Investigation On The Third

Greetings land-lubbers . . . well another week passes on the high seas and yesterday's dreams become yet another wave cresting a far-off horizon.
But I am troubled. Yer Cap'n really doesn't know why he wastes time with this 'ere Blog he really doesn't. Checking the ol' stats it appears that for every legitimate reader there's a dozen robots. And you know how I feel about them. So swab that deck before I kick the bucket over - I be in a mood and it is hard to get out of it.

***

This week's FB was going to be about something lightweight after the taxing excursions into square-ville of the last couple of weeks, but you know, I am not feeling so inclined . . so I'll still be square for one more week! Normal service will be resumed soon.

Last weekend, geed on by my own lyrical waxings about square photographs, I broke out the Rollei after not having used him in about 4 months and decided to see what I could see in a revamped dock area.

Years back it used to be warehouses and docks and now, because someone thought it was a good idea, it is housing and a hotel and shops and dentists and surveyors. Quite a change from the old docks of yesteryear and setting the scene nicely for the upcoming V&A.

The Tay is a wonderful and beautiful river, and as it enters the North Sea it widens to become something huge and powerful. It is tidal at Dundee and this partly explains the cities history as a major (and now semi-minor) port. The port was established in the middle-ages with a trans-continental trade in all things Scots but went on to become a major whaling port and from there into the Jute centre of the world.

The expanse of Dundee's former extensive dock area is hard to find these days as, when you come down off the Tay Bridge or when you come in via Riverside Drive and the Railway Station, the land you are moving over is actually largely reclaimed and was once dock.
You are moving over the memory of water.
Dock Street was just that, a street next to a dock

1928

1966

(1928 - this clearly shows the extent of the old docks - the red dot indicates the roof of the Caird Hall [and NO, it doesn't really have a big red dot on its roof . . I only say that because that is the sort of question I would ask].

1966 - less than 40 years and most of it is gone - the incoming spiral in the bottom right quadrant is the East-bound run-off from the newly built Tay Bridge. [Although un-credited, I do believe this to could be a Joe McKenzie photograph as he said that he was commissioned to photograph the road bridge from the air when it opened.])

Strangely, the river seems almost sanitised by its interaction with the edge of the city centre - to get a feel of its power you have to move upstream to the Rail Bridge and be patient as the traffic thunders past.

This is the best point to see the tide on the turn and it is really something else. As you can imagine, the bulk of the waters coming downstream on Britain's seventh longest river meeting with the power of the sea is not something to be taken lightly. Strangely though there isn't a mighty battle -  the surface of the river stills to an almost mill-pond calm that belies the fierce energies and currents moving under the surface. The tidal estuary current and the onward-flowing river forces meet and mingle and become something else, something that is changed and yet the same.

Photography can be this way too.

I spend a lot of time thinking about my craft. I think about images and technique, about cameras and light, about the upward-spiralling cost of making my little art pieces, about formats and film and permanence.

I find myself inspired by light and surroundings and I like my weekend mornings because I can usually get up early (especially at this time of year) and get out and photograph. I am very lucky, because I have an incredibly understanding wife who doesn't mind my early morning looning around and I can really immerse myself in the whole photographic process. I generally decide format the night before, pick up a camera and go. It is pure pleasure and a very fine way to spend an early morning.

During my excursions, I am, to put it poetically, transformed by light. I see something and I react intuitively to it. I know my craft and in having already put in the hours and hours of reading and photographing and developing and printing I am at the 'Joe Pass Stage', namely "learn it all and forget it all".

It frees you to react.

And when intuition doesn't work, sometimes I'll ponder and move around a bit and see how the subject looks in the viewfinder from a different perspective.

And when that still doesn't illicit anything, when I doubt everything, I have a little mantra that I use:

'Is this the world's most boring photograph?'

And you know, quite often, that little phrase halts the process just enough so you can think, 'Well, I've taken loads exactly the same as this and I haven't printed a single one.' And then I move on.

The world is ever changing, like the river. I am a surge of tidal movement and I am one with that world.

(Call the prose police . . . a crime has just been committed . . what a load of blarney eh?)

At the end of the day I just enjoy taking photographs for the simple fact that I am, to paraphrase Garry Winogrand: "curious to see how the world looks photographed."

Sometimes though, things look so incredibly strange that you are compelled to release the shutter no matter what your head and heart say. Such was the case with the photograph below.

I had been wandering around in a bitter wind and I had 3 of the Rollei's 12 frames left.
I saw these reflections and wandered closer and was struck by how three planes were fixed in one place: the doors and stairs on the far side of the centre; the reflection of the dock and the double image in the window. It wasn't an obvious subject at all. But my photographic-self got the better of me and I ended up making it anyway.
I don't think it would have worked half as well as a rectangular photograph (see how I managed to lever in the square theme there) - being square it has contained the space and concentrated the eye on the clear way through to the doors on the other side, which were just slightly off from the Rollei's lens axis.
It actually looked incredible in colour and I wish I had been using that, however this was Fuji Acros 100 at EI 100, developed in HC110 Dilution G for 19 mins at 21C. The exposure was 1/30th at f8. I placed the shadows on Zone IV. The result is a very smooth and fairly well graduated negative though a tad underexposed. I think my EI for this should be about 80.
Now although that is almost the end of this week's FB, please don't switch off your sets yet . . . the bit below is relevant!
Is there metaphor for being able to see clearly through obstructions by intuition in this photograph? Sounds a bit 'art-speak' to me, however when I came home and was thinking about it, I was listening to the music I mention below, and it struck a chord.

***

Some people, at times, can have an insight into what you are thinking and in some cases the words of a song or a book can exactly mirror your thoughts.

The following are some lyrics, in the original Italian and also with an English translation, by one of my favourite musical artistes, Mr.Franco Battiato. On the surface the music is strange and very very Italian, and I don't mean 'When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's Amore' . . . .

Franco's music touches all bases, running the gamut from cloying Italo-pop, through to rock with a progressive edge, through to choral masterworks and lieder. In other words what I admire most about him is that as an artist he is a complete man. He isn't pigeonholed. He does what he likes and if you like it too, then that is great. It is a difficult path to tread at any time, but especially these days and he is lucky in that he has transcended the need to impress and has an accepting audience. 

The only thing I will say is that my ears and his have drifted apart in recent years, I actually prefer his albums when he was working with the programmer and keyboard player Filippo Destrieri.

Anyway, this track is off his album Caffé De La Paix.

Ricerca Sul Terzo (Investigation On The Third)

Mi siedo alla maniera degli antichi Egizi

Coi palmi delle mani

Dolcemente stesi sulle gambe

E il busto eretto e naturale

Un minareto verso il cielo

Cerco di rilassarmi e abbandonarmi

Tanto da non avere più tensioni

O affanni.

Come se fossi entrato in pieno sonno

Ma con i sensi sempre più coscienti e svegli

E un grande beneficio

Prova il corpo, il cuore e la mia mente

Che spesso ai suoi pensieri m'incatena

Mi incatena.

