On Solid Ground (The New New Monkey Business)

This post was brought to you by © NDPC Photography.

(Just in case you're wondering: No Drone, Phone or Clone)

“. . . but that’s why we’re photographers. We’re preservationists by nature. We take pictures to stop time and to commit moments to eternity. Human nature made tangible.”

Ben Ryder (Ed Harris) Kodachrome.

Friend and longtime reader (and great photographer and printer) Omar Özenir recently said something in a comment to me (on one of his posts) that struck home - I'm sure he won't mind if I quote him:

"Over at Photrio someone recommended the name "Promptography" for AI-photography, which I find quite apt. But God knows where this will all lead. I've read about a kickstarter camera that will apply AI at the taking stage, and not in the way that the iPhone does it with it's computational algorithms (I hate those iPhone clouds . . . afaik it started with the iPhone 13 . . . clouds get by default a contrast boost), but for example you take a picture that contains a glass full with liquid and you can order the camera/AI to render it as an empty glass! In my view there has to be a backlash to all this shit, a return to some kind of analogue engagement."

Before I go any further, you should really subscribe to Omar's blog 'Intermittent Agitation' - you can find it here:

https://omozfot.blogspot.com/

Anyway, as is always the case with me, I tend to let stuff distill within and then write.

It occured to me (in line with Omar's comment and the Ed Harris quote at the top of the page) that a hobby has largely been rendered null and void by technology. 

Granted, you can say the same thing happened in the transitioning from wet plate to 'dry' film; from straight renditions of scenes to multiple exposures and composite printing and photograms; from 'traditional' darkroom printing to photoshop, but to my mind, the move from human-based interaction with a scene/subject/moment to machine-prompt "perfection" before anything (or even after something does) happen(s) kind of misses the whole point. 

To-wit:

If everything is "perfect" all the time (even before you've started) why continue?

Perfection can come in many forms.

Decades back, after years of struggling with not-bad but not brill guitars, I came into some money and ordered a custom-made Paul Reed Smith Custom 24, direct from the old factory. 

None of this whammy bar stuff for me - I was a traditionalist and only wanted a tune-o-matic bridge and stop tailpiece a la A Les Paul. 

And I got it in spades, with an exquisite guitar (all Honduran Mahogany, Tiger-stripe Maple and Brazilian Rosewood) that sang like a bird, played like a dream and was, in short, utter perfection. 

I played it night and day. 

And then a strange thing occurred. 

In roughly 1995 I stopped playing entirely and didn't actually play my guitar again until required to (to teach someone) in the early/mid 2000's. 

Now obviously life-circumstances came into play (we had a young family, work, houses to deal with etc etc) but I've often thought about that, and actually came to the conclusion that skill-wise and sonically (and especially on the art-interface [the guitar]) there was nowhere else to go. 

I'd reached GUITAR NIRVANA. 

I couldn't play any better or faster (this was early technical metal for want of a better term); my band had fallen apart when the singer left and I had got to a point where things were no longer a struggle and actually seemed rather pointless.

And you know what folks - I almost feel the same thing is happening again, but on a far broader scale than a wee guy in a room shredding like there was no tomorrow. 

If you can produce "perfection" just like that, why waste your time in search of it?

Why not just describe to your Ai that you would like a seaside scene in the manner of Martin Parr; or a wondrous landscape from the deep wilds like Ansel; or maybe something a bit quirkier, how about a set of Parisian street scenes a la Lee Friedlander ? 

Why not go the whole hog and produce an entirely new set of lost Viv Maier prints?

Do you get my drift? 

There's no longer any empetus to get out there and try and find things your way - sure you might try to emulate your heroes, but you will never be them. 

To a guitarist, it's like being the greatest technician ever and being able to reproduce every incredible solo that, say, Alan Holdsworth ever made, but you'll never be him.

Not only that, and more to the point (and I'll get to this later) who can you trust? 

Is that really a Stephen Shore 10x8 from the 1970's that you've never seen before? 

Did Henri really photograph the devastation of 9/11 but just never told anybody? 

Was Edward Weston really involved in the R&D of the Kodak Instamatic? 

If the online pictures for all of those exist, they must have . . .

Sure a good image is a good image, but in a world awash with good images (technically perfect, all 1's and 0's) who is to say that a human had any part in the (for want of a better phrase, ON SITE) making of that image?

Is it just the crazed world view of A DESCRIPTOR?

