Homeless

I pondered about this one, because, despite the title it isn't technically about being Homeless - please read on though - hopefully I'll be able to explain myself better.

There's a gulch near my house - I guess round these parts you'd call it a glen, albeit a really really small one. It is steep and contains a well-maintained public footpath.
It's been there for a long time as far as I can tell.
There's a wall alongside it that I would say dates back to at least the mid-1800's by the look of it, however it is probably likely that the course of the path runs much further back in time.
The wall is certainly on the 1847 Charles Edwards Survey Map.
In my experience boundaries of all kinds are usually far older than they seem.

Prior to the railways arriving, the Firth of Tay was boundaried in this part of town by a cliff before it hit the docks of the city centre. This gulch runs down through what is still there of the cliff.
There is vegetation everywhere - dense old trees, ramsons, ground ivy, bramble, gorse. 

It is (unusually, for public land) completely wild; the council haven't attacked it with weed killer or strimmers.

There are what appear to be animal trackways - they could well belong to deer or foxes or just the humble coney. They're well used, but there's no spraints of any animal variety, just human and then not very often, but it doesn't half give you a surprise!

In amongst this wildness, this lost parcel of land, someone has, at some point in recent time, chosen to take refuge.

I'll pause there, because immediately to my mind the word desperation makes itself felt.

Well. you'll see what I mean when you see the photographs. 

I can sort of understand it though. 

The area is relatively secluded, well, actually, it is very secluded, yet you're within a ten minute walk of food shops and so on.

And yet, despite their invisibility, the sites (there are/were two of them) are despoiled.

Vandals?

Madness?

Who knows?

The site in these photographs contains a (not very obvious) sleeping bag kicked into the dirt and the remnants of a campsite - old buckets, plastic, bottles and tins.
The refuse is actually quite well hidden in the undergrowth, like they wanted it to be secret.

Slowly nature is reclaiming this brief intrusion, as she will always.

The other site contains the same detritus, plus the wreckage of a tarp shelter; a traffic cone; more buckets; some tins and, perhaps shockingly to these modern sensibilities, some sad, lone bits of excrement.
It's a weird thing - everybody does it, few talk about it, but when you discover such a thing, when you nearly plant your foot in it, it becomes a matter of outrage.
You feel really unclean.
I came home and sanitized my tripod legs and shoes

With regards to our depositor of surprises, where has this person gone? 

That's what I'd like to know.

In the past year of so, this is the fourth destroyed campsite I've seen, and not just in my area, but in various bits of the town - the Docks and Seabraes.
Is it the same person?
If it is, to just abandon everything like your sleeping bag, tarp, tent etc., why?

Anyway, I'll leave the unponderables.

Maybe you have a similar thing going on where you live.
It's always worth lifting those bushes and checking - if someone wants to take themselves out of society, well, though not easy, it can be done.

I'm actually reminded of a brilliant book by William Boyd, called Ordinary Thunderstorms, about a scientist, who, through no fault of his own, is thrust into the world of invisibility and starts sleeping rough.

It's a rip-snorter of a plot and highly recommended.

Anyway, enough - on with the photos, though as usual you get the notes too!

Film #66/72

1. 4 second reading to 10 seconds - f8 ZIII - Garage

2. 4 second reading to 10 seconds - f22 ZIII - 21cm Focus - Parallax - Gargh!

3. 1 second reading to 3 seconds - f16 ZIII

4. 1 second - f11 ZIII  - Homeless

5. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f22 ZIII - Tape Measure 48cm

6. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f16 ZIII - Tape Measure 52cm - Ivy

7. 1 second - f16 - ZIII

8. 1/2 second - f22 - ZIII

9. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f11 ZIII - Homeless

10. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f16 ZIII - Ivy + Tripod Leg

11. 8 second reading to 19 seconds - f22 ZIII - Tape Measure 50cm to 150cm Focus

12. 8 second reading to 19 seconds - f22 ZIII - Quick Release Plate Came Loose

Used a small tape measure a lot - worked well, be sure to use it in the future.

5+5+500ml PHD 22℃ - agit to 14 mins, stand to 18 mins.

