Showing posts with label Ansel Adams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ansel Adams. Show all posts

Friday, September 13, 2013

Density Junkie (Part One)

Morning Playmates from a terminally cooled down Summer's-gone-and-Autumn-is-coming Scotland.
Ah yes I can smell the chill on the air and the clenching poverty now . . oh yes folks - this will be a hard one. Personally I reckon Putin is so peeved at Merkels financial outing of the Russian ex-pats in Cyprus, that they are just going to say . . Who's got the Pipelines? Who? Was that a Pretty Please? Pretty Please With Bells On? Hmmm? Hmmmm?
(Кто имеет Трубопроводы? Кто? Это было Симпатичным Пожалуйста? Довольно Пожалуйста Со Звонками На? Hmmm? Hmmmm?) Apparently.
All I can say folks is if you are European . . . invest in some good quality woollen underwear. There, that's a tip for you. Woollen, because it is the best - synthetic can't hold a candle to it. And if you are really feeling flush, Ulfrott, or Woolpower as it is known . . their socks are incredible.


Right.
Perceived/Received Wisdom!
There is a general belief that one should always trust one's elders and betters . .
Am I right?
You trust me don't you?
Har har - just joking.
Question everything.
Learn for yourself.
Trust Little.


To give you a point from my own life - aeons ago, late 1960's
The sage lesson I am going to recall this week concerns my brother. BC - Big Chris. He's 6'4" tall and in the late 1960's was one of the tallest men in London.
It's true.
People were shorter then - a lot shorter. I remember him telling me that there were a bare handful of people in London and its vicinity that were over the 'magical' 6'. Seems strange these days doesn't it, but you just have to look at his generation - Wartime babies, rationing. I've no idea where he got his size from, but it didn't apply to me (well it did in girth of stomach . . but that's another story).
BC was going on 17 stone at the time - pure muscle.
He played a lot of Rugby and on a holiday job worked had worked as a lugger on the building site of the old (now demolished) Northolt Swimming Baths - one bag of cement under each arm and running. Double hods . . that sort of thing.
For fun, he would borrow my Mum's solid canvas/leather/plastic/tartan shopping bags, load them up with tins and then go for 10 mile runs.
He got fast, really fast, and like a train bearing down on you was a formidable presence.
I trusted him.
'Stand there Phil - look it's unbreakable.'
That was the command.
The unbreakable item?
A late 1960's Bottle of Orange Squash in a newly-on-the-market 'Unbreakable' Plastic Bottle.
It was so Space Age you could almost taste the vacuum.

So handy; so convenient. So much lighter than glass. 
This is one thing you won't need the hubby to help you with on the weekly shop. 
And Mums it is Unbreakable too, so no more worrying whether little Sharon will drop that old fashioned glass bottle and hurt herself, no! 
This is the FUTURE.

So I stood as commanded whilst he proceeded to chuck the bottle at the kitchen lino from what must have been around 5-odd feet up.
The resulting drench of concentrated orange liquid was remarkable. As was the plastic shrapnel. Not least for the fact that a chunk of it nearly removed my left eye., fortunately glancing off my Orbit (the bony area surrounding the eye socket).
The shouts from my Mum were also remarkable - though strangely I don't remember her swearing  . . . that would come later and it took me to break her!
I trusted Chris though. He'd given me lifts home from Barantyne School on the crossbar of his bike . . .
And Chris, I still have the scar.


So, trust your elders and betters? Or learn, as I have had to do, to harbour a tad of reticence . . .
Photographically it is a lesson I have learned in a hard way.
I have had a problem/still do have a problem. I have a large amount of sheets of 5x4 film. I had a splurge at the start of the year, and in doing so, had little thought for the fact that I already had some. The latest expiry on it is 2014. But I have recently found a number of sheets of stuff that has expired by about a year. It wasn't refrigerated ('tis now).
Anyway, last weekend I thought it was high time I started using it up.
I have tried LF photography in a City at times when there are people about . . and you know what . . . it very nearly sucks.
For a start you look like a total idiot.
People keep wide berths.
Maybe I should mutter to myself and develop a twitchy-shake to my head - it might make the whole exercise easier . . after all who is going to pay attention to a loony with a stupid-looking old camera . .actually, scrub that . . most people don't even realise that a 5x4 camera is a camera!
If you've ever seen Monty Python's Village Idiot sketch, you'll get an idea of what I am getting at.
Village Idiot on the outside but ready and willing to discuss Cartesian Dualism with anyone who cares to ask.


Yer average Large Format Photographer
Sitting on a wall . . waiting for light to happen.

So who is going to pay attention to a loony with a weird wooden contraption on top of three poles, who keeps ducking under a cloth attached to it and reaching round the front and twiddling with knobs?
I'll tell you who pays attention. Security Guards and The Police.
In this lovely old isle you are on CC TV most of the time.
Operating a LF camera illicits one response . . Extreme Suspicion.
Call me paranoid, but on the contact sheet I am about to show you, the first frame I took, was up a close and around the back of a takeaway restaurant. It is a shite photograph, but that isn't the point (yet) . . about 45 mins after I took it I wandered back on the other side of the road and there was a police car nearby and two officers! What? For me? I have nearly been arrested before for being SAIPOC (Suspicious And In Possession Of A Camera - you can read about it here if you like). Do the police really think that someone using a camera that requires you to mount it on a tripod is going to actually be of danger to the State? Has no one heard of iPhones???