In the words of the old tape advert:

"Is it real, or is it Memorex?"

In the words of the Ed Harris quote:

"We take pictures to stop time and to commit moments to eternity. Human nature made tangible."

So where is the humanity in a described image? 

With no interaction between the person at the coalface and the ongoing moment, where is the soul of the photograph?

I know this sounds like art-speak bullshit, but I've always felt a photograph is an interaction between two things - the taker and the subject.

Birthdays are the same - everyone remembers the child, but who remembers the struggles of the Mother to bring that child into the world? I always raise a glass to my Mum on my birthday.

As a photographer, I try to be mindful and thankful for the fall of light and compositional elements within the frame. In other words, my photographs are as much me as they are the subject.

If all that is involved in a scene is a description of that scene, or a cutting out or adding of elements to that scene, then can that really be called a photograph, in that a photograph by its very nature is a stopping of time.

I know a lot of this is philosophical ranting, but as I've said before Fogblog is my fiefdom and I can really do what I want within it.

No doubt there will be many disagreements, but hey-ho, Merry Christmas!

On a further spaceship cruising somewhere in the beyond . . . music!

I actually (contentiously) have a bit of a dislike for streaming services.

 

Why oh idiot from Yore? I hear you cry.

Well, the reason I like radio (GOOD RADIO - let me emphasise that) is that you'll often hear things you aren't that keen on.

That's a bit disingenuous isn't it - you're hoping to hear something you like, but you end up hearing a lot of things you don't like.

But in my weird brain, this can only be a good thing, because it forces you to adapt to new things. MANY times I've heard something on the radio and thought "what a load of shite" only for a number of years later (or even weeks or days later tbh)  to come around and think, Gosh I like that, and in that liking of something I was initially adverse too, I've opened up another door in my brain that makes me receptive to other 'new' things.

It is like Olives. I loathed them when I was young, but now, oh boy, sling me over a bunch of those big 'uns any day of the week. 

Eating and eventually loving something that initially my pallet thought was foul, opened a new world for me.

So where's this leading us, I hear you ask.

Well, if something only ever feeds you stuff you like all the time, where else is there to go?

If your streaming service only feeds you music based upon stuff you like, what are the chances of broadening your horizons with a hellacious racket that eventually becomes a part of you?

In other words, if you only like burgers, you're only going to look at things like burgers. 

As such, in ticking all the right boxes, your algorythmically-aligned vendor is only going to feed you stuff that's related to burgers.

Vegetables are out the window unless it's pickles. And even then . . . . stick some sauerkraut in the mix and you've lost your customer!

I understand it would be easy to turn around from that and say to me:

"But Ai is just another new thing . . give it time . .  you'll love it!"

Thing is, I don't really. It is very dangerous ground. As I have said multiple times over the years, too many apocalyptic SF books back in the 1970's has led me to the conclusion that this isn't going to end well.

It's already widely in use criminally, because someone left the sweetshop door open and whilst a bunch of kids are enjoying free Bazooka Joes' like there's no tomorrow, there's also a healthy bunch who are helping themselves to the cigarettes and have jimmied open the tills. 

In other words for all the sweetness and light (and hopelessly optimistic "tech will save us" brigade) there are as many elements of the really quite nasty side of human nature who have far more weapons in their arsenals than they had two years ago.

Pandora's Box has well and truly been opened.

In other words - tech companies only design for this golden world where everything is far too much like The Eloy in 'The Time Machine' - people flit about in the wispy clothes and kittens skip across sunlit meadows holding hands with laughing mice . . er . . was that that film? Can't remember, anyway and despite that, they're clueless and naiive to the point of utter stupidity.

"Is it real, or is it Memorex?"

I could go on all day, but you'll be getting tired, or have switched out already.

As I said to Omar:

"It is the imperfection of humans that makes everything more interesting - I hate the perfection of most digital stuff - the world isn't like that. It's funny that in these days of Ai-photography everything, the likes of you and I - both anachronisms in our use of darkroom printing - are starting to be seen as last outposts of human endeavour."

Yeah that's a hard one - are film, the physical negative and (perhaps most importantly) the darkroom print, actually the last bastion of traditional photography?

Are your digital files actually moments in time or described moments in time?

Can you prove you were there?

Did they actually have that look on their face?

Was she really surprised when that tiny gnome jumped out of the bushes?

Even more contentiously, are you A Photographer, or A Descriptor?