The detail on every leaf is extraordinary   - it's like they are etched - very pleasing to my eyes especially considering the blurriness from the PVD which is ongoing and very flarey

Homeless I

Homeless II

Homeless III

Homeless IV

Homeless V

Homeless VI

Homeless VII

Homeless VIII

I know, I can hear you saying it to yourself:

"But where's the filfth? Where's the grinding poverty? Where the Don McCullin man?"

Well, you know, they're/it's not there and that's the sort of semi-surreal thing about it, and I guess that why I am most pleased with Homeless VIII.

The 19 second exposure has given movement to the tree's branches, which in turn has added an air of unreality and dream to it. 

Well it has to my eyes.

Don't worry - I don't think I'll be going all Lee Big Stopper on you yet - that whole branch of modern photography is rather sad. If you want to see what it can truly do, please search out John Blakemore - he was innovating (after a manner with the baton from Wynn Bullock) decades ago.
If you've never looked at either photographer's works, please search them out.

Kudos must be paid to Pyrocat-HD as a developer - without a staining developer there's no way in heck the highlights would have had a chance of being printed.

I know I am lucky too in having the SWC/M to rely on - every single piece of veining on leaves shows up - the Biogon is without a doubt the greatest lens I have ever used.
Not the easiest, no, but certainly the one that renders foliage in a most extraordinary way.
The closest I can get to it is by saying that you can count every leaf and blade, which you really can't with a lot of lenses.

I used my handy Ilford Reciprocity tables - basically, apart from SFX, most Ilford film under time pressure exhibits the same reciprocity failure, so I knocked up a sheet (along with Kodak) affixed it to some card, and laminated it with cellotape - works great!

These are all 800 dpi scans off of the original prints. 

They're all made by me, on my knees (!) in my guerilla darkroom - I guess where there's a will there's a way.

Paper is my current easy go-to paper - Ilford MGRC and they're all on Grade 3, except the contact which was Grade 2. I suppose if I was using a condenser head on the DeVere I'd be Grade 2 for the prints, but no, it's a colour head, so  Grade 3.

I will say, that with my current PVD affecting my eyes, it was damn hard using the grain focuser - they both seemed to be disagreeing (I have two - a Paterson and a Micromega) but in reality it was my eyes at work - very difficult . . but I got there.

Weirdly and cosmically, there's a denouement to all this:

Last night me and t'missus settled down to watch the physicist Brian Cox in his Wonders Of The Universe series - she had some wine and I enjoyed a couple of fine glasses of Ardmore whisky.
Old Coxy boy was explaining atoms and elements; you know the 'We're All Made Of Star Stuff' stuff, and it hit me, that this homeless person and their soon-to-be-returned-to-its-natural-state camp; all the detritus; my camera and film; tripod; the time measured with my Gossen meter and its handy Zone wheel; clothes; me; chemicals; paper; Ardmore; the missus; Coxy; my TV; the tide running deep and wild out in the estuary; my CD player (and Mike Oldfield as I type this); keyboard; ICs in the Mac; phone cables; satellites; you . . .

We're all from the same gaff.

From the same complex, vast in both time and complexity, mishmash of cosmic mashiness.

Like the best bubble and squeak you've ever had, where everything works together, or should work together.

Humans, we have to get there.

There's no going forward nowadays without tolerance, kindness and co-operation.
We're at a point in time where it could soar or go utterly shit-shaped.
For human-kind to progress and lift itself above the sad, petty madness, people have to change.
It is probably unlikely, because there's nothing humans like more than regularity and confirmity and the certainty of the known, but I think you have to move out of that comfort zone sometimes.
Change is good.
It's why we're here.

Maybe homeless person has changed or change has happened to them?
Maybe they 'got lucky' and are driving around in one of the countless bloody Audis you see coming up fast in your rear-view.
Or maybe they copped it and are hidden deep within some Lost Council Wildness waiting for some unfortunate photographer to discover them . . .
Maybe they're still out there, sheltering under some forgotten hedgerow, waiting for time to be kinder to them . . .
Who knows.

That's all there is to it.

For myself I've resolved to think even more on things and try to be less persnickety and pernickety.
Sometimes you have to force yourself to approach things differently.
To quote my hero, Rambling Syd Rumpo from the Sussex Whirdling Song:

"So there he is, a-plighting his troth ...

