It's An Affie Bonnie Day Fer Takin' Some Fotees

Morning folks - you'll have to get yer heed around the epithet of this one.

Y'know, for years I have railed against being 'Dundonian'. 

I don't know why . . . well I do actually, it is because I always wanted to get back to the country and I think that denying that I was actually settled here would, in some weird way, get me back where I belonged . . . wading through soggy vegetation, shouting at cows, listening to rivers etc etc . . you get the drift. 

But it never happened, and I think now is probably more or less unlikely to - the river of life runs its course and it isn't always the course you expected; however that course can be something far sweeter. 

That does make me a wee bit sad, however, never being one to dwell on things too much, I have accepted (and also been called such . . by 'locals' no more, no less) that I am now a proud Dundonian.

Proud?

Yep, you heard that right.

I had a really long wander this morning, from the part of the Hawkhill that used to be called 'Witch Knowe' up and along Annfield Road, onto Blackness Road (strangely [for what used to be a bit of a shithole] now morphing into one of the most culturally diverse streets you could imagine) and up to beautiful Balgay Park; thence the heavy climb up to Mills Observatory, then down, crossing the bridge and into Balgay Cemetery. 

All the way, I was looking at the light, and I realised, that the light here can be quite different to other places. 

It is often silvern, and I put that down to its sunny aspect (sunniest city in Scotland!) and the reflection of said sunshine off a mile wide chunk of river - the Tay.

My old mentor Joseph McKenzie, always said the light was different here, but it has only been in recent years that I have come to appreciate the profound truth of that statement. 

Sure it can be utterly grey for weeks on end, but when you get a morning like this morning, well, it is wonderful. 

But more to the point, excellent for taking photographs. 

With my new enforced leisure status, I am able to really appreciate the ebb and flow of morning light; at this time of the year the shadows are just beginning to climb back to brightness, so at times you have deep, deep shadow, and piercing sunlight. Overlay this with the moisture content coming in off the estuary and you have, at times, an effect quite akin to early, uncoated lenses.

It was this combo that I experienced last week, using an unfamiliar film and focal length, but a familiar subject. 

The film was Pan F.

It had officially 'died' in November 2009, but seeing as I now have 7 rolls of it (gifted by a friend - thanks Alan!) I thought it best to let it get up and get busy! 

The lens was the 250mm Hasselblad Sonnar - a lens I have used a few times, but still not gelled with, which is daft really as I often have wished for more distance-closing power at times. 

The subject was one of the most (to my eyes) beautiful pieces of monumental sculpture I've ever seen (and I've visited a few museums, believe me). I've photographed her before and you'll recognise her, but I felt she deserved the full portrait.

To directly quote the Zeiss literature for the lens:

Even at full aperture the 250 mm Sonnar@ T* f/5.6 lens features such excellent image quality that stopping down is not required. Despite its long focal length and remarkable telephoto effect, this lens is compact and allows hand-held photography.

The 250 mm Sonnar@ T* f/5.6 lens is used tor portraiture, long-range, press, sports and stage photography. In outdoor portraiture, the shallow depth-of-field range can be used to advantage to separate the model from an unsteady background.

So with this in mind I went and whiled away a happy couple of hours.

Despite the widely held internet belief that Pan F and HC110 are a complete no-no, things turned out fine, which was fortunate, because I had mis-metered two of the exposures (as I'll show you below) placing the shadows on Zone III . . . however I obviously read the wrong part of the scene. 

Fortunately I'd made more exposures with placing the 'skin' tones of the stone on Zone VI and it was from these negatives I managed to print (after wasting a couple of sheets of paper trying to print from the Z III ones.)

The results were printed on some handed-on Ilford MGRC, Pearl. I printed them at Grade 3 and toned them in Selenium. 

I was thinking far more contrasty in my head when I took them, but after weighing up the options, chose to print them more muted.

They were exposed at f8. The Sonnar is a f5.6 and I find it remarkable that you can quite clearly see cobwebs in the prints only one stop down from maximum.

I rated the film at EI50 simply because of its age and, as I said, developed them in HC110.

I used Dilution H simply because of the extreme contrast range of the day and it worked pretty well.

As you can see from the snippet from the contact print, I really ballsed-up two exposures - there is a lot of image on the negatives, but they are just too beyond-the-pale to get anything out of them. 

