Morning fiends, er friends.
This morning I am going all glasshopper again, because I was severely let down by an errant roll of film over Christmas and would like to recount the whole sorry tale.
Why Kung Fu?
Ah, the good old 1970's!
Well, if you remember the program, David Carradine always seemed to pull off the impossible no matter the odds.
I felt myself to be in a similar situation when some interesting pictures (conjecture of course - that's my opinion!) were nearly rendered null and void by weirdness.
Despite its epithet as 'Scotland's Sunniest City', weather in Dundee can be overwhelmingly ghastly at times.
We're shielded by the Grampians from the North and West; we don't poke out into the North Sea to suffer the same banks of fog and extremes that the likes of Fife does; we're too far South and not far enough North (and coastal!) to render most snowfall null and void.
All in all we can be incredibly grey, and when we get The Grey, we get it in spades.
Into this mix add haar (a lovely Nordic term for cold river and sea water meeting warm air and thus creating banks of weird fog) and you've got a brew made in mad weather heaven.
You can see haar building in the middle of the Tay; it can start as a whispy white mohican on the river and the next thing you know the whole town is blanketed in chilly mist.
In the Summer it can be (dare I say it) pleasant, however in the Winter when it has been grey for days, that chill dampness gets into every single fibre of your body.
I call it East Coast Raw and it really is.
On the other hand, the light on the Tay can be extraordinarily beautiful.
It was enough to anchor Joseph McKenzie here for decades, and I can quite see why - he once described the light so beautifully to me that it is worth recounting it, albeit through the filter of decades passed.
There's a liquid silvern quality to it that is at once ethereal and distancing; with the haze and moisture of the river, distance is extended; on clear, haze-free days, distance is compressed; daylight on the river can at times act like a reflector, and if that reflection is caught by cloud it is reflected back onto the city; it is like a solar North light that evens illumination.
That's the gist of it.
The light can manifest itself at most times of day too, but especially so on a cooler morning as the sun is just rising - lovely stuff and especially so if you're using a film that lends itself to subtle greys.
Despite all this potential, this past Winter has been something else - I do believe it has rained most weekends since the start of November.
The Grey has cemented itself in.
It has been pitch (nearly) going to work and the same coming home.
A ghastly, enthusiasm-sapping wind has blown constantly from every direction and all at once and in most of a lifetime of living here I reckon it was probably the most overcast Winter I have ever experienced.
On the plus side, it was less cold than usual.
So imagine my joy when the sun came out for a brief time a month or so back - oh boy, I was skipping like a lamb.
Me and t'missus had a lovely walk, came home, had lunch, and then I stepped out to take some photos.
You know, I love taking pictures with the Hasselblad SWC/M for a couple of really simple reasons.
Remember when you were young and your Dad let you use the Kodak Instamatic - all you had to do was set the zone focus and press that weird oblong shutter release - Click!
And that was it until you collected the pictures from the chemists.
Wonderful.
Uncomplicated.
The image was all there was - no technical footery.
Well, others might disagree, but the Hasselblad Super Wide is just a simple point and shoot, albeit with one of the best lenses ever made stuck on the front.
You load your film holder, attach to camera, remove darkslide, set aperture and speed, adjust focus, squint through weirdly comforting viewfinder and Click!
You know you'll have something (often something epic) and you don't need to worry about any deficiencies in the camera.
Everything else is operator error.
So, there I was, ready to go and chancing some new and different film - Bergger Panchro 400!
I thought I'd give it a go, just in case.
I halved box speed because that'll usually do it with most 400 films and set off with a supremely lightweight but high quality picture making maschine.
I was ready for everything.
Ah it was brilliant - Dundee Uni was empty - no students courtesy of CV, just myself and a few old ladies walking their dogs.
Everywhere was hard, low sun and steep, deep shadow and whilst not intending to photograph buildings, their lines were so enhanced by the light that I couldn't not do it.
An hour and a half slipped by like it was nothing.
I was really cold, but so fired by what I was seeing that the extreme chill was meaningless.
Have you ever got yourself into one of those Photographic Zen Zones?