Somma la vista

Ad occhi chiusi

Sottrai la distanza

E il terzo scoprirai

Che si espande e si ritrova

Dividi la differenza.

◊◊◊◊◊◊

I sit in the manner of the ancient Egyptians

The palms of the hands softly resting on the legs

And the torso erect and natural,

A minaret pointing to the sky

I try to relax and abandon myself,

To lose all tension

And anxiety

As if I had entered a deep sleep

But with senses ever more awake and aware

A great sense of well-being

Pervades the body, the heart and my mind

That so often chains me to its thoughts,

It chains me.

Add vision

With closed eyes,

Subtract distance

And discover a third state of being

That expands and returns.

Divide the difference.

(Translation © Gerald Seligman/EMI Records)

http://www.battiato.it

I love that last stanza:

Add vision with closed eyes; subtract distance and discover a third state of being that expands and returns. Divide the difference.

Pure magic!

Ciao Bambinos. Stay Square!

Tooty Tooty Toot . . It's Hip To Be Square (Part One)

Greetings ship-mates!

It's a Saturday morning, the sun isn't shining and your ol' Cap'n Sheephouse has decided that it's time to renew the caulking on the decks.

The comfy familiarity of that piece of deck you always walk across? Begone with it. Gouge out that tarred rope and set to work. It needs to be renewed and different by the end of the day.

See, the world's a changin' faster than a spring tide and before you know it (if you're not careful) you'll be washed away.

Change is everything - follow that new current till it leads you to a promised land.

***

I have no idea what the above was about at all, but sometimes your fingers work in mysterious ways and maybe, just maybe, this has led on to an article that is about stepping outside of conformity. Whatever it is, sometimes the Cap'n lashes out with the cat o'nine-tails and you have to follow.

Anyway, the title of today's Weekend FogBlog alludes to a certain Mr. Alex Turnips of Sheephousecestershire, who in the strangest move I have ever seen from a teenager believes himself to be the soul-mate of a certain Mr. Huey Lewis. Who? you ask, mouth aghast, toast and bacon raining down upon your lap. You know,  . . . Huey Lewis And The News. That band from the 80's that liked golf and suits. Yes . . them!

I swear to you, Alex sees himself pulling up at the Old Course wearing a suit and a Pringle jumper and making a number of hole-in-ones whist an adoring audience looks on. This is very strange for someone of such tender years, because in a time of his life where it was set in stone (almost) that he should be raising a middle finger to conformity, he has done a particularly clever thing . . .

Look around you.

Youth these days, I feel sad for them actually, because on the surface they seem to have it all on a plate. Really. We have made sure that they have everything their hearts desire and they live (to a large extent, and I know that this is a bit of a generalisation) pretty untaxing lives.

They can communicate constantly without hogging the one household method of communication (which used to be the phone in the hall . . ) and escape for hours to worlds that someone has created for them by gaming, so that they don't even have to use their brains to create worlds from a printed page.

A lot of them seem to be ferried everywhere - no more standing at a bus stop getting soaked and arriving at your destination smelling like a musty ferret.

The privations I remember from my youth are no longer there - and it wasn't as if I lived a youth full of privations. On the surface it looks like they have it all.

That is entirely my generation's fault though, because we have taken away a certain very necessary thing from them: the need to struggle.

Think about it - there are no pricks to kick against, because they've all been covered up with soft spongy stuff to protect them. Instead of feeling a need to rebel against conformity we've made the world a safer (and less conformist) place for them! You can pretty much be your own person from an incredibly early age before you even know your self.

God knows though, if I were a youth of today, I'd feel I had to rebel against something - just take a look at that wall of hopeless defeat we've put up in front of them and then tell me they have it easy.

Despite this the riots of last year were nothing to do with knocking down that wall or even knocking on any doors that mattered. No dear reader, we've made such a bosh of it that when an opportunity came to try and change things, most of them saw it as nothing more than an opportunity to make a mess of innocent people's lives and get more stuff. How mucked up is that?

You can't even rebel through music anymore simply because it has all been done - my [punk] generation made sure of that. Yet thankfully you do still see lads and lasses of a certain age pursuing this path, because if they didn't what else would appall their doting parents?

Music is a BIG subject, but I feel I can write about it because that is how I have earned a living for the past 30 years.
From the rebellious youths point of view there are a million permutations: Death metal, Grime, Dub-Step, Toot, Rap, Math-Doom-Sludge, anything appended by 'hyphen core', you name it, think of a heady mix of the most unlikely things and it will have been done. Add in a goodly amount of swearing and voila! there's a ready youthful audience.

The likes of a band like Slipknot (who have had a shelf-life well beyond what I would have expected of them) still have an audience of youths who feel that in this bunch of middle-aged men they have a ready outlet for the uprising of hormones and glumness.  Yet there's nothing wrong with it.

This is where Mr. Turnips stroke of genius has come in, because when all around him is Uzi-toting, mother-hugging, death-grunting, black-studded, de-tuned, machine-made, faceless plastic* he has donned the uniform of a middle-aged man (metaphorically of course).

Huey Lewis and the News might well have sung 'It's Hip To Be Square' but blimey could they have realised how dreadfully old they sound(ed) - even at the time. Nowadays who the hell listens to them apart from an audience remembering the glory days of leg warmers and ra-ra skirts?

Is Mr. Turnips liking of them an incredibly subtle form of rebellion where something that seemed old to me in my 20's now sounds even older at the age of 50?

Forget rebelling against the music your parents liked, this is rebelling by liking the music your parents didn't like . . .

It is a contra-reverso-back-to-tomorrowland.

More fiendish than a googly.

More devilish than backspin on a ping pong ball.

In a word he has rebelled.

Am I appalled?

Yes.

Will I let him wear a Pringle jumper . . . er . . .

I do admire his stance though . . .

***

But what, you might ask, has this taxi ride through the tides and mores of early life got to do with photography? Well, before I jumped in the driving seat and headed off across country with the wrong tyres on, I intended to write about the square photograph. 

And no, it isn't a picture of Mr. Lewis. 

No, I am talking about 6x6 cm, 2 ¼", or 2¼ Square, whatever you want to call it. 

The square photographic format had been around since before Franke and Heidecke came out with the groundbreaking Rolleiflex in 1929, and it's importance was further reinforced by numerous copies and then post-WWII by a certain Mr.Victor Hasselblad, but it is weird, because logically and visually a square photograph shouldn't work. 

Think about it, the world is a rectangular place. 

You watch rectangular TV pictures, which (apart from the world around them) is yer average human's primary source of visual stimulation; you look at mostly rectangular paintings; books are just rectangles on their sides, the computer screen you are reading this on is a rectangle; ok if you're smart-phoning this, then that's a rectangle on its end too . . . and that iPad you're hiding behind that cushion? Yep . . . do you get where I am going?

Why the hell would you want to look at a square photograph?

And yet, when it is done correctly, it is the seemingly most natural of formats.

