm f4.5 Nikkor, 300mm  f4.5 Nikkor, 
500mm f8 Nikkor-C mirror lens, 80-200mm, f4.5 Zoom Nikkor



Add to this, all appropriate cases, lens caps, rear caps, converters, manuals etc etc, and you'll being to see why I call it the great gift. Everything was in superb condition, and even though it had seen a semi-professional life, it had been carefully cared for. I paid the robber barons of UK customs £90 in fees and duty, and it all arrived.
I was overwhelmed to start off with simply because I hadn't thought properly inside the 35mm frame since college. But I eventually ended up approaching it with gusto, moving out into the dawn light with mostly the F2 and the 35mm lens.
It was a revelation.
I was no longer tied to a tripod as I was with my Sinar and to an extent with my Rollei. I could shoot as many pictures as I wanted, though actually, I still found that my Medium Format Discipline worked very well and I tended to compose carefully and hopefully make each frame count (though there are more than many frames of utter rubbish).
Here's a print from that earlier time - I like this.
It was made with the 35mm  Nikkor and the F2 and was around the time I started to discover that you could find the whole world in a window.



Fuji Neopan 400, BT 2 Bath
Bet this makes you feel hungry.
Easily the most bizarre thing I have seen in a shop window.
It's a shame Fuji Neopan 400 is so expensive these days - look at that tonality.



Anyway, I seem to have moved away from the theme of this.
Was there one?
Yep.
Ka-tchow!
This town ain't big enough for the both of us . . .der, der, derder. . . and it ain't me who's going to leave!
As I stated at the start, my adventures into the land of enlargers resulted in me owning two lenses, the 80mm El-Nikkor and the 150mm Rodagon. They are both very fine lenses, however as it always seems to be with photography, somewhere an itch starts and you begin to wonder whether you are getting the optimum sharpness from your lens . .
Now this is dangerous territory, because like all things like this, the search for optimum sharpness doesn't actually result in anything useful . . . or does it? Well such was my actual thinking.
I only print up to 10x8". I could go to 11x14" . . hell I could actually go up to beyond about 23" . . but there's no room for the trays in my darkroom, so I stick to the manageable.
I also wanted a dedicated lens for printing 35mm stuff, so the upshot of my thinking was that I found a good deal on a 1980's 50mm Durst Neonon.
If you don't know about Neonons, basically they were re-badged by Durst but made by usually Schneider or Rodenstock . . . however, they also had lenses made for them by Pentax.
Now this is quite a big thing for Pentax collector's because the company never made enlarging lenses.
Quite unusual don't you think for such an esteemed manufacturer?
I don't know how Durst managed to pursuade them, but they did and they made an excellent job of it too!
50mm Neonons will either say Made in W.Germany or, Made in Japan. Obviously the Japanese ones are Pentax. 
Mine is a very nice example - very sharp indeed and an excellent lens for normal size prints from 35mm negatives.
So, three enlarger lenses and the ability to print anything I fancied . . . you would have thought that would be enough, but no as it has got to be a bit of a mania.
For instance I recently found a 100mm Vivitar VHE for sale for £20. Too nice to turn down. It arrived covered in strands of fungus (and was apparently discovered in a box in a factory unit that was being cleared - it is unused, that is obvious), however some ROR and TLC and I now have a mint condition 100mm Schneider Componon, for that is what it is. There are some who say that the optical formula on these is the same as that of the legendary  Leitz Focotar II's which were made for Leica by the Schneider factory around the same time. Who knows, there certainly was a 100mm f5.6 Focotar II and from what I can find (which is sketchy) the optical formula of the 50mm VHE seems pretty similar to the optical formula of the Focotar II.
All I do know it that the VHE is an excellent and sharp lens.
So, four down . . and even further down madness street I spotted a poor wee orphan. It was huddled in a doorway, weeping quietly. I kept an eye on it for a number of weeks and it wasn't going anywhere. My heart broke and I took it in . . .
A 50mm f2.8 El-Nikkor - the second version.
It was a stone-cold 'dusty optics' bargain from Ffordes .  . whipping out an SK Grimes spanner wrench, I removed the rear element, used a Giottos blower, and hey presto . . mint condition lens . . £19.99.
Hard to believe really - they were over £100 when they were being manufactured . . .
Now a lot has been written about the f2.8 Nikkor, but what really swayed me and made me trust this orphan, was reading the books Darkroom and Darkroom 2 on Lustrum Press.
Just about everyone interviewed for the books was using this lens to print 35mm, so I thought why not . . . and you know what? It's reputation is deserved. I am delighted with it.
I decided to use it for a print session, and was very pleased with its ease of use and sheer quality.