Anyway, here are the prints - direct scans from the print as per usual:

Contact Print Snippet

So I took my photos, and that was that.

I packed up, moved on and further along the way encountered a really cheery bloke, about my age, who said in pure Dundonian:

"Mornin'! It's an affie bonnie day fer takin' some fotees eh!"

And I couldn't have agreed with him more. 

He was dead friendly. 

I can't quite believe I am typing this, but it's that sort of place.

It's changing, in a big way for the better, but in another way sadly for the loss of some character - the proper Dundee auld wifies who used to troll about the town are dying off; the dialect is lessening.

Such is the way of the world.

Anyway, till next time, as always, thanks for reading, take care and keep on fighting the good fight.

H xx

Afternoon Delight

Q: Got a ton of old negatives that you have not a clue what to do with and you're worried about the Cost Of Living Crisis and energy coasts?

A: Get yourself a darkroom - simple as that. 

Morning folks - you know it says something when the darkroom is the warmest room in the house, but this Winter this is proving to be the case - jings, even Olive Oil solidified in our kitchen!

  

But it is very different in the darkroom - I can snuggle up tight in there, heating myself with nothing more than a constant temperature (it used to be a wine cellar); the intermittent use of a 250W bulb; one 15W safelight and the white heat of creativity 😎.

It works a treat. 

Grey days drift away in a flurry of activity lit red. 

Ice on the windows? 

No problem, hunker down in the darkroom and learn.

Sun not risen at all today?

Take up thy fixer and walk (or kneel in my case).

5x4" Negative,
Fomabrom Variant 111, Kodak Selenium,
Adox Neutol NE Developer

Regular readers will know that when I was a young man, pretty much what I wanted to do with life was print. 

Regular readers will also know that what happened was not what I expected and economic circumstance led to an entirely different path. 

Well, with a change in life circumstances, that has now changed. 

I can print . . and not only that, but I can print what I want and when I want to. 

It's marvellous.

Various 9.5 x 12" prints in Secol sleeves

To that end, and as mentioned recently, I have tried to standardise an archive, and it wasn't the easiest matter.

The problem hit me when I (after much faffing and measuring) printed an 8x8" image from my Hasselblad on 9.5x12" paper. 

I was, to coin a phrase, knocked out. 

It wasn't so much the sheer image size, but more the print now gave real presence to the Zeiss lens. 

I hadn't been expecting this, after all I had printed on 9.5 x 12" paper before, but this was something else.

I repeated the exercise with the Rollei T's Tessar, and the Minoltor Autocord's Rokkor, and whilst they were good (really good at times) neither had the sheer grit, micro-detail and subtle greys of the Distagons and Sonnars, and Biogon.

I then repeated the exercise with images from my Large Format lenses. 

To say this was a revelation is a bit of an understatement. 

A 5x4" negative printed on bigger paper with a decent border is a thing to behold.

I have to precursor that though, with the following: 

Up till now, my LF enlarging lens has been a nice 80's-ish 150mm Rodenstock Rodagon. 

It's been fine (despite the obvious scuffs on the front and the back - the latter I believe robbing me of a decent amount of quality) but always left me with an itch I really wanted to scratch. 

To my eyes, every print I have ever made from a 5x4" with the Rodagon has just not had the chutzpah you're supposed to get with Large Format photography. 

The lens was effectively free with my DeVere (God Bless Mr. MXV, wherever you are) and I always just accepted that (as has been written many times) MF and even 35mm lenses produce 'sharper' results than LF. 

Hmmm, well . . . he said stroking his chin. 

I was having a butchers at enlarging lenses on Ebay one day, and, because I believe a lowly 100mm Vivitar is the best enlarging lens I have ever owned (yes, over Leitz and Rodenstock, Durst and Nikon) I came across a 135mm one . . for £32. 

That's not even a brainstorming, sick-on-the-pavement night in the pub these days, so I thought why not. 

And indeed the thing was a complete revelation. 

All the micro-detail, subtle grey nuances and "overall bollocks" (that's a technical term - look it up - it's in "The Negative" . . page 134) that I'd always thought were there on the negatives, were indeed there, but now writ large on big paper. 

Oh boy was I a happy bunny.

And what, you might well be asking yourself, is the big paper?

Well for 'economical' purposes I decided to get 50 sheets of Ilford MGFB and a 10 sheet sample box of Foma 111. 

