Things To Do When It Is Raining

Morning folks - I know, I know . . where have I been?

No doubt you'll have a mind's-eye picture of your intrepid Blogger, stepping out of a train carriage somewhere, camera tucked underneath his arm and steely glint in his eye with the thought towards a photographic expedition . . 

Well it has been all of that, and none of that.

I have been photographing, but I've not been detailing it in the way I have previously for some simple reasons . . the first of which is childish - apart from a handful of kind comments, nobody gets in touch! I am a sociable person, but it often feels like I am firing these blogs out into the ether like orphans . . left to make their own way in a dark world. It is disconcerting!

So say hello . . the contact form at the side makes it easy. 

The comments bit at the bottom makes it easy.

Just saying . . that's all . . nagging over.

The other reason, is that I just plain haven't felt like it actually. 

There. 

Simple.

Anyway, the other thing I have decided on is to try and slim things down. FogBlog became more bloated than a walrus on a cod binge! It was vastly intensive to read. I mean, those of you who have read a lot of the stuff have been brave and sterling - kudos to you, because it took a lot of time (I know, I've re-read them!) and time as we all know is a precious thing, not to be wasted on mere fripperies like a madman's ravings! 

So to that end, at the moment, brevity is hopefully the way and you can leave these pages happier human beans.

Large Format cameras. 

Gosh they're great aren't they? 

You can do almost anything with them, really - you can.

However there are times when they are dashed inconvenient . . in fact . . dare I say it, there are times when I'd rather be toting a tiny point and shoot. 

That comes as a hard thing to say as I love using mine, but at times it's the sheer effort involved that gets me - I average 30 minutes per exposure . . which does seem rather crazy, especially when you see some of the dog's dinner photographs I have made in those countless 30 minutes! 

Not only that, but come Winter, unless you are incredibly brave, strong and fit, and either don't mind being stared at or are happy lugging that gear for miles so you can photograph in peace, then the creative urge to use one of them can get rather hobbled by self-doubt. Add to that the double frustration of your own inabilities/raging at the weather and the timeless LF photographer's cry of: 'Oh God! What's the fucking point!, becomes a poignant and appropriate call to arms!

Oh yes, follow me on any of my expeditions at this time of year and you'll often hear that shout echoing off a hillside somewhere deep in the Glens. 

Frustration is the order of the day, closely followed by the cold. 

Let me say this,  it is a mugs game trying to adjust a camera properly in a windchill of -15. 

Add to that the biggest pain of the lot . . . steamed up ground glass . . and you have a tantrum waiting to happen! 

I have at times exited my billowing dark cloth in a hail of swearing only to look at vast clouds of steam falling out of the end of it - the camera on a tripod looks like some strange wood and metal Yosemite Buffalo/Bagpipe beast, snorting and champing in the morning light. 

Well why not hold your breath when you're under there, I hear you say.

Yes, I could hold my breath, but even then the heat from my face is enough to fog everything . . and don't even talk about loupes. 

Look. Don't go there. Right? I've told you already . . just don't munchen it!

Wind (mph)	Temperature (Celcius)
	10	5	0	-5	-10	-15	-20	-25
10	5	-1	-7	-13	-19	-25	-31	-37
20	0	-6	-13	-20	-27	-34	-41	-48
30	-1	-9	-16	-24	-31	-39	-46	-54
40	-2	-10	-18	-26	-34	-41	-49	-57
50	-3	-11	-19	-27	-35	-43	-50	-58
60	-3	-11	-19	-27	-35	-43	-50	-58
70	-3	-10	-18	-26	-34	-42	-50	-57
80	-2	-10	-17	-25	-33	-40	-48	-56
90	-1	-9	-16	-24	-31	-39	-46	-54

It is very easy to see from the above that a Large Format photographer's life (at times) is not a happy one - at a temperature of 0°C and a lazy wind of 10 mph you're into serious windchill territory. 

Now factor in that when I go hill walking I regularly encounter 40 mph winds and it starts to get deadly serious . . not least because the camera/dark cloth will start to act as a sail. Try  holding one down in 40mph winds at 3000 feet . . 