This problem has been succinctly discussed by Mr.Aaron Siskind:

"We as photographers have basically so little to work with in a picture. There's a given space, which we repeat over and over again. It presents a problem because I may want to change the space without changing the dimensions of the space. I had this problem with the meaning of the divers in relation to the kind of space surrounding them. The picture had to be square because I was working with the Rolleiflex. No two square pictures are square in the same way. Some are heavy at the bottom, and so they extend beyond the square. Some become horizontal depending on how you weight the space with blacks, whites and intermediate tones. In the case of the divers, I wanted no clouds, only white (or grey) in the space enveloping the figures; seemingly endless space."

                                 

                                 

                                 

                                 

"No two square pictures are square in the same way."

There is genius and a deep understanding of the format in that sentence.

His photographs are just incredible images if you think about it; they balance so well and Mr.Siskind has sequenced them so that visually they make a balanced narrative. In a word, they are a master's sequence.

So folks, it can be done. It is really quite an achievement to make what, on the surface, seems like a fairly limited square view of our wonderful world, produce images so incredibly dynamic. And especially so when you realise that he was using a Rolleiflex with its fixed standard lens. No telephotos, no motor-drives, no digital spraying . . .

***

Bear with me reader, because we are nearly there . . 

Half the thing with square photographs is that your eye has to be attuned to the format - in other words you have to be like Mr.Huey Lewis, you have to think 'It's Hip To Be Square'.

Ignore what your brain is telling you about the fact it isn't a rectangle and concentrate. If you're using a Twin Lens Reflex, then you had better concentrate even harder, because that view of the world isn't just square . . .it is a tad dim and back-to-front!

This is a poor photograph, but basically you are looking down into the viewing area of a Rolleiflex . . that's the Cap'n's 'Indoor Shed' you can see . . .and it is back to front.

Adjusting yourself to the format you are using is obviously as basic as releasing the shutter, but there is something about the rectangular formats that fits the eye more naturally than the square. I think a lot of people find it easier to compose for a rectangle, and as I said before, I think this could well be to do with the fact that visually the world is slanted that way.

But this is about squares.

You have to think square, and that is a difficult way to think.

Personally I made many square photographs for quite a number of years and very few of them any good. It was only when I moved over to rectangular photographs (with the gift of a Nikon F from a friend) and then returned to making square ones, did I feel that I could make the format work for me.

                                   

I feel that I achieved a balance within the square with this photograph, and even though it is a single image I feel it has a narrative flow.** 

Remember the saying: "One picture is worth a thousand words"? 

Well, with regard to my humble effort I think that there is a story to be told with it or a story to be interpreted from it. The decision is yours, and thank you for your time.

It was made with my Rolleiflex T and I was using a #1 Rolleinar in a way it wasn't designed to be used.

The exposure was 1/30th of a second at F16. I placed the foliage on Zone VI ad have printed down from there.

The film was (sniff) Ilford FP4+ at EI 50 and it was developed in Kodak HC110, Dilution H for 20 mins.

I used fairly normal agitation for the first 5 mins; intermittent until 10 mins and then I left it to stand until 20 minutes.

***

I realise this has been a long haul this week, so thank you for your time.

Believe it or not, Part 2 of 'Tooty Tooty Toot . . It's Hip To Be Square' is next week, but I think I shall make it more . . how shall we say . . Zen.

Stay Square mein fronds. Over and out.

* I could have easily slipped into lip-smackin' thirst quenchin' . . Pepsi

** I don't necessarily think that you need a sequence of photographs to have a photographic narrative. It is popular today to have a huge run of images and say that you have a narrative going. I'll counter this by saying that any single one of Sebastian Salgado's images (I am particularly thinking of Workers) would make a narrative in its own right. 

Drink Entire Against The Madness Of Crowds

Greetings m'Dearios, for 'tis time to straddle your nadger and prepare to gallop across the bacon counter . . . yes, another Weekend FogBlog is upon us and in an unashamedly commercial manouevre, I am going to urge you all to purchase a copy of Ramblin' Syd Rumpo In Concert.

This album of greatness from the 1960's meant one thing in the Sheephouse household . . . Fun.

And yes that is Fun with a Capital F, because such is the genius of it, the sheer eloquence and power of the English language contained therein; the oppulence of innuendo and the mind-bendingly weird words quothed, that should you not laugh at all upon hearing it, you are officially dead.

Remember, this is the record that circa 1965 (as far as I can work out) gave the word GRUNGE to the English language .

It is one of the things that has made your Ol' Uncle Sheephouse who I am today, and I will "tether my nadgers to a grouting pole, because the old grey mare is a grungin' in the meadow" such is my pride at being associated with it.

    

(To the right of this page you'll find a 'Sheephouse Approved' item. I am sorry to put a blatant plug on something like FB, it is an experiment really . . . for the price of a pint in these parts, you can experience what I am talking about. Ignore the terrible, shameful cover, also I urge you to ignore Track 17 onwards, as they are just supposed vfm add-ons. Up to Track 15 you have the whole album and it is pure comedy Gold.)

Anyway, commercialism out of the way, basically the above had a huge influence on my love of language. I pinched my brother Chris's copy when I was about 8 and never looked back. At that tender age, I couldn't believe anything could ever be as funny, and you know for all the 'sophistication' you supposedly get as you get older, personally, there's still a wee boy happy to play this on a hand-me-down Dansette and listen to it again and again and again, laughing out loud the whole time.
There are still people in the world today who would consider Syd to be too risqué!
Really!
So I urge you to laugh in their faces before hitting them on the grommet with a wrought-iron splunger.