Why Ilford? 

Well, the colour head mixing settings for different grades are the same as Kentmere RC (and I had a box of that) so I am not having to slice up expensive fibre paper to make test strips and overall, I would say things match up very well. 

As for Foma, I have never used it before and I have to say I shall be using it again, which is weird because I am not really a fan of their films. 

The paper though has a different look to Ilford. 

Its surface reminds me more of the sheen on Forte's Polywarmtone which I always loved. AND it looks like Fomabrom and Fomaspeed (the RC version) use the same emulsion, so I can use RC for test strips.

OK Sheepy, wtf about dry-down etc, how can you possibly judge things?

 

Well, it is a complex matter, that, dare I say might well have been over-egged over the years. 

If you read around, dry down is a relatively strange thing, running from shifts in the darkest tones (Ansel's "thud") of a print due to: wet prints vs dry prints; heat drying; malevolent forces; changes in emulsion; alien interference etc etc - told you it was complex. 

I always air-dry my prints and have to say I have never noticed any really significant darkening of images and that is over decades of printing. Sure there is a small (as in tiny) amount, but to say this impacts on the quality of the print, is hair-splittingly hairiness of the hairy kind.

A lot of people have said it is commensurate with heat drying and I can see how that might affect things, but I don't heat dry.

Air Drying -secondhand caravan clothes line and plastic pegs!
Left and Right, Ilford Pinned Back To Back method.
Centre, Sheephouse "'Ang It From The Corner Missus" Method

It's also probably anathema to all the cloak-wearing darkroom wizards out there about using RC paper to make a printing judgement for FB paper, but it can be done. 

The greatest printer I ever knew was Joseph McKenzie, and he could make an exposure/grade judgment call just by looking at a negative. That ability came from thousands of hours spent printing; in other words experience. 

I'm sure the likes of Robin Bell and all the Master Printers out there, doing this for a living can work in the same way too.

For me, I don't have their eyes, so I will decide on my Grade (which as a starting point is nearly always Grade 3 these days) hack up a bit of RC, whack it on the weasel, expose in 4 second increments, whack it in the developer, develop for most of the proper time, give it a wiggle in the stop, whack it in the fix, and slap the lights on after about 15 seconds. 

I can generally make a decent judgement call from this.

You see, although printing is a relatively easy process defined by care, as in:

You have all the ingredients (assuming you have a decent negative) to make an impressive print.

You have all the ingredients (assuming you have a decent negative) to make a dog's dinner.

The darkroom is the GREAT LEVELLER.

That sounds like the name of the horned bloke from 'Legend' or, more to my taste, the name of the horned bloke from Tenacious D's "The Greatest Song In The World".

Why the Great Leveller? 

Because everyone is using pretty much exactly the same stuff, from exhibitions hanging in MOMA, to a couple of prints stuck up in a local cafe.

The difference between famine and feast is your care as a printer. 

You have to be precise and consistent. 

You have to take care with each stage (yeah I know what I wrote above about my test strips, but I can say that because I have been doing this for a long time).

But the thing is, printing ISN'T rocket science. 

It's a craft skill, like crochet or knitting and anyone can learn a craft skill.

It truly is an egalitarian process.

And whilst these days it is considered to be a luxury craft skill, and boy can it be frustrating when you make mistakes with a sheet of paper costing a couple of quid, on the whole, it is FUN. 

And educational. 

And, I believe, life-enhancing.

It improves you as a human being, because the care you take in the darkroom, can lend itself to run and rummel of every day life too. 

The precision, order and concentration rub off. 

They really do!

But that is me heading on another of my Sheephousian metaphysical borrocks convos, and we don't want to go there.

So, to round out, here's some straight scans of recent stuff, printed whilst ice formed on the inside of my house's windows, grey skies cemented themselves onto the general milieu of the British psyche and people started another year in a great state of flux and doubt.

If that phrase applies to you, I am sorry - things will get better, just trust that.

5x4" Negative, 
Fomabrom Variant 111, Kodak Selenium, 
Adox Neutol NE Developer

 

5x4" Negative, 
Fomabrom Variant 111, Kodak Selenium, 
Adox Neutol NE Developer

5x4" Negative, 
Fomabrom Variant 111, Kodak Selenium, 
Adox Neutol NE Developer

35mm Negative, 
Ilford MGRC, Heavily toned in Selenium, Then Bleached in Ferri.
Firstcall MG Developer

TTFN old fruitcakes and thank you, once again, from the bottom of my heart, for reading.