Anyway, I digress - to use a LF camera in a City, you really need to get out early. In my case around 5 or 6 AM. generally the latter - it takes me two hours on average to make four photographs, so I can be back and having a cuppa before the rest of society deems me too dangerous to ignore.
So there I was, a surfeit of film, a bad conscience and the prospect of Winter looming meaning no hiding from the eyes of suspicion under cover of extreme earliness. What can you do, save, get everything together and head out. Which I did.
To say the results were bad and the photographs dull would be an understatement. I think the term I would use both for composition and technical prowess, would be ahem (better get your Mum out of the room) . . Shit.
Quite why I find it hard to compose with a 5x4 camera is beyond me. It isn't for want of trying. I've exposed approximately 250 sheets of 5x4 film and I still can't get the hang of it! Taking in the length of time I have been doing this and film costs then versus film costs now, and averaging everything out to a conservative 75 UK pence per sheet, that approximates to around £190 on film costs for little gain.
So what is it I struggle with? Well, I am beginning to suspect it is all about proportions. I've mentioned this before in FB so won't go into it again . . suffice to say it is duller than a small grey man, painting a small grey building, battleship grey . . inside and out.
Back to the Shit.
Here - have a deco at the Contact print and see if you agree with me . . I know you will!


Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud.
It's all there folks - look at the edge effects from uneven development.
Glory in Hippo Heaven!
Ilford MG RC Mudtone, Grade Mud, Kodak Muddymax, Agfa Mudbath Fix.


I have here dear reader, broken the rules set down in Paragraph 6, Subsection 2, of The Photographer's Law . . namely:

Thou Shalt Not Show The World At Large Thy Worst Bits.

If thou showest your worst to The Worlde, then The Worlde will mistrust you implicitly. 
Keep your worst for your own misery. 
File that print away in ye olde paper boxes . . 
If 'they' see thy worst, how are 'they' going to know if thou ist any goode?


So what does this have to do with not trusting everything you read?
Well, I have fancied using David Vestal's formula of Divided D76 for a long time. It is quite easy to mix and I wondered whether it could give me grey tones along the lines of this:





I love the grey scale in this photograph. It is of course of Sir Ansel Of The Adams and was taken by Vestal. Surely if I mix up some of his own discovery of a compensating version of D76 I could not only have a developer which deals with a vast array of lighting situations, but also, maybe might give me greys like the above.
Well, that's what I thought - ever the hopeful searcher for photographic truth.
Here's Vestal's original Formula as stated in Anchell & Troop's semi-Bible, The Film Developing Cookbook:

Bath A:
Metol 2 g
Sodium Sulphite 50 g
Hydroquinone 5 g
Water to 1 Litre

Bath B:
Borax 2 g
Sodium Sulphite 50 g
Water to 1 Litre

The only problem I had, was that I didn't have any Hydroquinone. However on re-reading the text I discovered that A&T were saying you could omit the Hydroquinone, by upping the Metol and Borax. I had Metol, Sodium Sulphite and Borax so I was in business!
And here's their version:

Bath A:
Metol 3 g
Sodium Sulphite 50 g
Water to 1 Litre

Bath B:
Borax 5 g
Sodium Sulphite 50 g
Water to 1 Litre

5 minutes in each bath, temperature variable, constant agitation. No pre-soak.
OK I thought, interesting - this goes against all my 2 Bath experience (Barry Thornton  - lots and lots of it). I have developed films both with and without a pre-soak with BT 2-bath and through practical experience came to the conclusion that a pre-soak was an essential thing.
A lot of people say it isn't, because with constant agitation you'll get even development anyway. I'll agree with that for a lot of developers, but for some reason me and 2-baths (and actually all developers) . . without a pre-soak I can often get uneven development, and I am Captain Agitation!
There is also the theory that giving a pre-soak, means that the developer has less chance to soak into the film, because it has to displace water from the soaked emulsion . . there is some sense to that, however when you think about it, the developer has to expel/mix with water with a pre-soak, or has to saturate a dry film with no pre-soak.
I can see no difference, and especially if you are using constant agitation.
It is almost like calculating how many Angels can dance on the head of a needle . . so hair-splittingly, hair-splitting as to be of only a navel-gazer's interest . . but for me, a pre-soak works, however here were my elders and betters A&T (they have written a wonderful and highly acknowledged book after all) telling me: no pre-soak; so balking against it like a surly toddler, no pre-soak it was!


When I process sheet film, I do it carefully, lone sheet after lone sheet . . one at a time. I am also a pretty conscientious and methodical developer, so sheet film processing can be a looooong process. With the Vestal DD76, this was 10 minutes development time plus the stop, and fix so you are talking about approximately 20 minutes per sheet . . that's nuts . . . in the dark . . . with nothing but yer brain for entertainment.
But the goal of a long grey scale and tonally wonderful negatives was ahead of me . . what was such time spent when you could be nearer nirvana!
So, I developed my first sheet. I am going to detail each one in  . . er . . detail, that way you can get an idea of what I have done.