***

This aside into the well-tilled earth of childhood is a way of leading you into the main point of this FB. Basically, a myriad things make up you as a person, but one of the deepest (besides a knowledge of yourself) is a sense of place and it is something we as modern and mobile citizens of the 21st Century have almost lost.
Having lived for so long in a city (and truly being a country boy at heart) sense of place means more to me now than it ever has. It has led me in my photographic adventures to try and find small, quiet places that have a sense of depth to them. That depth of feeling from such places has become a substitute for a longing which entirely takes me back to living in an ancient old cottage in the middle of nowhere with my Mum and Dad. The cottage (and I'll give it its full original name - Three Wells Cottage) was on a site above a steep drop down a riverbank. There were three natural springs on the bank as well as a river and (to me) there was a feeling about the place that it had long been a stop-off point for thirsty travellers. The water from the springs was sweet and good and there were well-trodden paths down the steep incline. I was incredibly lucky - I had a riverbank of some 2 miles to play along, I could walk and talk (to myself) and above all watch and listen. That powerful solitude (and it was incredibly lonesome at times) formed a deep well-spring of feeling for nature within me which I have never lost.
Being city-bound though, it is difficult to fully experience the country life (to say the least!), but as they say, where there's a will there's a way, and in my own inquisitive way, I have discovered places both nearby and further away which sort of have that same quiet solitude to them.
Maybe you are fortunate enough to have discovered such places in your life. They are to you (in a way) secret. It could be a room where you can be alone or a small corner of a field, an old graveyard or a mountain, but wherever it is, it is yours (for a while). It feels good doesn't it!
(Now the following little bit will take us away and on a slightly circular path . . but don't worry fearless FB'ers . . we'll get back on the main path in a minute!)
It was quite the thing in our ancestors day to travel little further than the fields surrounding the village. Some daring souls risked the next town on a market day. Long treks were considered gruelling and dangerous and populations generally stabilised themselves to certain areas. Obviously this all changed with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, and though the said change was inevitable it wasn't necessarily for the better, because something was lost.
I've never read about anyone thinking this way before, but it's my opinion and I'd love to know what you think:
Back in the mid-1990's I started thinking about my ancestors* and how their lives might have been and I realised that with all the movements and upheavels of modern society something incredibly important has been lost to modern man - namely . . .wait for it . . . the hearth.
Now that to you dear reader will sound totally bonkers, but the use of the word hearth doesn't just encompass the actual physical fire-burning centre of homes for millenia, it has become in my mind a concept which encompasses home; the feeling of being at home; somewhere with a rich loam in which one can root one's soul; and, vitally, one's family. My hearth is my family: my wife and my son, they are where I want to be, but strangely and contrary to this too is the feeling that before I die I have to live once more in the countryside, which is where my true roots are. The countryside is also hearth to me.
So, whilst my family and I have to live in the city for work and education, when we escape the hamster wheel we go to quieter places.
One day, God willing, we will uproot ourselves from the city and find somewhere quiet and with a sunny aspect.
But for now, we have to make do and make the efforts to find places that are brimming with solitude.
Places that could be called hearth.

***

Having a love of hillwalking I have lugged photographic gear to many different places, some barren and wild with no trace of any feeling at all and then, some that are extraordinary.
One of these is below.

(My notebook says: "This is the weirdest most secret place on earth. Can't help feeling that in wading in, I violated it - there is a strong presence to the place that is haunting. I did say thank you though!")

I simply would love to tell you where this is, but you see dear reader I am being selfish, and I cannot. It is not far from where I live, but it is a convoluted journey. Wending your way along quiet and ever-narrowing lanes you really feel like you are heading into the depths of nowhere. The crazy thing is, it is a popular destination for visitors of a Vibram wearing persuasion**, and yet I wonder how many have actually seen the place like this.
I have visited it in all sorts of weather, from bright sun, to mist and slight snow, hard perma-frost, to high white cloud cover, and every time it has looked different. It is a very secret place. To me I can well imagine it being a spot where the spirits of nature were worshipped in ancient times - it simply has that feel to it. Being there in the early morning, and hearing the sound of rushing water, it is quite easy to be carried back millenia.
The photo was made with my beloved Rolleiflex in early October. I was knee deep in icy mountain water but I didn't care. The Rollei was on a tripod, and the tripod took days to dry out properly, but it was worth it. I had no towel with me so ended up removing my trousers and drying my feet on them!
I think the spirit of the place has been captured sufficiently on a humble roll of Ilford FP4+.
It is a full-frame photograph, no cropping and the FP4+ was rated at EI 64 and developed in 1:3 Ilford Perceptol.
I wish I could use FP4+ more often these days as it is an incredible film, and especially so with Perceptol.
The print is un-retouched and was made on Grade 2 Ilford Galerie, developed in Moersch Eco print developer.
WYSIWYG!


* Inspired by a marvellous short story from the Master . . Mr.Frank Herbert.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_GM_Effect
If all you've ever read by Frank is Dune and the billion awful follow-ups to the original genius novel then I highly recommend reading his other books!
** Hillwalkers

The Permanence Of Photographs (In A Chaotic World)

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

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

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

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

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

This is the Quantel:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you Joe (for everything). 

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

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

The Deletion Of Memories

The sound of sizzling bacon is making its way up through the floorboards of the Goode Shippe FB. The sun is shining. Our trousers are lightly greased, immaculate Jason King moustaches preened into place, and the axles on the ex-council bowling green roller are well-oiled and ready to go. Yes, it is another Weekend FogBlog, and I certainly hope that our staff photographer is there to take grossly inappropriate photographs as I spill mayonaise down my frilly shirt and accidentally rip the arse out of my split-knee velveteen loons!

You will probably have, somewhere in your house, or in your Mum and Dad's house, a big plastic bag full of old family photographs. Maybe they're extremely organised and are in albums, or (as is most usually the case) there's just a ton shoved away in several boxes. Whatever way, they'll be there somewhere.
This whole practice of photo-squirelling ended for most people in the world about 7 or 8 years ago, when the advent of the (relatively) cheap digital compact camera meant that you weren't stuck with the 36 photographs of all sorts of things that you'd always wasted a roll of film on.
Nowadays, perfection has been reached - you can take a crappy photograph and look at the screen, say to yourself,  'Oh, Aunty  Jean does look like Frankenstein on this one', make your decision on the spur of the moment and bingo, press delete and it is gone forever.
Before this, you took your film to the chemists or the local lab and got them to process it, and (unless Aunty Jean got her hands on it) you were stuck with that photo of her looking exactly like Boris Karloff.
This was a good thing, because mostly you wouldn't get rid of these photos. You really didn't want to tear it in half and chuck it in the bin, because it seemed sacreligious - you had paid good money to have them processed and printed, why automatically tear them up?
Years later, when Aunty Jean had moved on to look like Lon Chaney Jr as the Wolfman:

you could go to your big bag of photos, hunt around for several hours, produce a photograph and say to her 'Remember when you used to look like Boris?'.

But not any more, it has gone. people want to look good in photographs and will delete at the tip of a hat. The thing is, where does this digital censorship stop? Pretty soon, all family photographs will be perfect and the ones that were the most revealing (and perhaps more importantly, truest to the family's real selves) are no longer there. A snapshot, literally, of family life is gone. It is sad isn't it? No more gurning grins; no more haircuts from hell; no more 'What on earth were you doing?'; no more laughter.
People these days just seem to be too darn serious.
So what am I trying to say from this? Well basically it is a plea to all you digital compact family camera people; rather than just take a photograph and automatically checking your screen and making a snap-decision on image execution, why not take a pile and don't edit them at all. I exhort you - this weekend, go out and make a load of images with a proper camera if you have one, or a digi-phone-thingy if that is the last resort.
Put all the ones you would have automatically deleted in a folder somewhere and forget about them. Set up a calendar reminder for say a year or so hence and restrain yourself from looking at them in that time. Then, when the time has passed you can look at them and maybe say to yourself  'I'm glad I didn't get rid of these'.