Be good and if you can't be good, be careful.

Everything is going to be alright.

H xx

Tales From The River Bank

Sadly not a FB devoted to the children's programme that probably no one remembers . . . ah where are you Hammy Hamster when the world needs your brand of innocence!

 . . . but a FB devoted entirely to photographing a tidal estuary shore! 

Oh yes, pure excitement here at FB towers!

Well, I suppose it was exciting actually - 7am on an Autumn morning with a guarantee of low tide and nothing but a tripod, a Hasselblad 500C/M with 60mm Distagon and a pair of wellies.

It's alright, don't panic . . . the oxygen tent will be here in a minute!

I've timed myself on these sort of expeditions before and they take me approximately 2 hours. Now this is sort of strange - that is per roll of 120 - so either my body has found a natural rhythm to making photographs with MF or else I am thinking far too much into it - whatever, 2 hours it took and actually, very pleasant it was given that I was downstream from Newport's sewerage outlet!
The pipe is a wonderful, seaweed covered, ceramic job and wends its way far out into the Tay. You can see it in Frame 11 (middle frame, far right) on the contact sheet below. Fortunately I was not troubled by the usual sewerage effluent that can beset many tidal shores downstream of such things, and actually, very clean is how I would describe it. Not that I'd want to eat my tea off of it, but it was smell and debris free and the massed banks of bladderwrack were very fresh looking and rather healthy.

So, you're asking why Sheephouse?
WHY?

Why did I want to do it?
Well, I've been there before at high tide and the place was intriguing - it's a small area of intensely wooded, shallow cliff, heading eastward from the Fife end of the bridge, and I dunno, it just made me itch in a photographic way, so much so that I awoke from a pleasant Wiessbier/Woods Rum induced slumber and hauled my weary bones out into the pre-dawn light.
Oh yes, you've got to up and at 'em when the feeling calls!

I have been deeply aware all Summer, that I have barely used my newly acquired 500C/M and I felt ashamed of that - it is a first class tool and should be used all the time - that thought was a goad in my side.

I was also aware that I have a Scottish Photographers meeting coming up in December and I needed some material for that . . . and also, I wanted to make some pictures!

So, wellies on, everything readied, off I went!
Just a quick check though . . . are you wearing yours too? Those deck shoes are going to get awful messy if you aren't light-footed . . .

Onwards.

Obviously you have to be careful in such places - I had no wish of just being a Hasselblad raised high on a quickly sinking tripod above the incoming tide with me being sucked down first by soft mud, so it was easy-does-it and careful treading and testing some areas that looked dodgy just to be sure.

Exploring small areas like this in this way can be rewarding - I can't have walked more than about 300 yards beyond the point where I climbed down - and seeing as there was plenty to see, time seemed to stop and all there was, was me and my camera and the river . . . oh, and The Bridge as well - it is enormous from this side of the river, towering over you on massive concrete pillars but despite the early morning noise from cars and more cars, it was relatively quiet where I was.

I don't know if you find photographing therapeutic, but I do. Away from the demands and noisome mess of modern life and in such unlikely places as I try to find, you can just take your time and concentrate on the task at hand  - it's a form of meditation to me.

If you find it the same I'd love to hear what you have to say!

I used the Hasselblad mounted on my ancient Gitzo the whole time - I also used my small Giottos ballhead, which was tbh barely adequate and I had a few massive camera flops, which isn't the sort of thing you want to happen. I was also lucky it was quite still, as I fear the camera would have vibrated on the Giottos like a pair of flimsies on a washing line. To maximise me chances of sharpness on such a precarious set-up, I used mirror lock up and a small wait of time and then a cable release for each exposure - it would have been foolish not to. This being said, I still don't think I have extracted the maximum detail from the lens, but then I should have used a sturdier head (more on this in an upcoming FB - "Kenny Jazz And The Ballheads").
But the deed is done now, so scroll down a bit and have a gander.