Frame 1:
90mm Schneider Angulon.
TMX 100, EI 50.
Meter reading taken from shadowy area on tree and placed on a rough Zone IV.
2 Minutes at f32, extended to 4 Minutes Exposure to compensate for reciprocity.
Does that look like a thin negative to you? Too bloody right. The developer has dealt with the leaves and things quite well and the extreme range of brightness, but that's about it. HP5 and 1:2 Perceptol would have done it a lot better.




Frame 2:
150mm Schneider Symmar-S
TMX 100, EI 50.
Meter reading taken from concrete highlight and placed on Zone VI.
8 Seconds at f22, extended to 11 Seconds Exposure to compensate for reciprocity.
This is the best one. I actually think there is almost a glimpse of the tonal scale you can apparently achieve with this developer.




Frame 3:
150mm Schneider Symmar-S
TMX 100, EI 50.
Meter reading taken from pipe and placed on Zone IV.
1 Second at f22.
Totally ghastly. Exposure was rather hurried though as a Security Guard and his van were bearing down on me and I had to hurriedly make this and then shift my tripod!
To be honest, despite asking what my camera was, he was alright, and I did ask him if it was OK to be photographing here. He also remembered Joe McKenzie (my old lecturer) so that was fine too.
Look at the uneveneness though, caused by lack of a pre-soak.




Frame 4:
150mm Schneider Symmar-S
TMX 100, EI 50.
Meter reading taken from skull and placed on a rough Zone VI.
4 Seconds at f32, extended to 11 Seconds Exposure to compensate for reciprocity.
Unfortunately I didn't compensate for the fact that I was massively extended in the bellows department (oo-er missus) and this is the thinnest negative of the lot . . and the one I most wanted to come out the best!
I so desperately wanted this to work, but it is deadly thin. Not enough exposure, and uneven development.
What a shame.

So there you have it, a Quadrille of Doome. I should have stopped when I saw how thin the first negative was, but I was too trusting and the photograph of Ansel was in my mind's eye . .
So, having got 4 really quite thin negatives, I racked one of them into my enlarger and had a butchers at the grain . . Oh trump. it is that really non-existent soft grain which I am actually beginning to hate, simply because it is so difficult to see. The Sodium Sulphite had done its worst and made the grain all smooth. Conversely, if you want smooth grain, then this could be a good developer for you with TMX, but for me. Nope. Sorry. All it seems to have done is ushered the brass out of the room, when I so desperately wanted the full-on blare of a high-powered horn section! Know what I mean?
I actually think (and maybe I am being daft here) that given a traditional film with a traditional grain structure (ie, NOT T-GRAIN!) and given enough exposure then DD76 could well be a good choice. I have a roll of Agfa APX 100 that I am willing to sacrifice in the best interests of my readers . . so watch this space. But for films like the TMX's, then walk away, and quickly. The results are not pleasing.



Turned Out Nice Again
Ilford MG RC, Grade 4.5, Kodak Polymax, Agfa Fix

I had to make a quick print of the above - it is a work print (again heart on sleeve). In a final Fibre paper print, I'll keep the shadowy tonality, but use liquid lightning (Potassium Ferricyanide) to emphasise some of the skulls towards the back. You can do a lot to make this into an interesting print.
Also, a note to readers - if this looks all soot and ash on your monitor, I can assure you it isn't. I have my minotaur calibrated and what I see more or less emulates the prints (that doesn't say much eh!). I didn't do it expensively either, I used this. It is a great little piece of freeware.
My other thing I must say about this negative is that in all my years of enlarging negatives, I have never had to try and focus such a grain-free one . . so maybe that is an advantage . . I suppose.
It was totally, utterly, incomprehensibly, incredibly, difficult, even with a fine focuser like the Omega. Honest, the grain was invisible. 
So there.
Want grain free?
TMX 100 and Vestal's Divided D76!

These results have cemented something in my mind . . and it was something I hadn't realised until I did the Ralph Gibson Experiment all those months ago . .
I am a Density Junkie (or at the very least, I think I might be)
Dense.
You know - over-exposed, possibly over-developed.
Thick and black.
Through density comes a form of luminosity (in my view).
I viewed my contact sheet and hungered for more oompah!


The 1973 Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band salute Sheephouse's Quest For More Density!

Yes you can compensate for an underexposed (read: soft) negative with a higher grade of paper, but honestly, a denser negative printed at a lower grade will, I believe, give you a nicer result.
I am determined in the future to throw away all ideas of lovely whispy, 'perfect' negatives.
Give me it dark and dense and I'll take it from there.


So there y'go folks.
I hope you have gleaned something from this, because I have.
It is a lesson learned by me, and written almost immediately, for you.
Hopefully it has been instructive.
Let's call it growing up in public.