My wife and I were preparing a slide show for my mother-in-law's birthday, and we were going through bags of old photos looking for suitable ones that we could caption. Eventually we found them - there are plenty of others, but this is a favourite. These days I don't think it would have survived the digital culling.
It screams 1970's, and it isn't just the clothes, it's the wonderful vaguely inaccurate colour. And is that really a huge bag of Embassy and Capstans?
Oh, and I have also kept the caption we added for the slide show, simply because it makes us laugh every time we see it. Hopefully you'll feel that too . . . .
People try to reproduce this colour cast these days when they want to make things look 'retro'. Sometimes they are successful, but often it is too polished. The most successful are your valiant Lomographers, off a Sailin' the Seven Seas of Weirdness.

You don't understand. I could'a had class. I could'a been a contender. I could'a been somebody . . . (In Praise Of Strange Cameras)

Firstly, humble apologies for the lateness of this . . .it was just one of those things.
The weekend FB will be published on Friday evening, so there, forewarned is forearmed.
I must admit, I have a bad habit. It is harmless to everything, except my credit card, but it is fun and makes me happy. It is the acquistion of cameras. I don't go crazy as financially I have never been able to, but I do get such enjoyment from cleaning up that new arrival with the grubby face and being nice to it, that I feel I should be working for Barnado's.
As mentioned in an earlier post, a lot of cameras are treated truly appallingly - it makes no sense. If you make photographs, your tools are your friends. you are a craftsman - be proud of your tools and look after them! Look - I have even made that last bit bold type. Please, be kind, And especially these days . . . how many people making film cameras are left? Answers on a small postcard please.
At Sheephouses' Home For Old Cameras (SHFOC) we have seen some really dog-eared examples of the camera race. The tattiest two have been a Pentax 67, which was brassed to bits, but strangely had a very accurate shutter, and a recent Nikon F3 which appeared to have been used so much that the black paint surrounding the shutter release button was completely worn through to the aluminium  . . . hmmmm . . . wonder how many times that shutter has been used? The camera itself though (as is typical of all professional Nikons) worked well!
However, of them all, the strangest and greatest that has ever arrived is a 1970's Koni-Omega Rapid 100. Although the vendor told me it was working fine, when it arrived the back was exhibiting the usual frame spacing issues and the lens was a tad dusty, also the light seals were gone all over and the rangefinder needed a clean. However the vendor sold it at a reasonable price and the cost of returning it overseas was exhorbitant, so I kept it. Caveat Emptor - always make sure you buy as locally as possible and have some form of comeback on one of these. As it was I ended up sending it to Miles Whitehead* - a camera repairman who completely refurbished it for a very reasonable price - you should see what he did to the lens - it is like new, and everything operates incredibly well.

(Here, Mr. Alec Turnips shows us what to do with a camera as big as your face)

As a camera, the Koni-Omega is an afterthought in the runner's-up race of could-have-beens. It could have been the greatest Medium Format camera ever built were it not for two points. Firstly the advance, which is the strangest thing ever invented. You have to pull a ratcheted 'slide' lever straight out from the film back and shove it back in; the action is quite violent and very un-photographic. Apparently it might have had its roots from when it was was originally designed as a military camera (no worries about fiddly knobs and things in extremely cold weather with gloves on) - a lot of our American cousins have likened the action to cocking a rifle and who am I to argue . .
Whatever the intention, this is a very difficult practice for a photographer who believes in looking after gear, and when I first got the Koni I was relatively gentle in my cocking and re-cocking action . . which actually resulted in overlapping frames. You have to use force. Or even the force Luke. If you do, your frames will be fine. They start off narrower and get progressively wider as the film goes on.
Its second Achilles Heel, is the rangefinder, which although it features parallax corrected bright frames, I personally find very difficult to use and composition with it is somewhat difficult. I still haven't got used to where abouts the exact edge of the frame is in relation to the images' position on the film.
Right that's its bad points out of the way. "What," you say, "only two bad points Cap'n?"
Yerse, only two!.
The good points are many:
As it is only the second 6x7 camera I have handled, I can say it is almost as easy to use as the Pentax - it balances well and is suprisingly un-bulky (for such a large, heavy camera). With its handle at the left side, it is really very easy to hold and shoot with - the one caveat I would add to this is that you would really be best to use a slightly faster film with it, as the weight could cause difficulties with camera shake (if you are not sure of your muscles and/or photo-taking technique).
I have used it successfully on a large Gitzo monopod, and the two together make an incredibly stable package and that was with slow film and exposures of about 1/15th! With the likes of Tri-X there's no problem - just stick to around 1/60th and you'll be fine..
The main wonder of this camera though is it's standard lens - originally a 90mm Hexanon, and latterly a 90mm Super Omegon. Both lenses are identical formulations, though I believe the latter was made by Mamiya and they used a more 'modern' Seiko shutter (the former were by Konica - hence 'Koni'!). The lens is (again) a Tessar design, but I can honestly say it is one of the finest lenses I have ever used. It is one of those rarities that can run the gamut from smooth pictorial, to incredibly detailed crispness and all points in between. The oofa (or bokeh) is sublime and imparts a creamy, dreamy effect to any images shot between f3.5 and f8. Stop down further than that and you enter seriously detailed territory.
The leaf shutter in the lens is another great thing, as obviously you only have that to worry about, and no massive (a la Pentax) mirror slap - in other words, it is a very quiet camera. The shutter release has quite a long throw to it, because it has two parts of travel. The first stage results in a small tick from the back of the camera as the pressure plate moves forward and presses your film tight against the guide rails (it moves out of the way when you pull the advance lever) - this ensures ultimate film flatness. The second stage is the shutter, which has the usual mechanical leaf shutter sound - very quiet indeed.

The above shows the oofa qualities of the lens. Unfortunately I was slightly out of focus on the 261 . . but never mind, you get the idea. Film was Tri-X developed in Barry Thornton's 2 bath. Timings were 1/15th at f8. Not too tardy at all methinks.

I used a tripod for this shot, and whilst it isn't the best way to use a Koni, it worked well. I stopped down to f16 and exposed for 54 seconds (it was an October's overcast evening) on TMX 100 at EI 100, developed in Barry Thornton's 2-bath. You'll get an idea of the incredible detail resolved by this combination. also the distant trees retain that old-style Tessar dreaminess. I love it actually.
So there you go. (Apparently) the most popular wedding photographers camera of the 1970's in America, now selling for next to nothing, but still capable of returning sterling results. Yes it does have it's faults, but if you can live with those and want a nice photographic adventure, I can recommend adopting one of these poor boys - there's a lot of them out there, and they are in deep need of some TLC.
The more I use it, the more I like it!

* http://www.mwcamerarepairs.co.uk/

Saturday Morning Pictures

Well, like a charging Berserker wielding a Battle Club and splitting your skull asunder, unfortunately another working week is upon us! I don't know about yours, but mine was faster than ever - no sooner have you downed Friday nights gin, than Sunday nights vino has gone the same way . . .but at least I did get out and do what the heading of this blog says . . . .
Yes, out into a new brave dawn!
Grim of face, but true to the spirit of photography!
When mere mortals were still abed, FogBlog Man strode the streets in search of new subject matter!
But enough of that shiitake . . . . to preface a little . . .