Printed with a 50mm El-Nikkor, 14 sec, f8
Grade 2 on fairly old Kentmere Fine Print VC Glossy.
Kodak Polymax, Kodak stop, home-made plain fix.
400 Dpi scan.


I am happy with this print, though it is one of the world's duller photographs.
I made it on 8x10" Kentmere Fineprint FB VC.
It's an OK print but nothing special, and has gone into the big box of prints (unsleeved). Only my favourites go into sleeves.
So, from here, this is where it starts to get crazy.
Five enlarger lenses in, and a thought struck me during this session that I had three 50mm lenses to hand (there's one I haven't mentioned yet!) and time on my hands . . how about testing them in a practical way for me. Not MTF charts and all that stuff, but real prints and sections of prints, so, I thought, why not give it a shot. The above seemed a suitable candidate as the lettering was clear, but still has that hand-held element of slight unsharpness and would hopefully do the job. I wasn't going to be scientific about this - I like making prints not studying my navel, so I strapped on my leather chaps, had a tot o' red-eye in the Last Chance Saloon, girded my loins, gulped in some courage and came out shooting.
Firstly, there was only one way to go with the enlarger and that was up - as high as possible.



Were I to actually print this, the image size would be 25¾ x 17 inches!



My darkroom is a tight space.
The DeVere topped out and was jammed up against the ceiling - it could have gone  higher (if the ceiling weren't so low).
For the benefit of the photograph, my easel isn't in this picture.

The victim's were as stated: El Nik; Sergio Neone and . . . a stranger in town.
He'd ridden in on a dusty old donkey, climbed down, pulled back his poncho and positioned himself outside the corral. I was friendly and offered him a drag of an old charoot I was chawin'. He accepted and came in. He was a wizened geezer, but he still looked tough . . .
Turned out he was one of those immigrants from Germany. His name was The Old Timer.
This was going to be messy, but I had to know who could be the guy for the job.







Each lens was set at the same aperture, for consistency, though in the case of the Elmar it was approximate, as it moves from f6.3 to f9 . . . and from there I set up my easel, focused very carefully with my Omega critical focuser, and eased some 6x4" paper into the slots . . .
All prints were exposed and processed for the same length of time.



50mm Nikon El-Nikkor (N), f8
50mm Leitz Elmar, f8 (approx)
50mm Pentax/Durst Neonon, f8
                     


Now there are a few things quite remarkable about this . . .
Firstly it is extraordinary how much you can squeeze out of a properly processed 35mm negative . .
And secondly, that paper I used for the sections was Jessops own-brand resin coated . . it was roughly ten years old. It hadn't been kept frozen, indeed I had forgotten I had it, only discovering it in a pack of Silverprint Proof . . I knew it was Jessops because it was 6x4" and I'd only ever bought that size from Jessops.
Astonishing quality for a RC paper. No compensation for loss of speed or grades. I think it may well be re-branded Fotospeed - again, not many people use Fotospeed RC however I will flat out say it is the best resin coated paper on the market bar none. It just seems to exude quality, more so than Ilford or Agfa/Adox. If I had to print on RC, that would be my choice. In fact I would say that of all RC papers it is the only one I would consider of exhibition quality . . and that is saying something
Anyway, another thing I would say about this little lot, is that it is remarkable how similar they all look.
So I have gone one step further and scanned the prints at 720 DPI . . . thinking this will separate the dogs from the pups . . the judgement is all yours dear reader.