Tune in next time for Part Two, where I make a discovery in a good book, roll out an (almost) final 10ml from my ancient bottle of Rodinal, and further cement my thinking about 5x4 Photography.
Take care, God Bless and thanks for reading.


If You Could See What I Can See .  . When I'm Cleaning Windows
I managed to get my didgy camera through the bars which restricted the Wista
Imagine coming across a sight like this at 6.30AM

Friday, May 10, 2013

Piste-off (Part 2)


Mornin' Turnips! 
Regular yawners will note that last week I took them on a long and documented photographic journey into some semi-wild country . . . with a very large camera . . . well, this week we are going to see the evidence.
It is hard opening up oneself like this and bearing all, after all, most photographers generally keep their contact prints to themselves, like a private collection of vacated snail shells (a hobby so unusual that any mere mention of it would have the thought-police around).
Well, rather than just saving the best and posting them in a ooo-aren't-I-clever sort of way, I thought I would just show you the mistakes that can be made, and the final triumph of a handful of prints you are happy with held high as you dash across the finishing line.
So here goes.
Film was Kodak TMX 100, which I exposed at EI 50 (so half the recommended speed). Why? Well, to be honest, although manufacturers recommended speeds are their recommended speeds, I would rather deal with a negative that had a bit of bite to it, in that it has been well-exposed, rather than a thin, sorry, battered whippet of a negative skulking in a corner.
Will I get 'blown' highlights? probably, but then again, with some basic darkroom dodging and burning, even a well-cooked negative can be salvaged. And actually, my eye, which is what I am using to view life, does get beset by flare. Bright sunny sky, gosh that is hard on the eyes. What I am trying to say, is that to me for a photograph to work, the skies don't  have to be a wonderful interlaced-lattice of mystical clouds. Yes clouds are important, but sometimes they are the be-all and end-all in a landscape photograph, and to be honest, unless you are capturing the majesty of them with an incredible grey scale and broad range of tones (a la Adams - and God is it ever so difficult), then why not try and let them burn-out, flare, whatever.
The photograph is a dimensional world between you and the real world.
It isn't life.
It is the world, narrowly caught by light and glass and chemistry onto a sensitized piece of plastic, so why not (at times) let it be obvious that it is a photograph and a print, rather than trying to be a soulful mirror.
Developer for this was that aged Rodinal I have been writing about recently. Dilution 1:25, temperature 20° Centigrade.
Each negative was tray developed individually - yes it takes bloody ages, but then I don't like the eel-effect, of trying to handle several sheets of film at once.
Stop was Kodak Max stop, Fixer was Agfa AgFix . . and that's about all you need to know!




Well, that's the evidence - sorry about the orange cast - I don't possess a lightbox and it was pre-dawn when I took this, so you have an orange blind behind the negative holder. Oh and as you can see, it is a PrintFile holder - they're nice and soft.
And the proof of the pudding:


Contact print.



Well, what have we here?
Yep, four big negatives.
The contact is on Ilford RC multigrade, a paper I am not fond of, and the contact was printed at Grade 2 and about a stop darker than it should be. Muddy isn't it. I have no idea why, every time I do a contact on MG it looks muddy, but it does. I also find I have to slightly overexpose MG for some reason, but them's the breaks, I have little choice . . .
The chronological sequence they were made in is:

Negative #1 - Top Right
Negative #2 - Bottom Right
Negative #3 - Top Left
Negative #2 - Bottom Left

Right, we've got that sorted!

A word about metering:
Now this is interesting for me.
I use the Zone system, in a strange way, but it works for me. To me it is the most accurate and wonderful way of envisaging print tones. I am not going to go on about it, however if you have a scout around, there's a TON of great articles online, or indeed, for the olde fashioned, in books.
My meter is a Gossen Lunasix 3S. It is fairly old (1980's), but was refurbed by Gossen a few years back and it is a great light-meter. It can take reflected or incident readings and with the addition of attachments can be used as a lab meter, or a spot-meter. I have the spot attachment and it is very useful, however, in recent times I have thought, why not (in trying to get a fairly natural representation of what I sort of see) use incident readings from the main subject matter of the photograph, place the LVs on the Zone you want and let the rest of the picture deal with itself from there. In other words, say you were photographing rocks as I was in Negative #3. Use an incident reading from the rock, place it on Zone VI (1 stop overexposed) and let it all roll out from there.
Most landscape photographs are made with spot-meters. Generally, this is because Ansel Adams and all the guys said they found it easier and more accurate, however accuracy is not necessarily my intention.
I half-close my eyes, look at a scene, imagine the Zone values in my head and take it from there.
I have spot-metered for more years than I care to think of, and I have made a lot of very poor imitations of The Masters.
I rather like the incident way, because you aren't necessarily going to render your shadow detail as a Zone III (although most people should read Bruce Barnbaum on this, or indeed watch his talk about it on YouTube) or Zone IV, it'll just fall how it falls, but the weird thing is, it is incredible how consistent Light Values are, and you can often get a good idea of where things will go.
Anyway, as you can see from the following snippet:


I incident-metered the lightest values on the gate's wood and placed them on a Zone VI and took it from there - the result is a fairly decent looking Zone VI (that is the darkest parts on the negative above) Some of those shadows (the lightest parts) have fallen away to a Zone II/Zone I and that is fine by me!
 I am using the film's latitude too - it is amazing how irreverent and abusive of exposure you can be, however, when in doubt develop  the film more rather than less - there is nothing in this world worse than an underexposed AND underdeveloped negative.