My son, when he was very small, in a moment of total genius, managed to distill the Postman Pat song down into a haiku-esque 6 word precis:

Early Morning
Day Dawning
Happy Man

This to me is perfect, because it sums up my photographic escapades to an absolute tee. I love being out in the morning - as early as the light permits, which in the summer in these climes can be as early as 4 AM-ish.
Operating within a city at these times means that you can usually photograph to your hearts content without being bothered and without having to worry about being hit by a van as you stand in the middle of the road.
The only hazards really are revellers on their way home, early dog walkers, and (rarely) other photographers. This being said I was once very nearly arrested for taking photographs near an airport. The Duty Manager had phoned the police and they had obviously thought that someone carrying a large rectangular shaped camera was a threat to security - and quite right too - I have no bad feelings about this at all; in fact it is nice to know someone somewhere is doing their job in these uncertain times. However, I digress. Thinking fast with visions of my camera's back being ripped open and my lovingly composed negatives being cast to the wind,  I quickly managed to pursuade the officer that really, I was of little danger to national security wielding one of these:

The above (modelled by Mr. Alec Turnips in a symphony of blue . . . and yes I know the case isn't fixed to the right side properly . . .) is the camera I have owned the longest - it is a 1965 Rolleiflex T and I love it. It has been a constant companion on many hillwalks and morning escapades and has operated flawlessly for many years. The lens is the superb f3.5 Zeiss Tessar. It makes remarkable photographs at it's best operating aperture which is f11, however wide open or stopped right down to f22, it is still a sterling performer.
The beauty of Rolleis is that they were perfectly designed from the off. Everything fits, and the accessories are totally useable and simple to get your head around. The ones I use the most are the Rolleinars and the 16-on kit. The former are a series of parallax corrected close-up lenses which can produce incredibly sharp photographs. The latter allows you to shoot 16 frames of film (instead of 12) in a rough resemblance of the 645 (6x4.5cm) format (as opposed to the standard 6x6 cm format).
For many years I would stride the streets with Oly (the Rollei) taking photographs of all sorts o'stuff that I found amusing or interesting. Sometimes I would make photographs I was rather proud of.
Then I bought a Pentax 67, a camera that, whilst seeming to be brilliant (and curiously in a masochistic way, WAS) proved to be a definite early morning job, as it's sheer size and noise made you stand out as much as if you had been wearing a pink catsuit (with bells on and embroidered flames running up the legs). For all its macho size and tank-like looks, it unfortunately proved unreliable (a common theme with the earliest models, though not the latter ones) and I returned it, but somewhere at the back of my head I always hankered after that lovely 6x7 cm negative size. It nagged and nagged, and so began a game of chance and research, luck and money. After many hard hours of scouring lists and reading blogs and looking at books, my quest for a 'better' negative resulted in me jumping formats altogether, moving up to Large Format photography and purchasing a Sinar F monorail camera.
Sinars are without a doubt the unsung bargain of modern photography, because:

a.) There are so many of them (and their bits and pieces) that they are relatively cheap. For sheer VFM quality, I think they are untouchable.

and

b.) Because they are truly built to last and so wonderful to use.

If you have never used a Large Format camera and you've only used 'miniature' cameras like a 35mm, then I can heartily recommend the effort required to use one. Everything about them takes time; from setting up, to composition, to making the photograph, to processing and proofing . . and  . . what's that? You want to print them at a size bigger than the actual 5x4" size? Oh, well you'll need a new enlarger then, or at least a good quality flat-bed scanner that will accept such things as a negative that is nearly as big as a small slice of bread. Personally I got a DeVere 504 enlarger (thank you Granny Mac) and haven't looked back.
The original point of this diatribe though, was early morning photography . . . and it is here dear reader that being oot and aboot at the Crack O'Dawn really works with the LF camera. No one will bother you, because they aren't about. You can wander around lugging said camera attached to a tripod like a mad Victorian, darkcloth around your neck and a crazed look in your eyes! I even once attracted an audience of two young guys on their way home from a club, who (curious about why I was standing on a Black and Decker Workmate, with my ancient Linhof tripod at its full extension [about 8 or 9 feet] photographing a series of roof-scapes on an industrial unit) simply stood by, munching their pies, uttering things like  "Woah" and "Coooooool".
I am not sure if that last bit wasn't just the product of their evenings inebriation though . . . . but I appreciated it and had a good conversation with them about the camera. At least they didn't knock me off my Workmate.
Believe it or not, there are some brave souls out there who use LF cameras at normal times of day in public places and I just don't know how they do it - I haven't mustered up the nerve yet.

The above photograph was made at another abnormal time of day. Dusk. A Winter's Dusk to be precise. Snow had fallen, it was about - 4C and there was definitely no one about. A camera (especially a metal monorail like the Sinar) can freeze to ones hands at such times. But I was tough, didn't cry and managed to accentuate everything a wide angle lens and a monorail camera can do. Apparently you aren't supposed to make the world look like this, but what the heck . . it got the atmosphere of the place. The original print, is far superior and has a strange plastic look to it, which I can only put down to the extreme exposure and choice of developer. The snow looks exactly like snow lit by street lights at dusk, which was exactly my intention.
Personally I feel it would make a rather good book cover. Preferably a book of proper spine chilling ghost stories in the Gothic style.
Mr. Jonathan Aycliffe - please write some more books again soon . . . . .
Oh, and it wasn't taken on a Saturday!

Camera: Sinar F
Lens: 1967 90mm f6.8 Schneider Angulon
Film: HP5 exposed for a remarkable 145 seconds!
Developer: Barry Thornton's 2 bath