It is very akin to when you are improvising music with other people, or when you are writing and the characters take a hold of you and won't let you stop till they're done.
If you've never experienced either of these, trust me, the similarities are, er, very similar.
In a PZZ, you are led by your eyes.
Everything looks like a potential scene.
I'll add an epithet to that though, everything can also look like a potential crime-scene if you aren't careful.
You have to exercise a modicum of restraint - it's easy to blaze away, so I have one simple phrase I say to myself:
Would I print that?
If the answer is NO! move on buddy.
It works for me.
Anyway, back to our trip into madness . . .
I used a tripod pretty much the whole way, just 'cos I wanted the best sharpness I could get; also when you're eyeballing the bubble level on a SW, having it steady before you start footering is an added advantage. I had a brilliant time.
I was so thrilled by what I'd seen that I hoofed it home in double quick time, and because the film was an unknown, decided to use Pyrocat (simply because it has been the most consistent and reliable developer for every film I have ever developed with it.)
18 mins in the developer (yes I know); a couple in a water stop; 5 mins in semi-fresh fix and a couple of washes before I got my mitts onto it.
I was so excited!
And then . . .
GAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHHH!
A cursory examination and the whole film appeared nearly black.
I initially thought the whole film was fogged, and I had no idea how that had happened.
Obviously I was expecting some stain with Pyrocat but this was well beyond my experience of it.
That's them all sleeved below with the LED equivalent of a 60 watt bulb shining behind them.
Not only is there edge fog, there's a general massive amount of base fog over the whole film.
Allied to this, there's also what appears (at first) to be a scratch on the emulsion (yes, I spent about half an hour minutely going over my film back . . . there was nothing sharp): on even closer examination, the scratch was actually an exposed line within the emulsion itself.
I was absolutely FIZZING.
What a total waste of time and money . . . and I had another 4 rolls of the stuff!
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| Denser Than A Busload Of Denseness |
After I'd calmed down a bit I decided to do a contact print (because I always do a contact print for reference) and it was even more ghastly than I'd thought.
My normal exposure time for PHD negs is 32 seconds at f22 on Grade 2.
This beauty took 56 seconds at f8 on GRADE 5.
And yes I was using speed matching with the filters.
I think that shows you that it was a tad foggy.
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| More Fog Than A 1940's Peasouper |
I know what you're going to say - you unloaded/loaded that in full sunlight. Not so. All done in subdued light, so put that in yer pipe and smoke it.
I would normally detail all the exposures here, but I'll not waste your time - there's no point.
I was about to exit the darkroom in a total mare, but something clicked in my head and I thought feck it - why not have a go at trying to get some prints?
It was pretty 'orrible and grey outside anyway, so why not?
I've had a few grim sessions in the darkroom in my life - most of them involving underexposed negatives and stupid mistakes.
Most of the underexposure on these is actually a result of the fog interfering with things, a bit like it does in John Carpenter's masterpiece!
There's details in them thar dark bits, but youse can't see 'em boyo.
I also had to do something that is anathema to me - CROP A NEGATIVE!
I always print full frame - why? Because I prefer to have the scene set on the VF when I take the photo and not use a judicial after-the-event-eye on things.
No doubt it is faulty thinking from me, but that's just me.
Anyway, it was a heck of a job.
I'll usually do prints on Grade 3 and around 15 secs at f22 - Pyrocat can make timing very consistent, and the DeVere's nuclear bulb makes short work of everything.
With these puppies I was anywhere between 15 and 30 seconds at f16 on Grade 5.
It took me a while to get to that point using test strips, but once I'd dialled it in, I whipped through them quite quickly.
I had to use Grade 5 to punch through the fog - it was the only solution as far as I could see, that would give me something look-at-able.
The paper was some of the last of my Tetenal RC - already a very contrasty paper on Grade 2, so believe me, it was contrasty! I am also now using First Call's soft pack paper developer too, which I think is a variation on the much missed Agfa Neutol.
It is very good stuff indeed, and won't go off to the same extent, it being in a pouch (I wish I could say that about myself.)
Anyway, here they are in all their tawdry glory.
I don't mind them at all actually, strangely; I thought I'd hate them.