Right, just to refresh things again:

Contact print.
Chronology is:
#3 - Top left                        #1 - Top Right
 #4 = Bottom Left           #2 - Bottom Right


As I have said, the contact is about a stop darker than it should be, hence the Zones don't look correct . hey ho!

Warning . . here comes the techy bit!

Exposure and development details:

#1 - Lens: Schneider Angulon - 90mm f6.8
     - Reading: Incident. Wood of gate placed on Zone VI
     - Exposure: 4 seconds (extended to 6 seconds to deal with reciprocity) at f45, front tilt on camera.
     - Development: Rodinal 1+25. 6 minutes at 20° C. 
     - Agitation - constant first 30 seconds, then 15 seconds each minute.                                    


#2 - Lens: Schneider Angulon - 90mm f6.8
     - Reading: Incident. Wood of gate placed on Zone VI
     - Exposure: 2 seconds (extended to 2.5 [OK, say 3] seconds to deal with reciprocity) at f45, front tilt on camera
     - Development: Rodinal 1+25. 6 minutes at 20° C.
     - Agitation - I lost count of the time (easy to do) so, constant first 30 seconds, then 15 seconds each minute. To deal with my panic, I thought I had better stop agitating, so, I either stopped at 5 minutes and let the negative sit, unagitated in the developer until 7 minutes, or (more likely) stopped at 4 minutes and let the negative sit, unagitated until 6 minutes. Looking at densities, I think it could well be the latter.

#3 - Lens: Schneider Angulon - 90mm f6.8
     - Reading: Incident. Stone of Cairn placed on Zone VI
     - Exposure: ½ a second (extended to 1 second just because) at f45, front swing on camera. The wind was gusting to approximately 40/50 mph . . Ever heard a View Camera hum? The negative isn't that sharp, but neither is it that bad.
     - Development: Rodinal 1+25. 6 minutes at 20° C.
     - Agitation - constant first 30 seconds, then 15 seconds each minute, however at 4 minutes I gave 30 seconds agitation and then let the negative stand, unagitated to 6 minutes. This has worked well in terms of compensation, as the light was all over the shop.   

#4 - Lens: Kodak 203mm f7.7 Ektar.
     - Reading: Incident. The cotton of the curtain placed on Zone VI
     - Exposure: 1 second at f32, no movements
     - Development: Rodinal 1+25. 6 minutes at 20° C.
     - Agitation - constant first 30 seconds, then 15 seconds each minute.                                  
                            
Agitation is a very strange thing, but thinking about it, it can be used creatively to help or hinder a photograph . . this could be the most snooze-tastic FB ever . . hmmm, must think about that one.
Well the proof of the pudding as they say - here's the results.
I didn't print negative #1, because it is the dullest photo I have ever seen, but here's the rest.



Caravan To Nowhere
Adox Vario Classic, Kodak Polymax Developer
Grade 1.
Bleached.

I initially printed this on a Grade 3, however it didn't work, so I did something I have never done before and printed on Grade 1, and you know what? Slightly overdeveloped negative/soft paper grade = Vintage Tone!
I was surprised. Oh and here's a sectional enlargement - the performance of the lens is superlative, same with the TMX 100/Rodinal combo. I struggled to find any grain printing a 10x8 print.


Sectional Enlargement of print - 800DPI


Ah yes, a tale of two prints - first is shite.


Cairn Of Barns
Adox Vario Classic, Kodak Polymax Developer
Grade 4

Rubbish - over exposed print. Grade 4 was useless too, so guess what . . grade 1 again:



Cairn Of Barns
Adox Vario Classic, Kodak Polymax Developer
Grade 1
Selective Bleaching

Now I will admit I had to do a fairly extensive bleach on this, firstly the whole print into a fairly weak solution, then refix, wash a bit, out and use a brush.
With bleaching, I'll paint some on and wash off with a shower hose, repeat and repeat until the desired effect is achieved and then fix, however if you want to get a blammo extra-bright bleach just add the print with the bleach still on it straight into a bath of fixer. It works.
I am chuffed with this actually. I left the vignetting from the lens at the left side, because it is a photograph.
And now for my final print.
This is printed down slightly, simply for the fact that I like it that way.
The gate wood is a nice Zone VI and as I mentioned before, everything else has fallen into a decent representation of how I saw the scene in the first place. Metering this way, has given me the Wynn Bullock look (not that I can photograph like him, but he's a hero and there's no harm in trying to emulate them in the furtherance of your own artistic endeavours).
I like this photograph. The little Angulon (widely disparaged as a cheap and fairly hopeless lens) has done a beautiful job.




Broken Gate, Coremachy
Adox Vario Classic, Kodak Polymax Developer
Grade 3.
Selective Bleaching.