Bokeh Of Barbed Wire

If you are British and of a certain age, you'll remember the very edgy drama from the 70's with a similar title to the above, and I am sorry - I couldn't resist it. Later FBs will no doubt contain similar puns.
You had better sit back down too, as this morning's FB will tax you like no other. You'll either jump from your seat, shouting 'Balderdash!', sending flocks of toast-crumb birds across the table, or else you will go and grab a camera and try it out and then say 'What the . . .?'
You see, a lot of photographers these days are totally crazy about bokeh. Bokeh this, bokeh that, bokeh the other. In case you didn't know, bokeh is a term coined (I believe . . correct me if I am wrong) by Mike Johnston, prolific columnist and all-round great writer. It is loosely based on the Japanese term for an elderly brain at work - bokashi  and it sort of loosely means senility, or lack of focus.  It refers to the out of focus areas produced in any photograph, and is generally these days defined as being either good or bad! 
I am British, and it seems funny quoting something based on a foreign language especially when it is such a hip word, so (and you read it here first) I'll introduce the British acronym OOFA (Out Of Focus Areas). I've never read of anyone saying oofa, so it'll do for me!
As I said, those crazy guys and gals . . it drives you mad. A lens has to be razor sharp AND show pleasant oofa or else it is generally regarded as rubbish. Now obviously lens designers should know what they are doing, but also photographers should know what they are doing too. Yes certain lenses produce far more pleasant oofa images than others, there is no getting round that, but this obsession with it has taken it somewhere it was never meant to go.
There are about a billion images out there with people shooting lenses wide open and commenting on the oofa - it has actually become rather a trend that is also seen on TV and in films. It is actually like Group f64 (look it up!) never happened. No longer is it enough to have a sharp lens, but that lens has to operate in a razor fashion at its widest aperture, AND the oofa has to be a perfect blur, none of the strange stuff you get with mirror lenses and it definitely can't be jaggy (a Scots word meaning jagged).
The thing that most photographers fail to realise, is that good to excellent oofa can be coaxed out of most lenses, so long (and here is the kicker) as you are focussing in on something quite close. It simply isn't enough to focus on something 12 feet away and start commenting on whether the out of focus bits are good or bad. You need to get in close, and by that I mean pretty much as close as you can focus with your lens. In the case of one of my favourite lenses (the 35mm f2.8 Nikkor) that distance is  0.3 meters, or a little under 1 foot. At these sort of distances oofa is very prominent.
By the way the f2.8 35mm Nikkor is universally disparaged as being a not so great lens in Non-AI and AIS versions. What you need is a late AI one. These are know as the K series, and have 6 elements in 6 groups - they are very different to the later versions. I've compared this 'rubbish' lens with a lens which  has great oofa (the Pentax SMC-M 50mm f1.4 - a lens Mr Johnston recommends as his paupers 'Leica For A Year' lens) and you know what - there's precious little difference as far as I can see. Both lenses operate very well and produce pleasing images if used properly.
Anyway, try this for yourself. Focus as close as you can go at an angle to say the spine of a book in a bookcase, and check out the background. Beautifully out of focus, Now move back a bit (say, just over 2 feet) and focus on that same book spine from the same angle and look at the background. You haven't actually changed anything except the focus, and yet the oofa is very different. It is more defined, and the objects within it are also more defined. Now do the same thing at about 4 feet. Background is really clearly defined; 6 feet, ditto. You haven't changed a thing except focus. And just to make sure you aren't going nuts get back in to your minimum distance. Look how the background goes.
Actually you can almost forgo this altogether and just set your lens to its minimum focal distance and look at something distant (say about 8-10 feet away) and gradually focus on it watching your focus screen as you do it and seeing how the blur is slowly rendered into focus. If you have an autofocus camera, focus on something close and the slowly pan away so that your aparatus of the devil can focus on something about 12 feet away and just watch your screen. Admittedly this will be less successful, because most AF systems are very fast, and also because focus screens on the back of cameras are pretty much inherently terrible.
Personally,  I think there is nothing prettier than an image on a 'proper' ground glass or focus screen.
Now obviously focussing in close isn't really quite the thing, especially when you want to get Aunty Maureen and the kids in the picture, but rather than plonking them over there and having acres of space within the picture frame. Move in close, fill the frame as much as possible. At least that way any Gnarly Oofa* can be less distracting.
What I haven't mentioned so far are two other factors that seem to be forgotten about in the quest for nice oofa . .  .those of the focal length of the lens you are using, and a strange and unquantified one, the number of aperture blades. I intend to write a whole FB about the latter later on. But in the case of the former, you will get differing effects with how much background is compressed by the lens you are using. You know what I mean, the perspective with a long lens is totally different to that from a normal or a wide, and as such the oofa is more, how shall we say, obvious with a longer lens.**
You could really go nuts if you wanted to, examining this that and the other - testing lenses in this way has become the whole drive of a lot of peoples hobbies rather than the actual point of it, which is surely to make good images.
I am sure that Mr.W.Eugene Smith never thought to himself: 'Gosh I wish the bokeh was better in that picture.'
It simply doesn't matter that much.
Obviously if the background is smooth then it renders a more pleasing image to the eye, and also helps the subject stand out, however if it isn't, who cares?
Surely the whole point of a photograph is the subject matter.

The above is a young man I met in my travels - his name was Alec Turnips (to get that, you have to put on a heavy Scots accent). The lens was a 50mm f1.4 Nikkor-S.C.
The oofa in this picture I think is really good. The photograph was made with the lens at either f1.4 or f2 - I would probably say the former though.
Film was Fuji Neopan 400 at EI 320 and developed in Barry Thornton's 2-bath. Mr.Turnips was unimpressed however . . .but that is youth for you.
As with any portrait, I will pass on advice given to me by Mr. Joseph McKenzie, and that is this -  pretty much any portrait will only live if you have a catchlight in the eyes (the catchlight is that tiny sparkly bit you can see in the eye). And it is true.
Oh and if you are photographing B&W, ignore your meter and place the skin tones on Zone VI. In other words overexpose by 1 stop - it works.

* A particularly nasty villain in an early Dickens novel
** If you have any comments on this please feel free -  it would be nice to get some!

Is It Real, Or Is It Memorex?

What is that rumbling sound I hear up ahead. Oh dear, I do believe it could be the sound of another working week heading straight towards us. If you are reading this and you are getting yourself together for another week in the hamster wheel, then my commiserations. If you are more of the 'leisure class' then my congratulations to you - it must be very nice to be relaxing into another day. It's the only way to get up really. Just be sure you don't leave that light bulb on more than you have to.
Back in the late 70's there was a brand of cassette tape called Memorex. Their advertising tag-line was 'Is It Real, Or Is It Memorex'. I've always liked that line, because it implies that there might well be a lot more going on in the world other than what you are aware of. In their case, I did not particularly like their brand of cassette as they were prone to lose their oxide at the drop of a hat, however the line was enough to make me buy a couple of packs of tape just in case!
It has actually made me realise (now, roughly 30-odd years later) that the world can be viewed in a number of different ways. This is why I now find myself photographing reflections and shop signs, because there is an inherent air of unreality in these things. What is going on? Are these things living out secret little lives that no one knows about? As mad as that seems,in certain images, there is quite often an interesting juxtaposition of photographic elements that can, if you think hard enough about what you are seeing, create a story in your head.
Thinking about taking a photograph in this way can help enormously.
And it can come down to, are you a 'The world is my frame' or 'The frame is my world' sort of person?
There are really several ways of taking a photograph as far as I am concerned:
1./ A direct (and if you are lucky) passionate response to the world around you - masters like Wynn Bullock and Ansel Adams excelled at this. When I say passionate response I mean that though they might have recorded the ordinary, they have created an image in which you can clearly sense the extraordinary. Sounds stupid? It isn't. It is a deeply unfashionable way of making a photograph these days.
2./ A direct recording of the world. The world is as you see it in the frame. I was here. I saw this. I did this. I photographed this. That's it.
3./ The frame is YOUR world. I am the master of this world. I can create this. I can imply this. I can say something that might not necessarily be what you are seeing. Ralph Gibson does this perfectly. There is story and implicit double meaning in a lot of his work. I like that.
This is all getting rather heavy for a Monday morning isn't it, when all you want is a piece of toast and a cup of coffee.
All I am really trying to say is this: before you go out with your camera and snap away (or spray away if you are digital user and don't want the discipline of 1 frame per photograph) think before you take that photograph. Experiment a bit with an empty camera. Try and look at the world in a different way. Would this be improved if I moved in as close as possible? Would it be improved if I changed my point of view and knelt down, or conversely if I risked breaking my neck by jumping up onto that wall and looking down on the subject matter? What if I placed that figure at the extreme edge of frame and then didn't focus on them? What if I moved back slightly so that new element was in there too so that now it just doesn't look like a snap, but something that has been thought about?
Once you start moving outwith the bog standard 'you-stand-there-I'll-stand-here' mode of taking a photograph and actually start thinking about things before you press the shutter, you might well find an improvement in your photographs. You'll be able to say: "I know it's weird hon, but I like it."
I rather went on a ramble there. Sorry.
Oh, and your FB will probably be moving to a more occasional basis from today - when I say occasional, I mean probably a couple of times a week as I don't want to bore you too much.