El-Nikkor, Section 720 Dpi

Neonon, Section 720 Dpi

Elmar, Section 720 Dpi


Yes, there are obvious differences, however when you weigh it all up and consider that we are talking markedly different lenses here the differences aren't that massive are they.
The Nikkor, is I think the winner. It has rendered the grain very sharply, with a good balanced contrast. 
The Durst is also very good indeed, though it hasn't quite resolved the text quite as sharply. For a lens that cost £15 secondhand it is still an excellent performance, but then I suppose it is a 1980's Pentax lens so what do I expect. 
The surprise for me is the Elmar. The story behind it? It is a 1934 uncoated lens - I use it for making pictures on a regular basis.
Stop the presses . . hold on.
A lowly lens from before the Second World War?
Can you Adam and Eve it? 
Oh sure, it was fairly difficult to focus and the grain was very mushy wide-open at f3.5. Stopping down was difficult due to the aperture control on the lens, but against all odds, it has rendered the lettering very well.
Certainly, there is a slight mushiness, but remember we are dealing at an enlargement size way beyond what it was ever intended for. I should think that for my standard printing size (10x8") it would be alright.
The other surprise about it is that it has given the image a very smooth quality which I quite like, and it has made me wonder whether it might be worth trying out some of those old uncoated Schneiders you see on eBay . . . .
Obviously when it comes down to practical everyday darkroom use, the Nikon and Durst win hand's down with their lovely illuminated aperture controls. As I have already said, an old Elmar's aperture control is difficult to use in daylight and almost impossible in the dark. But if you lost everything and this was all you had left, you would still be able to make decent prints with it . . . folks . . that'll be a future FB methinks!
So there you go - madness and lots of it.
I'd actually love to have a massive Alamo-style shootout with all sorts of different lenses. . it would be interesting, but I don't know if I am quite mad enough.
Anyway, just to prove that the session wasn't entirely an exercise in tomfoolery, here's a genuine print from it.



Kodak TMY2 400, Kentmere Fineprint VC Glossy
Gofos And Ena Just Love Dundee's Waterfront Project
December 2012



The negative was made on a cold late Winter's afternoon (approx 3.30PM and the light was going!) and I was footering around down by 'Vision' - Dundee's 'digital hub'.
Basically it is a massive white elephant in the heart of the city, down where the old railway yards and sidings used to be. I remember the area being full of coal and trains back in the 1980's, but now it is full of recently constructed empty buildings thanks in no part to the British Government's attitude towards tax breaks for computer games programming. Foreign governments give healthy ones and value the industry, and in Britain we don't, so consequently the much predicted coming 'golden age' of games programming didn't happen here.
If you are interested in such things, Dundee was an early player in the industry - it was the place where they programmed Lemmings (remember that?) and Grand Theft Auto . . so we have a hell of a lot to account for! 
Duncan Disorderly College Of Art in Dundee still has a hefty investment in animation and programming and so on and it is considered to be a key course . . . a heady change from the day when someone broke the Quantel machine . . 
Anyway - I used the 1960 Leica M2 and the 1934 50mm Elmar. Do I like old cameras? Erm . . .
The film was expired TMY2 400 rated at approximately EI 400, though I was guessing exposures . . . 
It was developed in HC110 Dilutuion B for 7 mins and 30 secs at 21 Centigrade.
I printed it on ancient Kentmere FB VC and used the newly acquired 50mm El-Nikkor. The grain is crisper than a family bag of Walkers . . . I am going to really like using this lens.
Two other things - firstly, the physical print is great I love it and it is sleeved, so I must like it. It has cockled a bit on the edges, but that's the paper for you.
Secondly, greyscale scanning on my scanner imparts a greenish hue, which makes it look terrible, like a non-selenium toned bromide print from years back if you can remember that . . . .
Also you cannot get the full quality of a nice glossy proper silver gelatin print from the web . . go to an exhibition and see some in the flesh - they will knock you out.
It was a weird photograph to make. I'd pushed through a broken fence, turned around, and there was a frog's face! Yes it is very low contrast, not least because of the failing light, however the Elmar has actually rendered things very crisply. The detail of the screwheads is there, so I must have had a steady hand that day . . . 
Anyway, as usual thanks for sticking in - I have had fun doing this and spent a number of hours of my life writing it all up. Hope you found it interesting. Please let me know.
Take care and God Bless.