A troth, by the way, is a small furry creature with fins. It's a cross between a trout and a sloth or slow-th, and it's a curious match. I often wonder what they saw in each other in the first place, though I suppose the sloth, hanging upside down, tends to have a different slant on things."

There, something that makes me laugh, with language distilled from that most disliked of humans (next to the immigrant) the Romany.

It's what everyone needs though - a different slant on things - celebrate your inner sloth.

Weird eh, and sorry for expounding when all you wanted to do was read about film and stuff . . but that's what you get from getting up at 5 AM and drinking too much tea (Hi Mike!!)

Anyway, that's shallot.

I am relatively up-to-date photographically now, so it could be a while before I post anything new.

I did think I could do some more SFX stuff, but the spectre of wrong Nm hit me - it was ghastly and might well be a tale further down the line . . .

Oh and things might change on the next FB simply because Google have decided to change the way you use it to write - I've tried it already and it was more for phone-users and not keyboard heroes . . . 

Over and out - watch out for that trout.

Told you so.

Last Film Of The Decade

Fol-de-role! And a Jolly Green Giant of a New Years Greeting to you from the home of New Year . . Auld Scotia!

Well a new decade is upon us - in the forthcoming one, we'll achieve world peace, harmony, have turned around about the environment, be on a Universal Income and all in all everything will be tip top and super.

I'll be either dead, alive but nearly dead, alive and surviving, alive and independently-limbed, alive and non-independently-limbed, or in a concerned, bewildered and horrified torpor which sees me drifting around from environmental to humanitarian disaster, trying to do stuff.
I might well not be living in the country (a dream I have had my whole life) . . but hey-ho! I'm not discounting it - who knows (where the wind blows)?

What is likely is that I won't be working any more - having achieved state retirement age - unless the bastards have put it up exponentially - in which case, my old adage of:

It used to be WORK and DIE. Now it's WORK, INSERT YOUR OWN CATHETER and DIE

will be true.

Will Alec Turnips (son and all-round good egg) have spawned any sprogs before I am too old to pick the blighters up? Who Knows??

Will we still be able to buy film? Will you have to auction your kidneys to buy a roll of Tri-X in the UK? Oh, sorry foreign readers . . IT IS LIKE THAT NOW!
Ah, that's a good question though isn't it.
It leads to the thought, what would you do if you couldn't?
For myself, I'd stop photographing entirely. I totally cannot be arsed with digital and prefer the process that traditional picture taking brings to the table.

Which rather brings me to the whole point of this first FB of a new decade . . . the last film taken in the 2010's. I had to mark it somehow, so we'll get to that further down the page, though I couldn't resist chucking this photograph in.

Quiet, Haunted Lane

Anyway, if you can't be bothered reading and just like looking at the pictures, please feel free to scroll downwards.
And if you're from 2030:

Careful with your Cormthrusters . . you don't want them getting caught on your Space Suit.

Well, here we go - looking back to the start of 2010, I was writing in my journals long and lustily about the weight of my Sinar!

"8/2/2010

I weighed myself with all the big gear - it worked out I was hauling 4.6kg (nearly 11lb) of tripod and head, which probably explains why it took me nearly 3 hours to reach the top of the Shank (of Drumfollow). I weighed 15 stone 9.25 lb with all my stuff AND NO BOOTS! 26lb of extra weight. So after much deliberation I decided to buy another tripod"

Not only did I buy another tripod ( a Gitzo Series G224 Reporter and G24 head - which stood me in good stead for 8 years and I still have) I also bought a Wista DX from a chap called Mike Pirrie for the grand sum of £300. It was in boss condition, and had started out in the States by all accounts until Mike had bought it. The Wista is a superb camera - a true triumph of form and function. I used it a hell of a lot.
My last quote from the end of February 2010 reads:

"Had to take my new set up for a field test, so went to the Western.
It's quite a different camera to use - the GG is VERY bright. You have to be more aware of the standards and everything being parallel (compared to the Sinar, which is like a brick shithouse). . . . But at last I am relatively free from the tyranny of weight and bulk!"

Here's a photo taken with that setup:

Grave Detail With Light Frost - Western Cemetery, Dundee

It was with the Wista, the old Kodak 203mm Ektar with the Bumblebee Prontor shutter and Foma 100 sheet film at EI 50. It was developed in Barry Thornton 2 bath. The stonework was placed on Z VI and the reading was 15 secs at f45.
With reciprocity that was up to 60 seconds!
And that's the beauty and importance of keeping exposure notebooks!