The above was made with Rollei RPX 400 at EI 400 and developed in HC110 Dilution G. Camera was a Nikon F2 and the lens was the ubiquitous 35mm f2 Nikkor-O. It was a bleedin' freezing cold morning and everywhere I looked there was condensation.

"I know it's weird hon, but I like it."  

Son Of Weekend FogBlog

This morning, I found myself twixt the horns of a dilemma. Do I go with the easy access, open backed, mule type slipper, or do I go for the full monty Grandad-style fully encapsulated but less easy to just slip on and off style of slipper? As you can tell, if themes like this are being contemplated, it can only be one thing . . yes, it's another Weekend FogBlog!
 I used to wear nothing but the feet I was born with, and found this a very comfortable way of moving around the house. This was until one holiday when we were staying in George Bernard Shaw's house in Dublin . . ok, it is actually a hotel now, and a very nice one too. However, one evening I decided that it might be a good idea if I really whacked my right set of toes off the leg of a bed, so hard that I would be crippled for the rest of our holiday. This I proceded to do, and you know what, I have worn slippers ever since. So, as I said at the start I am now in the depths of dilemma, as my £5 Asda specials are falling apart, and I am undecided as to what sort to choose. So there is a handy little poll to the right to help you to help me. I really am not sure. Thank you.
Anyway, what have slippers got to do with photography? Precious little as far as I can tell, though they do keep your tootsies protected, which made me think, A-ha! And I have pondered long and hard about this and have decided to do a wee post about camera cases. Possibly the most dull thing I can think of, and yet, useful. There are a plethora out there and all to a lesser or greater degree are useful. What I would say though is that I am sad to see the demise of the ever-ready case. Admittedly, a lot of them were rather hopeless, however find a battleship model like a CTTZ for a Nikon F, or a CH-4 for an F2, or an original Leicaflex ever-ready, and you have a thing of great and lasting beauty that will amaze you in its sheer out and out toughness. These were tough cameras, and the cases made them even tougher.
On that exciting note, I shall bid you adieu until Monday when together we can meet the juggernaut that is the working week with our crash helmets on.

The above was taken as I fell from a great height with nothing to protect me save a Nikon F2 in a CH-4 ever-ready case. Yes they are that tough.
Film was TMY2 400 at EI 320. developer Barry Thornton's 2-bath.
When I landed, I picked myself and carried on walking.

Be Prepared

A-Harrrrr me hearties what was that a creakin' out beyond the reef that waylaid your Goode Shippe FogBlog? Yes it was none other than the bad pirate Blackie Master Homework and his evil crew. Seems like Blackie (as we call 'im round these parts) is a panickin' because he feels his crew is ill-prepared for battle, Well he might worry!  Those decks haven't been caulked in months and the riggin' is worn out; the canons are a showin' a nice patina of rust and the ship's cat is still floatin' in the grog. And as every pirate knowes cats need to sink to give the grog some power! In other words he was ill-prepared for battle. His guiles were obvious, for we smelled him on the morning breeze and it was but a walk-over for the Goode Shippe FB,  though it did take us a few days to shake him off out beyond the Sargasso.

Was there any point to that? Well no and yes! If you are a teacher, make sure your class is prepared for exams and knows what the hell is going on; if you are a student, make sure you are prepared for exams and have asked the teacher what the hell is going on!
Sheephouse's Third Law states: There are three ways to prepare for anything (especially anything photographic) and these are:

1./ Be Prepared

2./ Be Prepared

and (wait for it)

3./ Be Prepared

Photographically this means knowing your camera and your chosen media inside and out.
Does your shutter lag just a millisecond every time you press the shutter?
Do you compensate for it?
Can you focus your lens without looking through the camera?
Do you know how your lens renders in focus and out of focus areas?
No?
Can you watch someone passing by you, lift your camera to your eye, press the shutter and remove it from your eye in a split second, knowing that you have got something really rather good?
Again, No?
Then you are not prepared.
Henri Cartier-Bresson called being prepared for that one key bit of photographic timing  'The Decisive Moment', and though that is an obvious call, I like the term - it is all about preparation! If you look up some of the Gary Winnograd videos on youTube, you'll see a master of that style at work. He knows his camera, he quickly checks it, lifts it to his eye, makes the photo, holds the camera loosely in one hand and smiles at the person walking by who is wondering why a stranger has just take their photo. It is genius at work.
Unfortunately for me, for most of my photographic life, I have been a master of 'The Indecisive Moment' - the following story is a good example.
Many years ago I was making a very very early trip out for a hillwalk. I was driving through hilly country and was passing by two iron age hillforts just as the sun was starting to lighten the horizon. The vista was incredible. If you can imagine the hillforts to my right and right in front and to the left of me a huge sweep of fields and hedgerows leading down to a plain. You could see for miles right to the North Sea. Happenstance had made it so that right in front of me was a field full of cows. They were all lying down and were all perfectly still and watching the sun rise! The light was very slight and the cows were barely just visible, but it was like they had been carefully arranged just for me. It was like nothing I had ever seen. If I had been prepared I would have had the camera in a handy place, and more importantly I would have known the best way to have taken the photograph. As it was, by the time I had figured what I should do to make the most of it, the cows reverie was disturbed and they had started getting up and mooving around. Man was I disappointed. I still carry the image in my head it was so great.
So, as the saying goes, 'Chance Favours The Prepared Mind'. be prepared, spend a lot of time with your camera, know it's workings and the the feel of everything, and if you are lucky you might just have your own Decisive Moment.

Although hardly a Decisive Moment, the above pleases me. I like cows, and I especially enjoy the fact that the one on the right is staring me down whilst the other two flee. The place is God's Own Country - Scotland.
The film was TMY2 400 at EI 320 developed in Barry Thornton's 2-bath. Camera was a Nikon F2 and the lens was that 35mm f2 Nikkor again. I am especially happy with the tonality.
Sad to think the cows are all probably just memories of a nice meal now.