Now I realise that when you look at the contact below you're going to say
"Hmmm - he could have exposed those better"
Well granted I probably could, but I've done years of trying to get the 'perfect' negative and to be honest, I am not sure there is such a thing - these days, my processing regime is very very simple - using the Rodinal replacement R09, I process to the times detailed on the side of the bottle! There, that was easy wasn't it! My old Agfa Rodinal leaflet ties in almost exactly with the bottle times and seeing as I have had some nice looking negatives from said times, I see little reason to change.
My only caveat to this is that I will down-rate every film.

In this case it was FP4 and I exposed it at EI 80.

Why?

Well I always felt that when I used box speed, my negatives were OK in a sort of dull, 'OK' way, but they had no oomph or guts, down-rating just gives that extra edge of over-exposure, and unless you are really really careless or shooting in vastly contrasting conditions on the same roll, the film's latitude (it's ability to deal with differing light) is generally able to take care of things (in other words your shortcomings as a photographer!).

So whilst the contact below has washed out skies, in reality, the information is there, it just needs slightly more careful handling in the printing stage.
Remember a contact is just really a visual check to give you an idea of what you have - it also has to balance any differences in the negatives and actually for such a seemingly simple thing, making a good contact is surprisingly hard to do - in fact I don't think I have ever made a perfect one.

The general concensus seems to be 'minimum time for maximum black' and I'll say I try and adhere to that.

There's a very good article on contacts and the 'un-zone' system on the late, great Barry Thornton's site - you can read it here

Anyway, if you can be bothered looking at the contact, you'll see the start (bottom left) and the end (top right) of my little adventure.
OK, it's a bit squinty/wonky but we're friends here - what's a little wonkiness between friends eh?

Contact Sheet 

Right, so now we've got some pictures!
As I said before the processing regime was simple (more of that in a minute) but so was the exposure regime.
You know that saying 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'?
Well yes, and no, it is and it isn't.
I've studied and applied the Zone system to my LF work and everything else too, and after years of following Bruce Barnbaum's "Ansel was wrong, expose shadows on Zone IV" methodology, you know what . . . I now expose shadows on Zone III.

WTF Sheepy?

OK,

a brief excursion into simple metering.

Your meter. Yes, yours.
It is your friend, but it is still going to average out that scene for you!
Multi-matrix, centre-weighted, spot, whatever you're still getting an average reading that will give you an average exposure that works really well with colour materials.
It is designed to ensure that you (stupid human) at least come home with something and that something is a Zone V exposure.
Average.
Balanced Colour.
In Black and White terms - Mid-Grey. 18%.
An average rendering of the scene, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But in monochrome (our concern here - these are B&W photographs after all and FB is primarily monochrome-based) we don't necessarily want an average grey picture.
Strange as it seems, but this is a common mistake with people taking B&W photographs. Yes, even in a world filled with helpful photographers and more articles on the subject online than you could comfortably read in a lifetime, this mistake is perpetuated.

Just about every online gallery I have seen is filled with mid-grey exposures.

But wait a minute - This is monochrome.

It is an infinitely expressive medium.

We want to jazz it up a bit.
You need to play with the light, adjust it to suit your vision of what you see in front of you. You can make a photograph where everything is visible and rendered clearly; where ever single nuance of light is captured in grey, but what you want is a bit of drama, some light, some shade and some total black, or pure paper white.

Hence the Zone III shadow.

It's simple to understand - if you're using a hand-held meter move it around the darker area of the scene you want to photograph; if it is an in camera meter, sway that camera around like a hypnotised cobra . . there, that's better. Got the lowest reading you can get?

Good.

Now if you were to photograph that dark bit at the exposure your meter is suggesting, you'll end up with grey, not lovely, all-encompassing, luscious darkness, nope, just grey . . . mud. Folks that is Zone V.

Mid.

Average.

Mud.

OK, in Roman numerals V=5, so III = (er)3!

So to achieve a Zone III exposure, you're going to underexpose your scene by 2 Zones (1 Zone = 1 Stop as per standard shutter speed/f-stop marking).
So if say your meter reading was 1/30th of a second at f16 (and you want to keep the depth of field that f16 brings) then your exposure is going to be 1/125th at f16 - you've lost two stops of light and the lovely black shadowy-bit is rendered more akin to how it looks and not an 'orrible muddy grey.

And that is an incredibly simplified bit of Zone-systeming that works for me.

