Tales From The Fogbank (Part 2) - Trust The Bubble

Morning folks - well at least the clock says it is, however, outside in the big black, Black, it says otherwise - jings it is dark, and truly gloomy, like the greyest afternoons of childhood mixed with the most depressing day of your life - ghastly.

City Of Dreams

Sometimes in your photographic life you'll encounter a situation whereby you have little recourse but to continue - you've loaded film, you don't want the kink forming, and you're just desperate to do 'Something'!

Such was the case with me recently.

As long-time readers will know I have spent most of the year not taking photos as I was involved in DIY during the lovely warm months when light fell from the sky like gold-spun nectar and photographic opportunities presented themselves gently and in spades like a never-ending afternoon tea  of cakes, nibbles, endless quaffing of the golden draught and good company.

None of that for me though - it was a brutal graft of scraping, burning arsenic and lead, forearms developing like a soldier crabs' and sweat.

And so I find myself now at the arse-end of the year, raring to go, and nothing but gloom - but when has that ever stopped me? 

So there I was, a few weeks back with an urge greater than a mating salmon and a great idea to try out the Hasselblad panoramic adapter I have - it's approximately a bit less than 6x3cm - and see what I could come up with.

I got t'missus to drop me on the way to work and walked from Broughty Ferry (a sort-of satellite suburb - Gawd how they'd hate me for saying that - of Dundee) to the city centre. It's a great walk taking in segregated dockland and all sorts. Sadly it used to be considerably better as you could poke around the docks, but post 9/11 all that changed.

Having rather a large amount of Bergger Panchro to use I thought I'd give that a go too - why not? I was enthused.

The day was gorgeous - cold and sunny and I snapped with impunity. I was delighted to be out.

I raced home, and processed my still-steaming film.

And discovered that no matter what you might read - Bergger Panchro does not like Pyrocat, though curiously they make their own staining developer for the film. 

You may recall I used the combo here. 

I thought I had to give it another chance. 

I'd shot another roll and developed that with ancient HC110 and that had come out OK - it's a EI 100 film, not 400 though. 

Putting the initial film down to my mistakes, I tried again. 

And what did I end up with?

Denser Than A Dense Thing
Tales From The Fogbank (Part 2)

Can you feel my pain? Look at the density of the paper black! The images are battling the overall fog-level.

There are frames I am truly proud of on there - even with the obvious upside down strip on the right . . you try getting Bergger to lie flat  . . . 

Despite that, the film had a completely even stain of fog meaning that I had done nothing during exposure, it had all come from the interaction of film and developer.

I've developed numerous varieties of film in Pyrocat and I've always liked its consistency in timings - there is always the possibility I had over-developed, but I'd had less fog than this on the original super-foggy one - I had no idea what was going on.

When I use PHD I take it to a point with gentle agitation and then let it sit for a number of minutes - this has worked with Ilford and Kodak and Foma films - I get consistent printable results - could Bergger be that different? 

The times btw were the same as the super-foggy roll yet that wasn't nearly as dense as this one - super weird.

Anyway, whatever, I was fizzing (again).

The contact above was a two and a half minute exposure at f5.6!!!!!!! and it still wasn't enough.

I even tried printing something and this is what came out.

Dinner At The Docks

It has been tootled to the nines with software and is definitely not my idea of a 'fine print' - the print itself is ghastly, printed on Grade 4. 

It is as they say a ferking shame.

So where does that leave me with Bergger?

Well to you and yours it is probably a decent film, but to me I shan't use it again. To be honest it really reminded me of Retrophotographic's own-brand Panchromatic from the early 2000's. I didn't like that either.

So, horns drawing in, it is Ilford only for me from now on in. I trust it. Consistent results and quality control

OK - so that's the angst out of the way - time for a nice Aero, all them bubbles, because, indeed, from this hour of calamity, something good did come.

Y'see, as well as compounding my need for failure with using Bergger, I had also employed a 91 Deep Red Filter. Why? 

Well I am rather enamoured with architectural photography at the moment, and having read a bit about it, decided that using a red on standard film would give me some interesting contrast on buildings. Not only that, but viewing the world through a red filter, is VERY addictive. Everything takes on such a strange hue - whites are brilliant, shadows are dense - everything looks completely exciting!!

In Tales From The Fogbank (Part 2) I'd been using the 500C/M and 60mm Distagon . . and . . the newly acquired (well way back in March) combo of Gitzo CF monopod and ballhead.

In praise of monopods: [I've owned a monopod before - another Gitzo - but it was only ever good for poking teenagers and fighting off bears - in short it was bulky, quite heavy and unwieldly. It also had a non-non-rotational leg and was a bit of a faff.

By comparion, the GM2542 is superb and another experience altogether. Compacted it is a very short and easily transportable swagger stick. I added a Novoflex Ball 30 and thread-locked an old Hasselblad QR to it. The set-up is as stable as a rock.]

Cue some nice muzak, whilst yer Sheephouse wanders off and has a couple of Vodka and Tonics.