Monday, January 14, 2013

Sometimes You Eat The Bear (Anatomy Of A Printing Session)

Har Har me Hearties - what a week it has been.
Mog's new-found talking ability has proved itself rather amusing, particularly now that some of the lads have been teachin' him to swear. Not only that, but he's become a gifted impersonator; and I would say now aboard the Good Shippe FB, you cannot reliably rely on anything you hear, especially when you can't see the person that is talking.
We also had a rather amusing time with Mr.Sheephouse.
I don't know where he got them from, but my second mate got a haul of very small bear costumes. I presume these were intended for some sort of children's activity in the Russias (as that is where they were bound before he purloined them), anyway, a bit of snipping and sewing and before you know it we had a cat-sized bear outfit.
It was très amusing to see Mog wandering around like a small cub pretending to be tough.
It was even more amusing when we locked him down below with Sheephouse in his room of dark arcanery. Oh yes, much was the swearing that came out o' that room with us all gathered outside the door sniggering away.
To be truthful, it was almost impossible to tell who's voice was who's.
I think Mog learned more swear words that day than he would in a whole month o' bein' below decks.
That cat, he's got Sheephouse down to a T.


***


I love printing photographs - I've said it before and I'll say it again - it is entirely half of my photographic life and one which these days seems to be largely ignored by the majority of photographers . . .but that's another soapbox.
It was Sunday and it was sleety/rainy. I had been wanting to take my Wista out, but the thought of those lovely silk-lined bellows in the rain isn't very appealing . .neither is the thick dew of condensation on a groundglass on days like this .  . so printing it was. I started at 11AM and finished at 3.30PM with a 20 minute break for lunch.
Negatives were all made with my nice old 50mm Elmar, however there were a couple of variables. Firstly the camera. My initial bunch were made on the IIIf which I sent back. The second lot were made on an M2 which I haven't sent back (though it does have a 1/15th sneeze). What I haven't seen written before is that the film gates of both cameras are different! The IIIf is exactly 37mm x 24mm; the M2 is the standard 36mm x 24mm . . . strange but true. This caused some confusion halfway through the session, but it was sorted quickly. The other variables were film (Ilford Delta 400 and Kodak TMX 400) and dilutions of Kodak HC 110 developer (Dilutions G and B). The final variable if you can call it that was a Leitz FISON lens hood I bought to protect the Elmar (more about this in a later blog).
Anyway, as the title of this blog implies . . sometimes things go right, and sometimes they don't. Today I had a number of bad things happen, but managed to make some prints I am more than happy with. I count it a good session if I can make 6 to 8 prints, and if say 3 of those are useable as proper archive prints then all the better.



The Maw Of Hell

Could Have Done With A Tidy-Up

The DeVere just fits

Wet Area (and sensibly placed 'Dry' cabinet)

Emergency Supplies.
The trays are on the floor to catch drips from the current printing session's drying prints - normally they aren't there.


Prints Drying.