It's actually made me want to try printing things softer for a while and see what happens - obviously not with these though.
Most of my negatives are on the denser side of normal, so it might be an interesting experiment.
Oh and print size was 5x7" and the image size is 120mm.
I forgot to say that over Christmas a neighbour very kindly asked "Is this any use to you?" and promptly handed me a Leitz easel over the garden wall!
I reckon its 1950's and it is an ideal size for smaller pieces of paper.
Anyway, I am using that and it gives me wonderfully thin borders - thinner than a Spiv's 'tache - and on these prints it is just a hair over 3mm.
I print the image on the shorter end of the paper, so there's a nice big holdable bit of white at the bottom.
Not only does it make for a tactile print that is both easy to store and refer to, it also slashes your paper costs!
Onwards glasshopper.
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| Gargh 1 |
Why not I thought, so I made like a duck with my fingers, but didn't actually realise I'd captured myself in all my grimacing glory. Sorry if I've broke your monitor.
There's a window around the corner from this that is so severely covered with guano, I reckon it is holding the whole building up.
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| Gargh 2 |
Dundee Uni's 'Security Centre' - at all times of day it is a faceless maw waiting to capture the unwary.
In a way it reminds me of a Stasi headquarters - innocuous enough, but they're watching you.
The guano is exquisitely set - I reckon you'd need to take a chisel to it.
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| Gargh 3 |
At some point in time, someone thought it would be a good idea to plant these palms right next to a building.
As you can see they've gone a bit mental and are now obscuring everything.
This being said I like it - there's an air of mystery to it.
We've a surfeit of palms around the Uni for some reason - must be because we're 'Scotland's Sunniest City'!
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| Gargh 4 |
Yes I should have cropped more judiciously and aligned my verticals better.
It is only slightly out, but it lends a feeling of disquiet to me and I find it visually disturbing.
Gary Winogrand always said no matter how wide the lens, try and get the left vertical correct and everything else will follow, because we scan a print from left to right (whether consciously or not).
He's bang on.
Those trees are I believe lilacs and they're rather beautiful.
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| Gargh 5 |
I had great hopes for this one - it's a bunch of Yuccas squashing themselves against a window in a mad bid to escape.
It's in the Engineering department at the Uni if you want a butchers . . . but who wants to come to Dundee?
Ah, you do . . well bring your mask and don't get caught.
Sadly the fog has rendered it like a Grade 0 print on nicely fogged 30 year old Multigrade . . . with extra fog.
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| Gargh 6 |
Which brings me to my last choice. I know where this is, and I'll keep it that way. There's something about the juxtaposition of trees and concrete that I have to keep photographing it - in fact now at the start of February I've taken another 5 photos of it at differing times of day.
It's weirdly beautiful and I wish it wasn't chuffing phogged!
This being said the phogging has leant the print something of a warmth and also an older look.
T'missus instantly said "that looks 30's Bauhaus"', and I tend to agree with her.
The incredible sharpness and lack of distortion from the Biogon is, to me, remarkable.
And that's the end of this sorry tale.
At least I managed to rescue something - I was chanelling Caine - he helped greatly.
When I said thank you, he just adjusted his hat and bag, gently opened the darkroom door and moved off quietly into the gathering dusk.
I could hear his flute for a long time after.
As for Bergger. Well don't let it put you off - their Fibre paper is lovely stuff, and to be fair to them, after I contacted them and said:
Wot's this 'ere then? I've got another 4 rolls of this tosh!
they went:
Sacré bleu!
And replaced the whole lot.
Excellent customer service.
This being said, I doubt I'll be using it again. As I explained to them, when you go to the time and effort of all this and then the medium lets you down badly then you're unlikely to try it again. It was a good job I hadn't driven 40-odd miles and walked another 12.
I had the same thing with Foma 100 Sheet film 10 years back - and I did actually drive and walk those distances, with a bleedin' Sinar F too. The results were utterly awful (for my needs) and I've never used it again.
Anyway, over and out. I'm off to rescue a Chinese Railroad Worker and his family.
"Once mighty waters hurled themselves against rock, and from those two great forces came this gentle sand."