I quite like it.
The old Kodak Ektars, whilst 'press' lenses, are really fine art marvels - mine is the British version which fits a Copal 0 shutter too, should the Bumblebee ever decide to fly away.
Anyway that was a photograph from a batch of 4 from how I started the decade.

And here's the last 5x4 I took - we have to rewind back to 2016 - May.
Bloody hell - it only seems like 2 months ago - I am far older and uglier nowadays.

Who Are You And Why Are You Taking My Picture?

This was the Wista again but with the 90mm Super Angulon. I'd got lucky with that lens and got a boxed, late-made one with a filter for a relatively paltry amount - it's a cracking lens.
Seeing these again has cemented an idea for this year - I'm going to start using LF again, but will be more selective and also use a different developer to Pyrocat - the thought of waiting around in the dark for something to emerge is almost too much for a sane brain to contemplate. Maybe Microphen might do the trick - thanks for the tip Bruce.

Anyway, in between LF in 2010 and my last film something dramatic occured, and that was the acquiring of what I really think is one of the very finest cameras made - a Hasselblad.
It changed me photographically.
I realised that FOR ME and MY PURPOSES it was pointless farting about with so-so cameras and 'extinct' systems - if you are serious about taking pictures, please consider this - the lens is the most important element, followed by the camera system to back it up and a plentiful supply of stuff to help you with your choice and to my mind, the V System was a no-brainer.
Finally being able to afford one was probably the most exciting thing ever, photographically speaking, for me.
Actually taking it out and getting used to it was a thrill that is still with me.
I love it.

So, on the last day of the decade, I knew I was going to take the 500 C/M and the 60mm Distagon (which I haven't used in a while) out for a wander.
I initially thought I'd get a lift from my wife on her way to work, but the sun doesn't rise till 8.46AM around these parts at this time of year and the realisation that I'd have to be making really long exposures in really cold (sub-zero) weather in an unknown part of town, made me think twice.
So I hunkered down and waited for the sun and headed off to my old stomping ground of the back of the Art College.
The sun was really low, but very beautiful and making images that thrilled me was a breeze.
It put a real spring in my step and, having examined the negs I can honestly say that I'll probably print every image on the roll - an all time first!

Film 66/63

Dundee, 31/12/2019

Ilford HP5+ - EI 200

1./ 1/125th f8 ZIII - Shed Bike

2./ 1/60th f8 ZIV - Bike

3./ 1/60th f4 ZIII - Prejudice

4./ 1/15th f8 ZIII - 180 Degrees From Prejudice - House

5./ 1/30th f4 ZIII - Bath

6./ 1/60th - 1/125th f8 ZIII - Liberty Tree

7./ 1/30th f8 ZIII- Me

8./ 1/250th f5.6 ZIII - Girl

9./ 1/60th f11 ZIII - Palms

10./ 1/30th f8 ZIII - Dark Wullie

11./ 1/60th f5.6 ZIIII - Wrestle

12./ 1/15th f4 ZIII - Spex Pistols

PHD  - 5+5+500 22℃

Usual to 14 mins then stand to 17 mins.

Really Happy With This -They Looked So Exciting Through The VF. 

Hasselblad 500 C/M + 60mm Distagon.

ALL Handheld

Sorry, but I started showing the contact prints for every film last year and I am going to go on, hence the above.

Anyway, buoyed up with how the negatives looked, I had a decent few hours printing on the 2nd of January, and here's the results.
They are all scans at 800dpi off of the prints which were printed on Ilford MGRC at Grade 3.
The weird thing is, that the contact is actually printed at Grade 2, but to get the same sparkle, I nearly always have to print at Grade 3.
It's probably something to do with the staining effect of the Pyrocat in contact printing as opposed to projection printing.
Anyway, here goes the prints - and with added descriptions too.

Quiet, Haunted Lane

When I finish my compendium of ghost stories, the above is going to be the cover - it has that feel to me. I'd taken the Prejudice picture and was quite happy with it, but then decided to turn around 180 Degrees and voila - the sun was shining up the lane just right and the house was veiled by flare from the backlighting.
It looked tremendously exciting in the viewfinder.