Then factor in the cameras construction - I guess the whole reason wooden field cameras are still popular is because of the entirely obvious thing that metal and Winter don't really mix well. 

I've used a Sinar in the field at well below zero, and I can honestly say it is a deeply unpleasant experience. 

It is a hardy soul who ventures far with a big boy's camera in the Winter - I really marvel at how Ansel Adams and all those wonderful American (and European) LF landscape guys managed/manage.

So where does this leave us?

Grounded and frustrated? Angry and kicking the cat? 

Well no. Just because you can't get out and about doesn't mean you can't do anything.

You can still photograph around the house.

Wot's that? Pictures of furniture or walls, or paint drying?

Well no - over the years I've quite enjoyed setting up little scenes and snapping them. They're not still lifes or found objects (though I like those too) but little Pictorial things. 

They're fun and easy and with a big camera and a wide lens you can adjust to your heart's content.

It's just something different really.

The following two images have three things in common - both were made on the Sinar, both were made in the Autumn/Winter with heavy rain/snow on the ground, and both were made with the tiny, junky, universally dismissed Schneider 90mm Angulon f6.8. 

Two very different images I am sure you'll agree, but it just goes to show what you can do if you put your mind to it. 

I know which I prefer.

Winter Mausoleum

Lazy Afternoon

The first image is of a mausoleum - it was made at 3.30PM on the 27th of December 2009 with HP5 rated at EI 320 and developed in Barry Thornton's 2-bath developer. The stonework was placed on Z VI, but at f22 and accounting for reciprocity, this resulted in an exposure of 145 seconds . . Brrrrrrrrrrrr! 

Standing around, waiting for time to happen . . triple Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

The second is a self portrait (don't worry, that isn't my bra) made in the afternoon of the 25th October 2009 - I had gone out and been defeated by torrential rain, so had stomped home and set my brain to work.

Film was Adox CHS 100 (the old original version) developed in 1:50 Rodinal for 10 minutes 30 seconds.

I used 9 degrees of front swing and shot wide open at f 6.8. 

It's dreamy and creamy and the film/developer combo is delish! 

I'd focused on a shoe placed in the bed at where my foot would be and had carefully moved it and used a long cable release. 

Result.

So there you go ye men of LF . . be defeated not by weather. Just because it is snowing/raining/pitch black doesn't mean you can't have fun!

In the words of the band Stretch, 'You Can't Beat Your Brain For Entertainment'

The Ralph Gibson Experiment (Part Three)

Mornin' Maties.
Eggs
Or in the words of me old mate Gollum (the original one, you know the one that has lived in my head since I were young, not the fake New Zealand one):
Eggss's!
Oh yes, Easter is a comin' and there's nothing yer Cap'n likes more than a nice Easter egg. As many as possible so that I can put me ol' seaboots up on my cabin table come Easter morn, give thanks to the Lord and stuff myself full o' Albumen and Yolk.
Chocolate I hear you ask?
Nah, not here.
It gives me the monster-jips. I remember a time when we was runnin' a Brigand full o' Cacau beans down in the Southern Seas - oh yes. Very nasty. But you don't want to hear about that. Suffice to say I can't look a bar o' Lindt in the eye in the same way no more.
Nope, a good ol' hard (or soft) boiled hens egg, and as many as you like.
That does for me at Easter and bless the chicken that lays 'em.
Remember Cool Hand Luke? He's got nothin' on me come Easter Monday.

***

Well, as regular FogBlographers (why didn't I think of that before?) will know, I can drone on with an intensity which could send a caged and smoking lab Beagle to sleep, so today I am going to do something different.
In the words of the world-renowned Buitoni Ravioli TV advert from the early 1970's:
Don't talk . . . Eat!
(Actually, go on, search for a picture of a tin of Buitoni . . I dare you . . you won't find one . . again . . why?)
I am going to let the pictures do the talking and save my fingers the walking.
I will refer new readers back to The Ralph Gibson Experiment Part 1 and The Ralph Gibson Experiment Part 2, in which the whole ludicrous thing is explained, but if you are short of time, here's a précis:
The preface is simple:

Make photographs with a standard shutter speed that does not change and a standard aperture that does not change. All that needs to change is the focus, and even then . . .
Have a standardised processing procedure.
The camera I used is a 1960 Leica M2 - it's as sweet as a nut and I love it. The lens is an uncoated 1934 Leitz 50mm Elmar. It lacks contrast, so to help things, it is also fitted with a FISON lens hood.
The film is developed in a particularly strong solution of Agfa Rodinal (or R09 as it is now known) - Mr.Gibson's objective was to achieve a dense negative, and strangely this has helped me, delivering better results from the rather soft Elmar that are more akin to a modern coated lens.

I'll detail the procedure now:

SHUTTER SPEED: Well Mr.Gibson states his sunny day shooting speed is 1/250th of a second, however this is Scotland (Hoots!) and I chose to use 1/125th of a second, just in case.
APERTURE: Ralph uses a standard f16. He believes this gives his pictures a uniformity. It is a very cleaver move because it removes all faffing around and means you concentrate on the picture. I used f16 for every picture on this film.
FILM: he uses Kodak Tri-X, with EI's ranging from 400 down to 100.
DEVELOPER: Agfa Rodinal (or R09 as it is now known). He uses this at a dilution of 1+25 and a temperature of 68° Farenheit, with a 10 second agitation every 1 minute and 30 seconds, for a total time of 11 minutes.

And that is it.
Simple?
Well yes.
Brilliant?
Well yes, because you are freed of the general process and apart from focusing can make images pretty much on the fly.
My variation on this for this post, is that I had no Tri-X and was down to the last roll of fast film in the house, an expired (November, 2010) roll of Kodak TMY 400.
Because of this, obviously development times were different from Tri-X, so I roughly grabbed a figure out of the air, and settled on 9 minutes, with Ralph's agitation regime. I used 10ml Rodinal to 280ml water in a small Paterson tank. The Massive Development Chart recommends 5 minutes for this combo at EI 400, so this is well over!
The other variation is that for some of the last shots, I took the shutter speed down to 1/15th and 1/60th at f16, simply because the shots were of interiors and through windows. Yes I like the idea of a set speed, but I am not stupid and film is expensive.

Contact Sheet

***

After making two shots at the bus stop, I hit the upper deck of a bus on the way home from work. And as you can see, it has been fine in one shot, but, worried about the unholy way in which the bus was throwing me around and camera shake, I upped the shutter speed to 1/250th and with f16 the combo hasn't worked for shadow detail at all.
The sun was low, but it wasn't exactly dark, but it was a stop too far!

This being said, Frame 3 (the only one at 1/125th) is a corker.
I'll call it The Buddha On The Bus, simply because the rear of the man's head reminds me of Buddha's serene pose.

What isn't seen is his young son, who was running around causing chaos. I think the guy just closed his eyes for a second and assumed this serene pose!

The Buddha On The Bus

Now certainly, on my monitor at work, this seems too contrasty, and very dark (and the same for the rest too - you might need to adjust accordingly) but at home and of course in the actual print, there is a nice glow and the subtleties of the shadows work very well.
I am also happy with the fact that it looks kind of weird because of the composition.

Printing-wise, I tried to get as Gibson-esque as possible with this. It was printed on Kentmere Fineprint VC fibre-based paper at Grade 5. Now that is a nominal Grade 5 simply because the paper is really old. Filtration was 130 units of Magenta on my DeVere 504. The lens was the El-Nikkor 50mm f2.8, new version. It looks quite contrasty doesn't it. I think it has almost transformed the look I get from the Elmar, and yet at the left of frame, there is that lovely Elmar OOFA (out of focus area).

I was pleasantly surprised.

***

Cheese

Next up was a grabbed shot in St.Andrews of a Saturday morning. It was one of those things - a whole bunch of people were gathered around this bloke applying window stickers to a bank. It looked quite surreal, so I just set a hyper-focal distance on the Elmar and went in like a sniper, one shot. The chap on the left looks like he has been stuck on, and strangely the shadow inbetween the two men looks like it is something out of Peter Pan, if you know what I mean.