As you can see, my darkroom is extremely primitive. It is an old butler's cupboard under a stair - it does have quite a high ceiling at one side, and does have the advantage of a stone flagged floor, which is fine for spillages of chemicals and also keeps beer at near perfect pub temperature! 
My enlarger is a DeVere 504 Dichromat - you can see it mounted on an old kitchen cabinet which is on its side - I have to print on my knees - I call it supplication to the Gods Of Printing.
All my wet processing is done in trays on newspapers on those shelves to the right - they are 9 inches deep - just enough for a tray.
The old hifi cabinet underneath is my dry area - all paper is stored in there, and there is an old Restem paper safe on a shelf too.
Yes that is a wine rack! The green towel is my door jamb for when I am processing LF film - basically it is a towel rolled up, with cable ties holding it in a roll and goes up against a large gap under the cupboard door.
There's no running water, so prints get popped into my Paterson washer until the end.
The prints are hanging from an old indoors washing line that came with the house!
They say that necessity is the mother of invention - in my case it has been poverty - I scrimped this lot together over years and would love to have a 'proper' darkroom with all mod cons.
For all its primitiveness, I can print to exhibition standards, and I am not bumming myself up there. I care about my prints.
They are carefully made and of a high quality. The only thing I lack is a dry mounting press ( and seriously if you have one you don't want, let me know!)
Actually, I am sure that any of us making prints the old-fashioned way these days, and willing to invest the time and money into learning printing, are good enough at what we do to make them to exhibition standard.
The lens was a nice old (Pentax made) 50mm f2.8 Durst Neonon, which I kept at f5.6 for the entire session. Chemicals were Kodak Polymax developer, Kodak stop bath, and home-made plain fix, which I used as a double bath. I have run out of selenium or else I would have toned them. They were washed for a couple of hours in my creaky old Paterson Archival Washer. Seeing as the plain fix is essentially an alkali fix, washing is a lot shorter than for acid fixers, and also I don't need to use hypo-clear.
Oh and I don't split grade print - I never found it of use to my practice, but again that's just me.
I was going to use my old favourite of Ilford Galerie, however because half the negatives were developed in HC 110 Dilution G and are (because of the fact that the Elmar is ancient and uncoated) very low in contrast, I chose to use some Adox Vario Classic fibre-based which I had kicking around. It is a very nice paper - the only things I don't like about it are its gloss, which isn't as rich as it could be, and the fact it will cockle around the edges when air-dried.
To be honest I am not a fan of resin-coated paper - I don't know, there's just something about the image quality, which, to be honest doesn't quite have the sharpness of a good fibre print. Anyway, that's just me. Fibre takes longer to print and is more fussy of correct fixing, but I feel the effort to be worth it.
Anyway, time to strap your helmet on and join me in the cavalcade of laughter, triumph and tears!
First up is an image I rather like - it is hard to tell what is going on, but you know the place is 'Open'.
Being none too familiar with the Adox paper I felt it best to sacrifice a sheet to the God Of Test Strips. I don't always make them, but sometimes, and especially when you are using a new camera/film/developer combo, they are handy as they help to get your eye use to the paper's properties and how your negative will look printed . . often never how you imagine it to be! I can usually get about 12 smaller strips out of one sheet of 8x10" paper - I know the general idea is to make a large strip, but to be honest, I would rather preserve the paper, so small strips it is.
The long lamented greatest paper ever was Forte, and they actually provided you with some test strips pre-cut, which I thought was very nice. But alas nobody thinks like that anymore, so you have to waste a sheet . .
Bear in mind that a box of 100 sheets of fibre-based  8x10" paper is approximately £70+ these days and you have 70p down the swanny just like that . . .
I set up my easel, got the image placement right, focused, stopped down and made a test. This was developed, and I came to my decision of exposure time. I then checked the focus again, and made the exposure. (By the way, if you made the test strip in say four second segments, you need to expose your print in four second segments, not for the whole exposure all at once. This is because the intermittency effect will come in and effectively give you a greater exposure and hence a darker print.)
Oh and I am assuming from this that you might have made some prints, and therefore don't need the very basics going over . . .
Also I will pre-empt everything by saying ignore the ripple effect on the scans! This is because the prints have dried cockled (anyone got a dry mounting press they don't want???) and I have scanned them warts and all. Secondly, I wanted to include little thumbnails of test strips, but Blogger software is hopeless when it comes to aligning pictures, so I gave up.
Anyway, warts and all, here it is.



Adox Vario Classic - Grade 4.
Print 1 - Adox Vario Classic - Grade 4.
Leica IIIf, 50mm Uncoated Elmar, Ilford Delta 400, HC110 Dilution G.





