Nice Surprises With Film

Morning folks - I hope everyone is well and not too depressed by my previous posts . . it is just stuff you have to think about. 

Anyway, without further ado, it is back to normality (or whatever it is called these days).

This post is a just about a couple of images that surprised me as soon as I took the negatives out of the tank.

And that to me is the magic of film.

Slightly Contrast Tweaked Due To Nagging
From PITA Reader!

At the time of their taking I had an idea that they might be alright.

But you know when you get that nagging feeling?

Anyway, I knew I had something with the first one (above).

It looked good in the viewfinder and generally I find that if that is satisfactory, hopefully it is the case that my equipment (and skills in the processing departments) can take care of the rest.

 
It was taken during a visit to a very tall building indeed and I was just snapping away, taking a couple of 'record' pictures of the scene. Reflections off the windows were everywhere and despite the awe-inspiring vista, everything was quite washed-out.

But then I moved slightly and there it was. 

I waited until the bloke on the far right had started to look out of the window and I (accidentally) succeeded in capturing him looking a bit pensive and also what looks  (to me) like a bit of a beating up going on to the left of him.

Like I say, I knew I had something, but had to wait a while till I could develop it. 

The resulting image took me by surprise as I unravelled the wet and still unwashed film from the reel. It spoke to me in spades. 

Was the guy a mastermind and his henchmen were beating up some hapless nark? 

What was going on? 

I've never had that happen before with film and I probably never will again.

Oh, and what you are seeing is actually a reflection of the goings-on BEHIND ME. 

Suffice to say, I was as chuffed as a big chuffer in a chuffingly chuffed competition.

The camera was my 1958 Canon L2, and the lens was the lovely 35mm f3.5 Nikkor-W from about 1951. The film was HP5 and it was developed (actually over-developed) in Pyrocat.

 

Yes I didn't think you could overdevelop in PHD either; in reality you can't, simply because the tanning continues in the highlights until it is exhausted, however you sort of can to the extent that a negative can become nearly unprintable due to density.

This is what happened with the above - it's thicker than Grannie's Soup; the sort of situation my dear old Dad would have said:

"You could stand a spoon in it".

Why? 

Well, ahem, your, cough, cough, experienced photographer cough, cough, was using his small light meter in an incorrect manner (OK, it had been a long day). 

Not only was the film rated at EI 200, but I was also over-exposing by another 2 stops . . and then . .  . I went daft and developed it to my usual Pyrocat-HD times.

To say it is dense is an understatement. 

There's also bromide drag on it and everyfink.

Allied to this, I decided to print it on really, truly ancient paper, which hasn't helped anything. 

The paper is Tetenal Vario and probably about 10,000 years old. 

I had to print it at Grade 5 too to rescue anything.

This being said, I love the image, and OK, an SLR and a polariser would have done it better (maybe even a digicam too), but the Canon is smaller, lighter, more discreet, silent and (more importantly) was there (well, along with me too).

Slightly Contrast Tweaked Due To Nagging
From PITA Reader!

The next objet-d'art, was the above. 

It's considerably easier to print than the first one and in truth is a far more considered image; being more reflective of film skills learned over a very long period of time indeed. 

In other words (yet again) I am chuffed with it even though precision was thrown to the wind. 

You probably could achieve it digitally somehow, or if not just describe it to The Bots, however that's not where I'm at maaaan.

This was all about me, time, weather and the interaction of photons and silver. 

It actually exists as a physical object in this world.

But first some background!

I recently discovered that my faithful old Gossen Lunasix 3S light meter had been having a bit of a wobbler, and was reading in both the upper and lower ranges. 

I've relied on that meter for over 20 years - it is a wonderful thing, but for it to be dishing up possibly bogus readings I had to check it out.

A friend of mine had mentioned he had a Pentax Spotmeter. 

Fair enough I thought - probably one of the ancient needle variety. 

Well this turned out not to be the case - it's the last version, and I excitedly asked if I could borrow it to cross-reference it against the Gossen.

It's a hell of a machine - fast, accurate and easy to use. 

I would say its only foible is that in low light situations it is impossoble to see the metering circle in the viewfinder; but I got around that by putting my hand in front of it, and taking it from there. 

A white business card would do exactly the same trick in a very dark forest f'rinstance.

Anyway, suitably armed I decided to sally forth into the great outdoors. 

It was an incredibly windy day up here in t'North and I wanted to capture pictures of spray on the River Tay with a Hasselblad 250mm Sonnar. 

The 250mm is a lens as sharp wide open as it is stopped down - it was the same lens that took the famous Earth shot from the Moon and I have found Zeiss' claims about it to be very true. 

All-in-all, a very under-rated lens . . . though extremely hard to use in a picture-making manner.

Sadly my spray pictures turned out to be a complete pile of turnips, however the above was not. 

It's a row of cherry trees that are nearby - I've often wanted to photograph them, but they have proved elusive, however, that morning there they were in the viewfinder looking all lovely with the wind blasting and the perspective compressed out of them. 

LOVELY! I thought.

I was however dealing with quite unphotogenic circumstances:

An extremely strong buffeting wind (not easy to deal with in a camera set-up that is over a foot long)

and

Really bright sunshine (with no lens hood and the sun virtually head-on)

So I rubbed my chin, thought about it a bit, had a rummage, and put a 0.9 ND filter on the lens. 

The film by the way was TMX 400 that had expired in January of 2012, so I rated it at EI 200 just to get some oompa.

 

Allied to this I had decided I wanted to develop the film in Fomadon R09 at 1+75 . . for which I could find no relevant developing times. 

Talk about making it hard for myself. 

1+75 is actually a decent way of using Fomadon - it gives really nice, crisp results. 

Certainly grain can be quite heavy, but hey, IT'S A PHOTOGRAPH! 

Fuggedabootit. 

It just makes it easier to focus when you enlarge it!

So there I was, getting sort of tossed about like a small toy in a wind-chamber, trying to take a photograph.

Suitably protecting the camera (in situations like that fold the focusing hood down too . . . though obviously focus first y'twit.) I metered the central dark portion in the distance and set the reading to Zone III (two stops underexposed); locked up the mirror, pressed the cable release and waited.

The exposure was 35 seconds at f45.

I had no idea whether the camera was getting moved or not - it didn't look like it, but experience has told me that is not always the case.

Although you've done everything you can to make sure your photograph will turn out OK, in situations like that there's simply no guarantee.

However, fortune favours the brave as they say, and indeed, the resulting negative wot emerged out of the tank made me go "WOW!"

That is the magic of film to me.

Apart from the time and effort that goes into each and every film I expose, process and print, it is the almost child-like surprise I get when I first take the film out of the wash water that makes me keep going back for more. 

There's a suspension of reality and a surfeit of anticipation. 

I won't quote Forrest Gump, but you'll know the phrase I mean if I say:

"Choclets". . . 

It is true though - even with the correct skills and years of experience, I think the same phrase can be applied to the craft of film photography.

And that's it - briefer than that pair of shrunken, mustard-yellow Y-Fronts your Mum used to insist you wear.

Till next time, keep breathing, keep looking and don't forget to buy some film (and paper).

H xx