Hmmm, is that Lord Stock and the Fauntleroy Five, playing "Rhapsody in Grey"? 

Sounds like it.

I'll have a couple of frozen peas in my Voddie, just for a change . . . .

A Place Of Shelter

So I regrouped and thought feck it, I am going out again, but this time with the Happy-Time Snapshot Special .  . the Hasselblad SWC/M.

If Lee Friedlander can use it as a snapshot camera, then why not me.

The weather was a blanket of deep grey, and rain, lots and lots of rain - you can see it in what looks like bromide drag in some of them - nope - cylling down, straight down . . . 

It had been fine when I'd been dropped off but quickly turned into a "Oh shite!" moment as it started coming on in torrents. 

After one desultory frame, I packed away as the skies opened - I wasn't going to get the camera out again in all that, and headed for the nearest shelter - in this case Dundee's delightful City Quay:

"Located around the former Victoria Quay on Dundee's waterfront, City Quay is a retail, leisure and hotel development, which together represents a re-vitalisation of the area costing more than £20 million. Located on the north side of the dock and opened in 2002, the retail complex occupies listed former warehouses and extends out into the dock itself. The 155-bedroom City Quay Hotel lies to the west, next to the Dundee Customs House and Harbour Chambers and the former main entrance to the harbour. Housing development has taken place to the east, next to Camperdown Dock.

The development includes a marina, together with the Frigate Unicorn, launched in 1824, and the former North Carr Lightship, both permanently berthed in Victoria Dock.

City Quay is owned by the Port of Dundee Ltd., a subsidiary of Fort Ports Ltd., who own and operate the harbour."

Copyright - Gazeteer Of Scotland

Bruce from the OD has some wonderful photos of the area before it was titivated - I kind of wish it was still like that, but you can't stop 'progress'.

Anyway, the covered open walkways provided ample cover to take the rather poor photos I took.

Dinner At The Docks - Redux

This is a scanned enlargement of the image area of the print.

Normally they look like this:

Tiny Little Print

That's a scan of yer actual print - tiny eh! 

I've been printing almost exclusively on 5x7" paper in recent times, simply from the point of view of economy - you can actually print twelve or so decent prints in a fairly short session once you get going, plus it has a nice tactile edge to it.

I quite like the Waffer-Thin (cue Python) border - that's courtesy of the handed-down Leitz easel. It's dead easy just to shove your paper in and get going.

The paper is bog standard Ilford MGRC and I'll print that at Grade 3 as a matter of course. The developer was First Call's standard developer which is long-lasting and quick-acting (cooo, compound adjective city) and a variant on an old Agfa formula - in other words nuthin' fancy.

The remarkable thing to me about these photographs is that they were monopod supported at exposures  of (mostly) 1 second at f5.6 - they're really sharp. 

I was (crazily) using a B&W Deep Red (91) filter which necessitated a -3 EV adjustment on my meter.

Here's shome more - makes you want to visit doesn't it!

Anyone For Golf?

City Of Dreams - Different Angle

Shopper's Paradise

That's A Decomissioned Rig Y'know

Watch Out For The Seething Crowds

Look Wot They Dun To My Bridge (Sorry Noddy)

Skater's Paradise

Some weird artefacts have been added from the scanning - I am afraid my scanner is pretty hopeless, and I've not lessened the pain in the ghastly dreariness of the day - it was as dull and grey as that - last Winter we had around three months of it - everyone turned into frogs.

As the old expression goes:

"Nice weather for ducks!"

You know I've rambled on for ages and have forgotten to say why you should "Trust The Bubble" - well here goes.

When photographing any form of architecture, you have to trust the bubble on your tripod or camera - in my case it was the Hasselblad Bubble. Unless you have enough elevation; a view camera; or are a long way away and can adjust things, then you have to assume that whoever built the stuff you're photographing worked to a builder's level. 

I know that sounds really obvious, but it is true. 

If your bubble is bang on, then (theoretically) everything else in the photo should follow that verticality.

This might not apply in Amsterdam!

However on the whole, trusting the bubble is the way to go.

Of course you'll get converging verticals, but to an extent these can be eye-balled out by some judicious framing, but on the whole - trust the bubble. If you're dead on with that even converging verticals can look fine.

Reading the above post, I realise I could have just cut to the chase and said:

"look, just trust it" 

at the start and spared you all the pain!

And that as they say is that. 

More architectural stuff in the new year - it's the Nouveau Thang.

Until then, take care, watch out for that dog muck on the pavement on these dark evenings and keep shuffling along towards the precipice.

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

H.

P.S. To Ye Anciente Dundonians

I know it sounds and looks like I am slagging off this City - y'know, I'm not. I've lived here a long time now and have come to appreciate the little things that make (and have indeed made) this City a great place to live and work. It could have been so much more though (thank you "The Most Corrupt Council In Britain In The 1960's") - here's what Oor Bri has to say - click here:

However it is pointless dwelling on the past, we've a future to make, it just needs the right people handling it. Some joined-up thinking would be good!