If you now process at your chosen film developer's recommended timings, you should get some negatives that are pretty alright.
Obviously I've not gone into the Zoney/Wonderful World of Expansion and Contraction of negatives by development, because I don't feel it is applicable to this .  . so there.
So your negatives are pretty alright, and of course, sometimes, things will go wrong (and you'll end up with all sorts of 'orrible images) but mostly they won't. You would be amazed at how much a film's latitude can deal with things - I've exposed rolls and rolls at guessed exposures in all sorts of conditions and on the whole they've worked out fine.  
The only cardinal sin is underexposure, hence it is always a good idea to downrate the speed of your film - it just gives that little leeway
It's like a Lazarus moment though, is guessing exposure - your crutch is cast aside and you can walk!
You see it can be very easy to get sucked into the drive for perfection, metering everything so carefully, so much so that you miss the whole point (which is to make images which are enjoyable to look at) and not to mention missing the light and the moment too!
Remember the greatest landscape photograph ever made (just about) Ansel Adam's Moonlight Over Hernandez was a guessed exposure by a master who knew exactly what he was looking at and the luminence values of everything.
Anyway, all this is besides the point, so onwards.

Ooops - OK - I did mention processing, so here goes:

For this roll of FP4 rated at EI 80, I used 1+50 Rodinal (R09) at 20 C. I gave one minute of constant agitation and then one inversion every 30 seconds . . for 18 minutes!!!
Yep - it has imparted an edge of contrast to things, but to my advantage I think - especially the picture of the bladderwrack - the slight over-development coupled with a slight error in exposure (oh alright then, under-exposure) has imparted a 'vintage' air to it which I find very pleasing . . . and the detail is extraordinary . .
But anyway, where were we - oh yeah - Agitation - again a seemingly simple thing that can go horribly wrong.
Most people think it is OK to chuck the developer in and slosh it around like they're mixing cocktails.

The Young Photographer's Guide To Home Developing - Page 34

NOPE!

STOP!!

ABSOLUTELY NOT

Agitation is a gentle, lovingly tender operation. It has to be done calmly AND GENTLY.

Did I mention GENTLY?

To get all metaphysical, in making good wine you don't chuck it all in a cement mixer, slosh it around, ferment it in a fervour and expect it to come out feeling nice and fresh and treated with respect do you? 

No, it takes time and care, and it is the same with film. 

Treat it with respect, like you would your loved one.
Really - you think I am exaggerating, but I am not - certainly with a developer like Rodinal (and its derivatives) and even the various dilutions of good old HC 110 and D76, it really pays to agitate as gently as possible. And I can't emphasise that enough - if you chuck in the developer and slosh you'll end-up with negatives that are so hard they could penetrate Batfink's wings. So one gentle (and slow) tilt (tank upside down and back to normal) per recommended inversion. You'll thank me for it.

OK, so after I got the negatives, what did I want to do? Yep . . . I wanted to print them too!
I love printing - it is one entire half of the photographic process, and is so sorely neglected these days . . . well, don't get me going. It is not easy setting up a darkroom though and I understand people don't have space etc etc, but you kind of owe it to yourself as a photographer to try and do something, even if it is just contact prints off a 6x6cm negative with the paper being exposed by a baffled torch.
Anyway, Paper.
It was 10 year old Agfa Multi-Contrast Classic - yep, ancient and as such it all has to be printed at the equivalent of Grade 4 - anything less than that old 100 units of Magenta just doesn't cut through the inherent base-fog of a paper that age. And you will get base-fog on something very old and especially Multigrade. For some reason, Graded paper seems to hang on much better . . . so look, I've saved you time and effort already - got old MG paper? Expose it on the highest Grade it can deal with and take it from there.

OK, session over. It took me about 2 hours to produce 6 prints, of which the best are above. With my current developing/paper/chemicals/printing regime (and at the same height on the enlarger for 10x8 paper) I seem to have hit a magical exposure time of 16 seconds at f22, using my 100mm Vivitar lens. What you see above are pretty much straight prints. 

No split grade or any form of trickery. 

Just neat (ish).

Oh alright then . . . I will admit to having cheated a tad on these with just the merest tickle of PotFerry bleaching too, just to up the ante - and it worked. 

I immerse the print in a weak solution till it looks about right, take it out and wash under running water then store in a clean tray of water till I am ready for the next step - Selenium Toning. Again the same procedure and then it is a quick blast in rapid fixer and then another quick blast with Kodak Hypoclear and into the wash tank for a couple of hours. 