I did, overprint a tad too much, so good ol' Pot-Ferry came to my rescue on the gate. As you can see from the sectional enlargement below, results are pretty fine!

Sectional Enlargement of print - 800DPI


And that is it folks - hope you've enjoyed this - if you want any more detail, drop me a line and I'll do my best to answer - no FB next week, the Highers are here and Alec Turnips needs the computer . . .
Take care, God bless and thanks for reading.

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.



Friday, September 07, 2012

Photographing Nothing

Greetings m'Dearios. Well this week we seem to have been a sailin' round in a big circle. 
We set off on Monday with all sorts of waves and well-wishes and we found ourselves back on Friday in the same port with all sorts of puzzled looks and warding.
For 'tis bad luck to return to the port you set off from in the same week.
I have an idea how it happened, and I will blame it on Mog.
That cat.
He'll sleep anywhere, and given we'd been re-caulking a part of the foredeck this week, he managed to get tar on his fur, but, before we had him trimmed, he had a snooze in my cabin, and left some nice tarry marks on me charts.
'Twasn't good though.
I made it onto the dock and was immediately beset by Cap'n Mash.
After our usual sailorly greetings, he took me aside and the following conversation ensued:

'T'isn't right cap'n'

'You're right there Mash.'

He'd found out about Mog

'In my day ship's cats were considered ill-luck when they got tarred.'

'My day too cap'n - we're the same age remember.'

'Oh. Ar. Aye, so we are.'

'You're forgetting yerself there cap'n'

He looked a bit offended.
Anyways after much beard strokin', he said:

'So where are you going to nail it?'

I've risked offending many people before, and I wasn't going to let Mash tell me what to do, so I looked him in the eye and said:

'You've overstepped yersel' there cap'n.'

He took this like a slap with a bowsprit.

'But it is cap'n. Bad luck is what it is. If you don't then I will. That cat'll bring it all down upon us again.'

'Bring what down cap'n?' I asked
He looked at me in a weird way and said in a small voice:

'The Fear, cap'n, The Fear.'

This was mighty strange, but I asked him anyway.

'What fear be that Mash?'

He rubbed at his jowls and took out his cloute and wiped his forehead and looked me straight in the eye and said:

'It.'

This was getting stranger by the minute.

'It what Mash?'

'It!'

Mr.Sheephouse had appeared on deck at this time and was observing us - no doubt he wrote it up in his journals. He was holding Mog in a friendly manner and supportive of the cat's behind, just the proper way you hold a cat.
Mog was watching too.
I didn't know what to say, so I let Mash qualify his statement. He was looking swole now, his face had lost that steely look like he was going to stop me and he had more the appearence of a big babby.

'Haven't ye noticed cap'n? 
No matter where ye go, from the Southern shoals to the Northern rocks. 
From warm water to cold. 
From the lands of the sultry-eyed ladies to the lands of the blubber-eaters.
The sea, cap'n. 
The sea! 
That's The Fear cap'n.
The sea! 
It all be the same!'

We headed out on the next tide and I am happy to report that our charts are now fine.
Mog is sitting watching me write this up. He has a dish o'cream and his favourite catnip mouse.
It takes a lot to change a sailor's mind once he's set on course, but a ship's cat is a capn's best friend.
I've raised Mog since I found him half-drowned in a burlap bag as a kit.
There was no chance of me nailin' him to a mast.
No chance at all.


***



Definition of nothing
[pronoun]
·   not anything; no single thing:
    I said nothing
    there’s nothing you can do
    they found nothing wrong
·   something of no importance or concern:
    ‘What are you laughing at?’ ‘Oh, nothing, sir’
     they are nothing to him
[as noun]:
     no longer could we be treated as nothings
·    (in calculations)
     no amount;
     nought.
[adjective]
[attributive] informal
·     having no prospect of progress; of no value:
      he had a series of nothing jobs
[adverb]
·     not at all:
      a man who cared nothing for her
      he looks nothing like the others
[postpositive]
·     North American informal used to contradict something emphatically:
      ‘This is a surprise.’ ‘Surprise nothing.’