Ghost Of Bathing Student Wonders What Is Going On

Ah, those jolly students! The bath had been a part of someone's 'installation' for their graduate exhibition. It has now been moved off its display plinth and is being used as a saw horse.

The veiling flare from the strong sun coming through the roof bits made the wall face look like it was rising in steam off the bath - I know, I DO have a weird mind.

The print isn't too successful though - I think it looks better on the contact - that's one for a future session.

Sheephouse, International Man Of Mystery

This is the architectural building of Duncan Of Jordanstone - were it not for the fecking double glazing it would be an almost perfect reflection shot from my point of view. 

Double glazing really mucks up reflection photographs - I don't like it that much.

The light though has something almost sepulchural about it and my shadow gives it a certain air of mystery don'tcha think?

I am happy with the print on this - by the way, despite what people say the majority of the prints from this sessions were made at approximately the same exposure time of 32 seconds at f22. The enlarging lens was my Vivitar (Schneider) 100mm - a truly great lens.

I find once you get an idea of what the base exposure time is you can easily judge things from there. No Faffin'!

Palms - GTA-style

Yes I know, this IS Scotland . . but you see, some 10+ years back some brainbox decided to augment the delightfully quaint formal gardens opposite the Uni with a planting of palms. 

They also put some Lemmings on a wall in celebration of the coding of the game Lemmings:

Madly Addictive But Extinct

. . . and I now realise, the palms are maybe there to celebrate the coding of the game Grand Theft Auto. 

I'm just waiting for the Minecraft memorial in the Western Cemetery . . . 

The photograph shows what an incredible lens a Distagon is (IMHO) - coupled with the harsh light it's given it a weirdly off-kilter tonality I really like.

Dark Wullie Is Watchin'

And who doesn't love Oor Wullie? What d'ye mean you've NEVER heard of him?

He's a cartoon character created by Mr. Dudley D. Watkins, who also created Desperate Dan, Lord Snooty and The Broons. Printed by the mighty Dundee Institution D.C Thompson.

Anyway, this year we had about a billion cast sculptures of Wullie on what was called The Bucket Trail - look it up. 

They were auctioned at the end of the Summer and if you look closely there's one of the horrible little feckers staring right at you. 

Why horrible? 

The modernised Bucket Trail Wullie had no charm - you can read a brief history of Wullie on this link

Hello!

This was taken through the old revolving doors of Duncan Of Jordanstone - the girl looked quietly optimistic . . give her a 4 year degree course and we'll see then.

This being said it has no doubt changed a deal since I was there in the 80's. Then, it was like a mincer trying to produce artistic sausages. A lot of my compadres went on to become really well-known artistes  - och well, them's the breaks - insert words if you so wish.

This being said, if the stuff that makes up the current Seized By The Left Hand exhibition at the DCA passes for the state of modern art, then art is in a place I neither understand nor wish to understand.

The New Liberty Tree

This is the NEW Liberty Tree - why new? Well in an act of road widening back in the 1930's the Council cut it down.

The original Ash had the most fascinating history recounted on this link

At least someone has had the grace to reinstate one in memoriam.

I've been a little heavy-handed in printing this, but I rather like the stark contrasts. In hindsight I'd have moved in closer, cropped it a bit more and made the difference even more obviouser . . . obviously.

Anyway, that's it - my last film of the 2010's and I am pleased with it!

Who knows what the next 10 years will bring, or even whether I'll still be writing this, or whether any of us will still be around to sound a "Hail Fellow And Well Met" to each other.

No matter what it brings, I wish you peace, harmony, positivity and good fortune.

As a recent fortune cookie message said to me:

Your smile is a curve that can get a lot of things straight.

I can't really add any more than that.

Till the next time, TTFN, and remember to brush your teeth or else they'll run away to join the circus . . 

I'm In Love With My ̶C̶a̶r̶ Sonnar

OK and Good Morning/Evening.

Well this tale is like a strange love story.

It's a bit like the best Romcom ever made - When Harry Met Sally.

First the characters meet but there's indifference. Then time takes its toll, life moves on, they meet every now and again and they start to get used to each other; then there's the denouement when love is proclaimed and they sail off into a happy future together. 

Sorry to ruin it if you've never seen it, but you really should.
Oh and it has the best Mexican Wave in the history of film - I never tire of it.