I like the print I made here - it works and is a bit mysterious and dreamy . . though, judging it afterward, there were two white speck marks, so I obviously didn't clean the negative as well as I should have. Also, notice the presence of the bear in the way that the margin on the right hand side is smaller than the left . . yep, forgot to check that one!
Selenium would bring up the blacks beautifully, so I should get some more . . nearly £25 a bottle though . . . but at least if you do decide you want to tone a print, you can go back, soak the print and follow a correct toning sequence . . very handy.
Anyway, onwards, I corrected the margin, gave the bear a kick and continued.
Whilst I had the same sheet of negatives out, I thought I would print the following. I made a test, and judged the exposure.



Adox Vario Classic - Grade 3
Print 2 - Adox Vario Classic - Grade 3.
Leica IIIf, 50mm Uncoated Elmar, Ilford Delta 400, HC110 Dilution G.



And as you can see, the result is shite. The first of the day's mistakes. Contrast is poor,  exposure is poor, and here's the kicker, I must have not focused properly on the easel, because the image appears to be out of focus too. Och well, another 70p down the drain . . . .

A brief aside into focus finders:
I have 3! A Scoponet, a basic Peak and a Magnasight.
The Peak is my favourite, however it had fungus when I bought it, so I had to dismantle it, which necessitated a fair bit of plastic gouging . . and of course you can't reassemble from there, so it works of a fashion. Because I can't set it permanently, I have to constantly re-adjust, and the bear loves a good twiddle . . .
The Scoponet isn't a patch on the optical clarity of the Peak, but does in an emergency (I used it for years).
The Magnasight I bought new from the States and have used it about twice, because I just couldn't get on with it .  . anyone want to buy it??

Back to the Session . . .

I was annoyed, and that isn't a good frame of mind to be in for printing, so I prepped my next negative. By the way, blowers? Anti-static guns? Nope, I run a 35mm negative through the fleshy parts of thumb and where it buts up against the index finger, or sometimes I'll run it between my index and middle finger.
It works.
I use a cobbled glass carrier in the DeVere (using Meopta 6x9 glass carriers taped to the DeVere's lower glass carrier), and any dust that falls on there gets swiped off with the back of my hand. I used to use an anti-static brush, but I find this method a whole lot more less problematical.
I made a test strip and decided to up the contrast a bit and judged the exposure roughly based on that. The Adox paper offers remarkably similar exposure times for different grades, which is a nice quality.
Unfortunately for me, I didn't see that the bear was getting ready to lend a helping hand again.



Adox Vario Classic - Grade 3
Disaster Strikes!
Print 3 - Adox Vario Classic - Grade 3.
Leica IIIf, 50mm Uncoated Elmar, Ilford Delta 400, HC110 Dilution G.



Nice print, nice contrast, but look - it is squint! My excuse (another one) - my ancient and battered Beard easel has little alumininium strips which act as stops for the paper you are about to expose. Unfortunately, the design is such that paper can slip underneath them all too easily, which is what happened here. Moral of the story, check and double check everything . . even something as basic as fitting a piece of paper into an easel.
Being annoyed by the presence of the bear, I looked at the print again and decided that my contrast wasn't enough, so I went the whole hog and dialled in a mighty 200 units of Magenta (effectively a Grade 4+) and made another print.




Adox Vario Classic - Grade 4+
Print 4 - Adox Vario Classic - Grade 4+ (200 Magenta)
Leica IIIf, 50mm Uncoated Elmar, Ilford Delta 400, HC110 Dilution G.


Ah, that's better.
I asked the bear to leave quietly and he did.
Calm returned and I could get on with my worship.
My next negative showed me the importance of ignoring what a scanned negative looks like. Scanning negatives is a nasty habit I have got into in recent years, and you know what - it is a hopeless way of judging what you have made. In my scan, the verticals are converging (slightly, but enough to make me think I shouldn't bother printing the negative - "Wot's that Doctor? Ee's got Convergin Verticals? Wot's 'at mean then? My poor son!"). However, I liked the image and thought I could correct the verticals by using tilt on the DeVere's focus stage, so I got a surprise when I looked at it on the baseboard and realised the verticals are correct and straight . . just the way I composed it!