***



You know, looking back over contact prints and boxes of prints I have, I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of money and time and effort on photographing nothing at all.
One generally supposes that a picture needs to have a subject, but as I shall show dear reader my subjects often consist of nothing other than a piece of wall, or fence, or moor, or tree. Nothing you could really call 'subject matter', nothing even that you could really call a snap. So why do I continue on this fool's errand when the world and his brother wants pictures of something?
When I was much much younger and still finding my feet on a fingerboard, my Mother would urge me, even cajole me, to play something with "a tune to it."
At the time, John William's Cavatina was the piece of classical guitar music that everyone wanted to hear, but I simply couldn't play it. I could have made a half-hearted, fumble fingered go at it, but I couldn't just sit down in a room with Mum and Dad, Trevor and Olive, and Arthur and Evelyn and Dolly and Tom and Doug and play it. I could do a passable attempt at the opening bit of the Concerto Aranjuez, or a Chinese-whispers version of Smokestack Lightning, but Cavatina?
No way hose-pipe.
Not a chance.
And I wonder now why I didn't even try to appease them. It would have been simpler, would have won me all sorts of appreciation, maybe even an extra piece of God's own pudding (in case you're wondering, an Apple pie, with shortcrust pastry and a hint of the exotic with cloves added for spice) and custard . . . but I didn't. I prefered instead to mumble and do the hard rasquedo-ey bit from Concerto and that was it. 
I sort of realise now why I was like that - basically, I am stupid.
It manifests itself in many ways, but generally, at the hint of being able to do something that might in the long-run lead onto something, I stand in the corner and just say 'No'.
It has been the same with every single creative endevour I have ever been involved with, and to be honest I find it immensely irritating.
So how does this contrary motion manifest itself photographically?
Well, I must admit that when (and if) in a situation where all comers are photographing the view or whatever interesting is happening, I tend to find myself off in a different direction, or around the corner, or just plain photographing the people doing the photographing. When in landscapes of incredible beauty, I tend not to go for the grand view (though goodness knows I have) but more for the things in that landscape that I find attractive . . . and that is . . . usually . . . what you could call . . . er . . . nothing.
So why bother?
Well I find this a difficult one to quantify.
Apparently John Szarkowski wrote in a forward to one of Ansel Adams’ books, a quote from Fred Astaire in the film Funny Face. Astaire was playing a fashion photographer. Audrey Hepburn’s character asked him, “Why do you photograph beautiful women?” and he said, “Madam, you’d be amazed at how small the demand is for pictures of trees.”
I think that is an interesting quote, because in Mr.Adams' case, pictures of trees and the grand vista were what he made his name with, however my favourite Adams photographs are the ones where people are involved and where the non-obvious is the subject matter.
There is one of walls and buildings from Mexico (where the light is just extraordinary and a dog just pops into the frame and Mr.Adams makes the photograph) that I love very much for the fact that other than the dog appearing at the appropriate moment, there is nothing going on.
But there is also another, a portrait he made on his Zeiss Contax, of Georgia O'Keefe and Orville Cox at the Canyon de Shelly national monument.
I think he out-decisived HCB on this.
From my own point of view, it is full of nothing, and yet it doubtless has something.




Georgia O'Keeffe and Orville Cox, Canyon de Chelly National Monument
©Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust


One wonders what was said, or maybe even un-said. There can be so much read into this seemingly simple photograph, but ultimately it is a photograph of nothing where something is happening.
For my own bizarre ends, you name it I have photographed it, from cigarette stubbers to barren, rock-strewn hillsides, to pictures of mist (taken from inside the mist) to piles of earth and posters and bits of light on walls.
There is never any intended subtext of duality.
They are just plain photographs.
So why do I do it? Is there some sort of attractiveness in my subject matter. Something that might halt a viewer in their tracks and make them say (Hmmmmm . .. I see!) . . Well no not really. A large number of my photographs aren't just as dull as dishwater, they're horrendously boring too. But the thing is, I quite like them. I made them, and even if they are dull to you and you and you, to me they are fine. Not great. Just fine.
I don't make photographs of sports events or society photographs - those tend to be pictures of something. Mine are more like random observations from a chaotic world (isn't that a great book title . . so great I am going to copyright it now):
Random Observations From A Chaotic World ©  Phil Rogers 06/09/2012
There, that's better.
What I think I am trying to say (and regular FB readers will appreciate the fact that every week they're delving into the thought process of a Stromatalite) is that photographic subject matter is obviously entirely a personal choice, but (and here's the kicker) like my refusal to play Cavatina, it doesn't actually have to be of anything at all.
It's a weird way to approach a hobby, but it is my way and unless I change dramatically, I can't really see anything beyond my random collection of images of unremarkable buildings, trees in the middle of nowhere, ephemera and detritus, random mist, forgotten parcels of land and the occasional person passing through the edges of my viewfinder.
A photograph is a photograph is a photograph; be it masterful archival print handled by be-gloved curators in a museum, or a snap permanently pasted in a plastic sleeved album handed round at parties and family get-togethers. From the £20,000 investment on a gallery wall to the plastic-papered object you collect from Tescos, to the thirty billion random examples littering the ether. All photographs. All of them of subject matter that might be something, could possibly even be something, but mostly is nothing.
Hmmmm (rubs beard and re-reads again) this has all gone a bit . . shite. I've got away from what I was trying to say and wandered off again. 
That dear reader is part of how this comes together most weeks. powered by massive mugs of tea my brain slowly grinds into motion, but it doesn't necessarily grind in the direction it was grinding the day before. But please be ensured that, like a fleshy orbital sander, it will eventually get to some obscure point.
Yes, what was I saying.
Why do I do it?
I think it all stems from something Gary Winogrand said when asked why he photographed so much, and his answer was (to paraphrase him) that he photographed to see what the world was like photographed.
There is (strangely) something to this seemingly obtuse, mad and random statement.