Anyway, nearly 2 years past this April, I bought a reasonably priced CF 150mm Sonnar for the 500C/M. I liked it, but barely used it. It was part of my arsenal, but was bypassed in favour of the 60mm Distagon and the SWC/M.

If you read FB regularly, you'll know I had terrible trouble with underexposure recently - you can read the whole sorry story here - however, as detailed below, I am pretty sure I've discovered what I did wrong.
Huzzah!

But to rewind a little, I desparately wanted to see whether I really did need to buy another light meter (I was convinced it was duff, despite testing it against 2 other meters) so I packed the 500C/M, attached the Sonnar and went out into the freezing cold.
I dunno, the things I do for this 'ere blog . . . 

Why the Sonnar?
Well Bruce from The Online Darkroom and I had been talking about lenses and he'd said he'd love to see some of my reflection photos made with the 150mm. I thought about it for a while, because I didn't think it would work; I didn't think you could get in close enough to get that wideness you need with reflection photos. Anyway, my fears were unfounded and even though there's only a couple of those photos of slightly that ilk on here, a longer lens really does work.
Not only that, but I've discovered that at pretty much any aperture, the humble 150mm Sonnar (the cheapest lens you can buy for a Hasselblad, full stop) is sharp and beautiful.
It's a stone cold optical bargain actually.

As an optical design it is ancient - nearly as old as semi-modern photography itself - and wonderfully simple; however, with Zeiss' T* coating (and maybe a lens hood++) it is as good as it gets actually.
Well it is in my opinion.

++ If you own a Hasselblad, don't be tempted by the likes of Photodiox lens hoods or those awfully cheap ones on Ebay - they're mostly very poor - I know because I have spent the money for you and tested them myself.
The real Hasselblad ones are made from high grade plastic and are built to last.

Urban Artist, Dundee

You kind of need a hood, especially in circumstances like the above, but onwards, that's a sample print . . . strap your rubber trousers on, 'cos here's THE CONTACT!

Film #66/53

                            

Film #66/53

Anyway, as before and the new regime, here's my film notes - you know the score by now, read 'em or don't bother!

#66/53, HP5 EI 200, 10/2/19

1./ 1/15th, f8, Z? Guess Gossen/Lux comparison

2./ 1/125th, f11, ZIII, Gossen

3./ 1/125th, f11, ZIII, Gossen

4./ 1/125th, f11, ZIII, Gossen

5./ 1/125th, f11, Z?, Gossen/Shatter

6./ 1/125th, f11, Z?, Gossen/Shatter

7./ 1/250th, f11, ZIII, Refl.

8./ 1/60th, f8, C-Gul, Guess

9./ 1/60th, f16, ZIII, Wall

10./ 1/60th, f11, ZIII, Design

11./ 1/60th, f.8, ZIII, Plant

12./ 1/15th, f5.6, ZIII, Guess

All handheld

PHD 5+5+500 22℃.

Agit 30 sec, then 4 per min,to 17 mins then stand to 21. No waterbath.

Very happy with this - I double checked the Gossen with Lux on the piephone - the Gossen is fine. I read the standard reading not the spot on 66/52

It might be hard to discern from the contact above, but it was printed at Grade 0 to give me some idea of the negatives potential. It is a new way of working for me and I like it. Sadly scanning only really reveals part of the story, but if it wasn't scanned you wouldn't see it, so you'll have to carry on squinting.

Ah, but before we get into the meat and potatoes (actually neeps are probably better for the gut and can be wonderful in a casserole) here's what happened last time:

Maybe you'll remember in Rescue Job I detailed the horrors of an underexposed film, well I think I've worked out what I did wrong.
The bit below also explains why I am talking about Gossen and Piephone in the notes above.

An Old Friend

So, here's an old old friend, my Gossen Lunasix 3s, with spot attachment.

When I started again, I couldn't afford fancy-pants Sekonic or Pentax spot-meters, so I ended up with a battered but useable Gossen, from MXV for very little money - possibly about £30 - and it has been a reliable friend ever since. 

It's also one of the most sensitive light meters ever made and tbh I love it. 

I had him recalibrated (for exactly NOTHING) by Gossen about 10 years back, and have made many well metered photographs with him. The spot attachment was an option accessory and clips on the front - it reads 7.5 or 15 degrees, I use 7.5. 