The prints are then air-dried (suspended by plastic clothes pegs [not wooden - they adhere to the surface]) and filed away in archival sheets in an archival box for doomsday until they meet the great skip at the end of the line . . .

Such is life.

I love these prints though and the last is my favourite - I think it has that old-skool tonality I love in the work of Adams and Bullock and to aspire to the work of those masters isn't a bad thing methinks..

So there y'go folks, from field to plate, an analysis of what this particular photographer does to while away the time on some weekends.

Hope you enjoyed it.

TTFN.

 

Last Gasp Of A Dying Race

The selling of Harman is a worrying thing don't you think? 

I mean, I hate to get all panicky about it, but to be honest in the world we live in niche companies are shifted around like chattels, like a hareem as it were, and if that chattel under-performs, well, it's off with it, shoved further down the pecking order till no one wants to risk any money at all on it. 

For all the talk of the 'analog (sic) resurgence' is there really enough money in traditional photography any more to keep any venture capitalist interested? 

Really? 

Yeah, Boots might have started selling monochrome film (did they ever stop?) but like Tesco's recent trumpet-blast from the ramparts that they were going to 

"get back into the Vinyl Revolution Man . . yeah, we're sticking it to the kids . . we're selling the new Iron Maiden album . . ON VINYL! Er . . cough .  .well only in selected stores and only that album . . cough cough, and er . .cough . . . we'll see how it goes!"

Yeah right. 

See what I mean? 

Another niche market.

At the end of the day, venture capitalism is about business and profit. It isn't about lovely bonhomie and chap's agreements written on a beer mat over a pint of Samuel Smiths and a ploughmans down the local. Perhaps the final paragraph from the article in the BJP lends some creedence to what I have said:

“We remain totally committed to analogue photography, and indeed to all forms of imaging.  Our product range is uniquely stable and of the highest quality, and we can assure all of our customers that we will continue to support them in our customary way for the foreseeable future.”

Whiles Pemberstone’s plans for the storied photographic company remain to be seen, their comments suggest that the famous brand will continue to endure for the time being.

You see, I've got a big problem with that last bit . . "time being."

OK - I was on holiday recently, in Berlin actually (and thank you for asking) - anyway whilst there, I indulged in my usual casual holiday pastime .. camera spotting. 

It's FUN, you should try it, for there are now a billion cameras in the world - everything from super-giant, 80000 mm f.95 primes through to the ubiquitous phone and everything inbetween too . . with the exception of one thing.  

Film cameras. 

I saw one in 7 days - it was a Nikon Fm and was being toted by a young Japanese woman . . indeed it ONLY EVER seems to be young Japanese women with film cameras . . apart from me . . and this time I let the side down by only carrying the Canon EOS 50D. 

Seriously!

Spot a Leica? Young Japanese woman.

Nikon? the same.

I did once see a Minolta in the hands of a young teenager in Liverpool and a Trip in the hands of a family man in Jedburgh, but all too often, film cameras are nowhere to be seen . . . which makes me think . . well how many people are actually using film these days? 

Where is the renaissance? 

If it's happening somewhere else (from Dundee) then it certainly isn't in any of the places I have visited in recent years . . in fact film cameras could be said to be as rare as rocking horse shite, and that is pretty rare!

So who is using film? 

The Nocturnal Hordes of Photographers? 

The Early Birds? 

I've not encountered a single early bird using film apart from me and that's from years of photographing in Dundee - and this is a creative city . . honest . . it is!

As I have said before, I am a member of Scottish Photographers and every so often we have a get-together in Perth. These are wonderful sessions where no judgements are made and you can get to speak freely about what you have been up to, and people are genuinely interested too. 

It's a salve to the lone photographers soul and I love it . . but out of a room of often ten to fourteen people, how many use film? 

Well, often just two, sometimes three. 

And these are people who LIVE PHOTOGRAPHY. 

The numbers are tiny, and are they buying 20 rolls of film a month? Are they shite - they're like me - they use it, but not a roll a day - it's occasional use.

I reckon I must use around at a maximum 30 rolls of roll film (mixed 120 and 35mm) a YEAR. Sheet film - even less - I have a fridge full of it and it is starting to feel like it will finish out my life. 