Adox Vario Classic - Grade 3
Print 5 - Adox Vario Classic - Grade 3
Leica M2, 50mm Uncoated Elmar, FISON Hood, Kodak TMY 400, HC110 Dilution B.




The picture is of a hoarding outside a newsagents and is, how shall I say, a little 'Welcome to Dundee' for the V&A.
Yes that grey stuff is I don't know what, but it's pretty ghastly!
It is very typical of this lovely city of mine - on one hand you have knowledge and study and the arts, and on the other you have sublime ignorance and stupidity. Pretty much like any city really.
David' Bailey's picture of Twiggy is a great one, made all the merrier by a smear of 'stuff'.
The print turned out well I felt. The negative brought in the two extra variuables of the FISON hood and Dilution B.
Had I had more time, I would have done some selective bleaching of the white stuff with Ferricyanide, but I didn't . . maybe later.
I was feeling pretty good now - printing is supposed to be a pleasurable activity, but I fully understand how people can become frustrated and disillusioned.
Like anything good, effort is required, along with care and checking at every stage.
Feeling semi-triumphant and conscious of the clock, I thought I would round everything off with a strange image.
It was strange when I took it - I gambled on the camera exposure but got it right and the negative is dense enough for me to print at pretty much any tonality, which is great!



Adox Vario Classic - Grade 3
Print 6 - Adox Vario Classic - Grade 3.
Leica M2, 50mm Uncoated Elmar, FISON Hood, Kodak TMY 400, HC110 Dilution B. 


I printed this at Grade 3 just to boost the lower contrast of the Elmar, and I feel with the print I misjudged it and gave it a tad too much exposure. I would prefer a lighter tonality . . maybe next time.
It isn't a fine print, but it is a starting point.
And that's pretty much it actually. I would say it was a semi-successful session. Very enjoyable all the same.
The prints were washed for a couple of hours and then pegged back to back for an overnight air dry. I then flatten them between some heavy books and file away the ones I like best.
One thing . . on my last print, despite my feeling of triumph, the bear must have accompanied me whilst I was out photographing, as there is a small black mark at the top - obviously a bit of material like a fibre. This must be in the camera (it was . . I found it!), as it is black on the print and thus in permanence on the negative. Fortunately I have a Swann and Morton Number 15 scalpel blade and managed to gently 'knife' it out whilst the print was still wet. Yes it leaves a mark in the gloss finish, but you can sometimes touch that up carefully with spotting dye. At the end of the day, I have a few prints I am happy with and have filed away.
Sometimes you eat him. Sometimes, he eats you.
Printing is a dying craft (unfortunately) - I will continue to enjoy it until they no longer manufacture paper . . and I don't know what I'll do then . .
As usual, thanks for reading and God bless.


***

If you are interested, some of my personal recommendations for self-teaching materials:

I have read rather a lot of printing books over the years, and whilst I have enjoyed the likes of the more modern favourites like Rudman's 'Master Printing Course', and Ephraum's 'Creative Elements', I am going to come out and say the flat-out best printing book around is Ansel Adam's 'The Print'. It repays repeated reading. It is a masterwork, and it will teach you more than you really need to know. I will follow this with the late-lamented Barry Thornton's two books, 'Edge Of Darkness' and 'Elements'. 'Elements' has been out of print for a number of years but is now available as an e-book.
John Blakemore's 'Black and White Photography Workshop' is a masterclass in all aspects of monochrome photography with particular attention applied to the aesthetic aspects of print-making you don't find anywhere else.
My final recommendations were published by Ralph Gibson's Lustrum Press. They are called 'Darkroom', and 'Darkroom 2'. Both essential reading for the sheer breadth of practice by the contributing printers.
Ground yourself in these and you will be producing prints you are proud of in no time at all.
I would also be remiss not to mention Joseph McKenzie and his redoubtable technician Sandy, who taught me photography and printing at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in the 1980's . . . you can't put a price on such a great grounding.