I love the super-cheesy look on the model's face, don't you? and also the fact that someone has smeared the remnants of a 'kerry-oot' over the window near her face . . .

The world's (nearly) richest students?

Come on guys . . . keep yer lovely town clean.

Again, this is on Kentmere and a full-on Grade 5.

***

The next frame I am saving till second last as I am very happy with it. So I'll substitute in this one:

Cardboard Cat

Why on earth someone would have a cardboard cut-out of a cat in their window, I have absolutely no idea! But they did, so I took a not very good picture of it. As you can maybe tell a bit, the film/dev and lens combo have made sterling work of the tracery of the curtain.
Old Elmar's seem to work very well in the medium/close range . . in other words, really, I believe they were optimised for people photography. Too close can be a bit mushy, infinity too, but in the 5 to 10 feet range, marvellous!
This was a Grade 3 print, but I reckon could have done with more, so I gave it a sharpish bath in Potassium Ferricyanide to tickle the highlights up a bit, and it has sort of worked. As I say, I don't think I am getting the full range of grades from the Kentmere paper as it is a number of years old.

***

Self Portrait With Dirt

OK - another one of my dirty window pictures. I tried to get in as close as possible with the Elmar, but I have just mucked it up as the dirt isn't as crisp as I wanted it to be.
This being said I rather like the ominous look of my reflection in this - it suggests something 'other-worldy' if you get my drift. This was a Grade 4 print.

***

Now I am going to shove in the print which should have come before the cat. I love this. 

It was one of those photos: I saw the shop display of the girls whispering, saw the street reflected in the window, and waited till the woman was walking in the right part of the frame and bingo.

Have You Heard About Her?

What I just love about this is that you can see the girls whispering to each other "Have you heard about her?" and there she is reflected . . Walls have Ears etc etc.

I did actually print this a tad too dark, so have had to selectively pot-ferry the faces. This was simple enough to do - about half a teaspoon of crystals to about 300 ml of water; mix well; remove print from wash, let its wetness stick it to the back of an empty developing tray and use a shower head to wash the print as you are doing it; then paint the solution onto the areas required and almost immediately wash off - keep repeating till desired lightness is achieved; give print a good final blast of water and pop it back into some film strength fix for a minute or so. 

If results aren't still to your liking, then repeat the procedure. 

It is important to return the print to the fix, and the reason I use film strength is so that the print isn't in the fixing solution for a prolonged period of time..

Sectional Enlargement - 800 DPI

The sectional enlargement of one of the girl's eyes gives you an idea of how big the grain can be with this combo . . it isn't alarming. Also bear in mind that scanning isn't an actual substitute for seeing a print. In the print, the grain is super-crisp and quite a delight.

***

And onto my final frame, although it was an extra one, so number 37.

This was taken at Vision - Dundee's 'digital hub'. 13 units to rent, and only 3 occupied. It is a beautiful looking building inside and just the sort of place that should be rethinking its strategy and using its great space for exhibitions and workshops and things. I was so taken by the light and the reflection in the window and also the look of the window through the window and the tree in the car park that I had to make this. It was made by bracing the camera against the window and taking things down to 1/15th. This is easy to do with a Leica as there is no mirror flapping around making a nuisance of itself. I will happily say I love it.

By Evening's Light

I made the print darker than I should have and again there has been selective bleaching to the window and the highlights, but I feel it works. It is sort of a 'nature is just waiting to reclaim all this' picture, and I am fond of making such images.

Again, Grade 5 on Kentmere, oh and I forgot to mention - all prints were developed in Kodak Polymax and fixed with Agfa Agefix.

***

And that's it folks - hope you enjoyed it.
I suppose it does take a modicum of courage from me to stick the contact sheet at the start - my heart is on my sleeve . . . you can see my rubbish as well as my decent bits, but hey that's walking around with a camera!
Again, any questions or anything, please feel free to ask!
You should have a go at using Ralph's regime - it is surprisingly flexible and gives results which can surprise and please.
As usual, take care, God Bless and thanks for reading.