The whole shebang is kept in a £5 Lowepro compact camera case on a strap, and when out and about, that is worn on my left hip, camera bag on my right, bandolero style! 

It's convenient and works for me.

Gossen Lunasix 3s

What I did wrong last time:

- I'm only huuuuman after all, I'm only huuuuman after all . . . blah blah blah -

You see the meter window at the top has the needle nearly on 11? 

Well using the spot attachment, I should have been aligning the 11 on the lower yellow disc with the green mark (just above that disc - it is to the left of the yellow triangle).

Instead I was using the spot attachment and using the 'standard' reading on the silver disc (just above the 'V'.)

Confused?

Me too, and I hope I have dissected it correctly - it really is much easier with a meter in your hand than staring at a screen. Anyway, suffice to say that I was consistently underexposing by a whole stop  - not too much trouble if you were using ZV, however I always place shadow readings on ZIII, so with the last film I was actually placing everything on Z II, hence, shite.

Lesson learned!

Be aware.

Shattered Window, Wobbly Bridge, Dundee

A picture of that shattered window from last time - it is trickier to photograph than it looks - I've probably handled the exposure a bit too heavily here, but it does get the extraordinary texture across. On the whole I like it, but I've taken better photos of it.

Inside Outside, Vision, Dundee

If you're a REALLY longtime FB reader you might recognise this scene from years back. It's in the Vision building in Dundee. The last time I photographed it, it was almost empty; nowadays, well there's a lot of it being used, hence the office chairs and tables. I just liked the fact that it wasn't at all apparent where the outside began and the inside ended.

It's scanned off a print made on Ilford MGRC Pearl and lightly toned in selenium. The print is better than the scan (but then I would say that wouldn't I!) - in fact everything on here is scanned - the prints are better.

Urban Artist, Dundee

Here's an on-the-fly portrait of a young artist.

I've photographed him before - he's a really interesting chap actually, more artist than graffitti artist, he's more inclined to cheer the place up with his crazy pictures of charachatured Seagulls, than to tag his name everywhere. I like that attitude. Anyway, he was doing this crazy Doctor Octopus Seagull on an ex-Dundee Waterfront noticeboard that someone had scrawled "Cock" all over - public service or what?!
I asked him if I could take his pic and he agreed.

It was a tricky one actually, because of the strong backlight coming from behind him, and I am glad I opted for f8 rather than f5.6, because it snagged the catchlights in his eyes.
There's something Breugel-esque about this and I can't place it.
I know, give him a brush and some sack-cloth and there y'go!
PS. the arm movement was from his spray can shaking - gotta keep it moving in cold weather . . .
It is my favourite from the whole film - maybe I am more of a people person than I thought. It was easy to go up to him and start chatting.

Wall, Dundee

This wasn't as well executed as I'd hoped - I just liked the simplicity of the shadows. It was v.hard getting the wall straight from a ground level pov.

Safety Glass, Dundee

Ah, the dread shatter again. Again not as well executed as I'd hoped, but not bad - it kind of looks like a giant Spring roll over-mounted with broken glass. I should try and do a better print of it . . maybe get Bruce in, in his Split trousers to do some adjustin' an' waftin' an' stuff . . 

Whole Safety Glass, Dundee

And the final one - this is a print too, but I'll confess that I've straightened it ever so slightly, as my verticals were off and it is better for it.
This is the back of DOJCA opposite the old plaster sheds  - I just liked the starkness of everything!

A ThinkTank Suburban Disguise 20 Just Ate My Hasselblad

Oh, yeah, I wasn't pulling a Spiderman or nuffink, but just so's nobody can spot me, here's a pic of my ThinkTank Suburban Disguise 20. A 500C/M with Sonnar, hood and back fills it completely, but it is dead convenient and very well made. 

Probably one of the better bags I've owned actually - should I need another bag for anything in the future I might well buy more from their range.

Anyway, that's it.

I've come to love the Sonnar now and look forward to using it further in the future - what a great lens.

Now, remember to tie your shoelaces, lace your bow-tie, clean your teeth, brush your hair, check your wallet and make sure you turned the toaster off.

That's you! 

Off you pop . . see you in a couple of weeks.

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