So if I (as a committed and dedicated amateur) am not buying in numbers decent enough to satisfy the hungry investor . . who is?

Camera clubs? 

Nah, they've been digital for years.

Creative Institutions??

Hmmm - that's an interesting one - Dundee once had a proud and solid heritage of photographers educated here and photographers raised here by a strong grass-roots foundation. This is where Albert Watson was educated, and we now have the figurehead of Calum Colvin toted as being the prime example of being a graduate of Duncan Of Jordanstone, flying the flag for strong, bright, thrusting modern photography . . . but erm that's two . . 

Oh yeah? . . what about you Sheephouse? 

Well, that's three . . 

And of course, Joe McKenzie . . well he's sadly deceased, so one less . . . 

See what I mean?

About a year or so back, I spoke to a lecturer of the Digital Animation Department at DOJCA in Dundee. It was one of those chats that just get going - he was curious about the Minolta Autocord and I filled him in and offered to make his portrait at the same time (he refused) - anyway he said that whilst students were keen to explore the whole beardy/70's/analog (sic) thing and there were some facilities (they have a darkroom)  for pursuing it, it wasn't really pushed and there was a lack of knowledge to help them along! 

And this is in a creative institution.

OK - so how many rolls are they shooting then?
I spoke to someone else who said that the darkrooms at Dundee City Arts Centre (the DCA as it is known) are largely under-used.
Why?
There are plenty of courses - the oncoming tide of 'analog' (sic) photographers who are going to use all these traditional materials are going to need somewhere to go!
But really, can you see it?
I don't know what it is like where you live - maybe you're lucky and film still lives and breathes and there are hordes of folk buying it up like there's no tomorrow, but here in old Blighty I feel we're a sad footnote. There's simply no voice out there shouting at the oncoming dark.
As a traditional photographer in Britain you are that weird beardy Uncle that lurks around at family gatherings - people see you as history, and a harmless, impotent side-bar of history at that.
Analog (sic) is too hard.
As I've said before printing and making  photographs requires dedication and graft, and I feel that in an age where you're almost forced (by peer pressure) to upgrade your iPhone every 18 - 24 months or so, the amount of effort required to become really good at something that takes a large amount of cash and a dark space, is really far too much.
In a small sentence, we've lost the patience.
I get customers screaming down my neck if they haven't had their CD three days after they ordered it, how the feck are they going to pay nearly £100 for a box of 8x10" grade 2 Ilford Galerie which requires love, dedication and patience (that word again) from them to produce something from it, when they can instantly access something similar in mere nano-seconds on their phone and get a so-so representation of it squirted out of their inkjets?
Are people really bothered about the fine print?
Of paper lustre and greyscale and tone and the physical presence of a piece of paper with an image on it when our world is beset with images, is swamped with a billion new ones every day?
One isolated point of time.
One person's take on the world.
One effort that took TIME and CRAFT to produce?
Who gives a shit?
And when that shit hits the fan and Ilford/Harman aren't shifting the megabucks these investors require to keep their interests going (after all the whole point of investing is to make, not lose money) what happens then?
When the pay-offs happen what remains of the big words and promises?
In a nut-shell, where is your next roll of film going to come from?

***

So here's some old shit from yer weird beardy Uncle of some shit he saw and liked and then made photographs and printed, taking hours to do.
He can't be arsed spotting them, because the dust is from the scans, not the prints which are pristine and actually took about as much time to make as the scans (well . . not quite . . but I did hit upon the magic exposure).
At the end of the day, they're his shit take on the world and he's just using up some old film (Neopan 400 in 120 . . long gone - thanks Fuji - it was a gem) and printing on some shit old paper (10 year old real Agfa Multicontrast Classic - thanks Agfa - it was a gem) and toned with some Kodak Selenium (thanks Kodak - I love you) which is going to kill him in the end , but who cares?
Oh yeah and the camera was his shit old Hasselblad with the slightly more modern 60mm Distagon, but come the impending loss of 120 film they'll make nice paperweights - or the perfect weapon for a smash-and-grab . . .

Sunday morning, Dundee.

Love your wrist

Real men glow

And that's it - sorry if this is an incoherent ramble, but it is quite early in the morning and I haven't had enough tea. But who cares anyway?

Anyway, chocks away . . I'm off to carry an unfeasibly heavy camera into the wilds . .