Strap on a helmet - he's headed off in a different direction again . .this is the Winogrand by-pass:

Gary snapped away like a good'un; like there was no tomorrow.
On the surface, seemingly endless random shots of people and situations.
Photographs of, really, nothing.
Tiny slices of time, chaotic and juxtaposed. Fleeting moments that would at their time of occurrence have absolutely no meaning at all to their perpetrators. An arm lifted here, a conversation there. A laugh. A burden. A fall. A bag. A coffee. The movements of the world. Bits of time that you would never analyse.
But with crafted observation, transformed into art.
When you view his images there is something that hits you straight in the nose.
He was a humanist.
There is great feeling and warmth deeply inherent in his photographs.
There is pathos and a very refined sense of humour.
They're not gritty in the way a lot of photography of the 60's and 70's was.
They're honest and human, no set-ups, just lightning fast reactions to unfolding situations; anticipation to the Nth degree.
But ultimately photographs of nothing made into something.
Here's a couple of examples - they're mad and funny and strange all at the same time.
The first image is almost like something from a surrealist painting don't you think?




Democratic Convention, LA, 1960
© Winogrand Estate




It's bizarre to think that in photographing nothing: three people, at random, up close (with the incredible fact that none of them seem to be aware of the camera) Mr.Winogrand has, like Mr.Adams, made a photograph into which so much can be read.
My next example from him is probably one of my favourite photographs these days.





Untitled 1977
© Winogrand Estate




Again, a picture of nothing.
A boy and a sheep (?) in what looks like a stock shed, and yet, one wonders what is going on.
My own thoughts are (every time I look at it):

Who is looking after who?
Is that some strange alien and the boy is disgruntled because he is hogging the limelight?
Have they had a fight?

Again in photographing the mundane Mr.Winogrand has provided us with an image which raises more questions than it answers and with the added bonus that we smile and chuckle and then this great photograph is now our new best friend.
I call it genius.
Sadly Gary passed away in the 1980's leaving an archive of tens of thousands of unprocessed rolls of film. One wonders what other gems are in there.


Ok, we've taken a left and now we're back on Sheephouse Drive


At this point in time, I have decided to shamelessly shoehorn some of my own photographic nothings into the proceedings . . . and why not . . . FB is my little kingdom and I can do what I like.
Of course these images are in rather grand company, but I like to think that if either Mr.Winogrand, or Mr.Adams were still alive and came round, we could sit and have some tea and good old chin-wag, so I am sure they won't mind my paltry efforts.
The photos I have included below are essentially images of nothing.
They're random snaps (well the first two are) from random moments of time.
There's nothing going on and there's nothing happening.
The first two were made on holiday with my trusty little Olympus Trip 35:





Mersey Ferry, 2012
                         
      


Yes, that flag is on the Mersey Ferry - I dunno, it just seemed like a nice little bit of Britishness that I rather like - but essentially it is a snap of nothing. I was just wandering around the deck blazing through a roll of film and pretending to look:
a.) Arty
and
b.) Important
Nobody was fooled - my family remained in the cafe area and looked unimpressed.


Two days before we had been a-wanderin' in the rain around the beautiful and lively City of Liverpool, when I spied the next subject.
The man was drunk or homeless or just plain desperate, but his back and the way he moved caught my eye and I had to briefly follow him and make this picture.
I felt (and still feel) sorry for him actually.
He exuded an air of complete lonliness.
It was him versus the world and the world was winning, and it was raining.
I should have bought him a coffee in hindsight, but such was his air that he would probably have told me to shove it.





Man In The Rain, Liverpool, 2012




The third is the most mundane, but it shows how, sometimes, unplanned and strange things can happen.
It was a lengthy set-up involving a 5x4 view camera and a large tripod.
Nominally it is a picture of nothing, that somehow seems to have become a picture of something.
Something weird.
Just why I decided to photograph this clump of trees is totally beyond me.
It took about 20 minutes to set the camera up, a few minutes to sort out the meter readings and make the exposure, a few minutes take-down time; and then of course there's the lugging time, the getting back to the car time; the processing time (one sheet of film at a time) and then the printing time.
A large chunk of my life has been wasted on making an image of absolutely no consequence or worth to anyone . . at least that is what I thought.
However, somehow, light and rocks and leaves and their positioning in the landscape have led me to capture an image of a dead man's face. You can see it quite clearly, near the bole of the left hand trees. He looks like he has been trussed rather in the method of Bronze Age sacrifices, and, putting arms and legs onto everything as usual, I feel that maybe some of the spirit of this quiet clump of forgotten land has manifested itself in a natural apparition.
We are programmed for faces. Just look around you and they are everywhere in the natural world. Strangely, I just seem to have found one in a pile of rocks and leaves, in a public cemetery, early on a May morning.





The Drowned Man, 2010




I could have illustrated this FB with loads more images of total inconsequence, but I have spared you dear reader.
They are dull.
Maybe when we get to know each other better I'll reel them out and await your judgement.
In the meantime, don't fuss over your photographs, just go and take a walk and take a picture of something that you find interesting to look at.
For the sheer hell of it, why not follow Mr.Winogrand and just photograph to see what the world looks like photographed.
It might well be nothing in the eyes of the world, but it will be your something.
God bless, thanks for reading and (as usual) stay dry.