Anyway, hopefully this will be food for thought. To my mind we've blundered into something that hasn't been thoroughly thought through, but that has generated millions of cash prizes for the people who are in the right place at the right time..

I'll leave with some scans from physical darkroom prints, made by me on 9.5 x 12" Ilford Multigrade Fibre - the new New Monkey Business - lovely stuff. 

They're double-fixed, selenium toned and stored in Secol sleeves. 

They're as real as a sledgehammer to the nuts. 

The negatives (FP4+ developed in Fomadon R09) are real and stored in archival sleeves and boxes.

The only software interaction is a tiny bit of dust retouching from the bed of the scanner - not the print. Also, please note on the fourth one, the scanner has picked up the texture of the paper in a rather cack-handed way

They're as close to perfection as I can get, but they're my perfection and as such (as a "preservationist by nature") I feel an enormous need to continue along this route and try and leave some:

" . . . Human nature made tangible. . ."

That'll probably be the last lot of pictures from this location - you can find the place throughout my pictures from this year - I've done my usual thing and photographed the same place and even the same subjects multiple times. 

The camera was the loaned Mamiya RZ with 65mm f4 lens. 

All MLU and tripod too.

As a total aside, after I had taken these, I'd packed up, and was crossing some extremely slippy rocks when I lost my footing and in order to preserve someone else's camera hit the ground (broken large boulders - quite jaggy ones and water) with a hell of a crash. 

I thought I had split my shin wide open and refused to even look at the wound till I got home. 

It was like two hard-boiled eggs under the skin and the most almighty graze . . and it is still healing some 6 weeks later! 

I was very lucky.

You know, it has occured to me that I could have described these photographs to an Ai and got similar results, but then I wouldn't have the wound to prove it.

And that's it - till Next Year, take care, be good and keep taking the pills.

H xx

Just Me And The Crows

 

Morning folks - my initial title for this blog post was "R.Z. Smells", paraphrasing that old schoolboy book/author joke ("Young Person's Guide to Flatulence" by R.C. Smells) - it just seemed the right thing to do. But I eventually settled on the above which seemed more in keeping.

Actually, the RZ in question is a loaner, a Mamiya RZ - the earliest one. 

It is a genuinely lovely MF camera. 

Sure, it weighs more than 2 galaxies and is bulikier than the Bizmark, but it is surprisingly easy to use and if treated with a bit of time and respect, produces some excellent negatives.

This one nests in in a massive Peli case, with the 65mm, 100mm and 180mm lenses; three backs; auto prism finder; lens hood; two extension tubes and a spare WLF. 

The case full of gear weighs a ton, but you could probably park a baby elephant on it with no problems.

I redid all the seals in the backs as a favour for a friend, so I have been using it with confidence.

I've taken it out for a few trips recently and have found it best to work with it carried in a backpack and then firmly mounted on a tripod. 

The integrity of the lenses is such that you could easily use it handheld at wide apertures, but I'm a landscape sort of bloke and a camera like this works best for me on a tripod.

Initially I found the two cable release system (one for MLU [and on the lens barrel] and one for the shutter [in the standard place]) to be a pain in the articles, but once I was used to it, it was fine and in fact the lovely electronic shutter is a pleasure to both hear and use. 

The mirror is very good too - nicely damped and quite quiet - certainly nothing like my old Pentax 67, which was like trying to photograph using a violently struggling puppy.

This is the third 6x7 camera I have had a go with - the others (Pentax 67 and Koni Omega) gave excellent results, but were nothing like as satisfying (or easy) to use. 

I've also found the 65mm lens to be a very good match to the proportions of the 6x7 frame.

The film backs are wonderful - thoughtfully designed and simple to use.

Someone has obviously thought long and hard about this camera and its users and as such it is a thoroughly professional piece of design - I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

If you are in the market for a MF camera, I would say give it a go - it is a fine machine.

It was a semi-miserable morning when I parked up at a local Historic Scotland site (which I had been to before) and acted like a right yob, in scaling the lowish fence surrounding the whole building. Obviously the fence is there to discourage people like myself bopping about inside and causing trouble, but I am usually careful in such circumstances and am painfully aware of loose stonework. 

There's been a lot of tarting up done inside to what is a ruined abbey, including a fairly impressive oak bracing system for the 13th Century stonework. 

Massive growths of deep and unruly vegetation have been hacked back and sprayed, but despite this, there's still an atmosphere to it. 

One can put oneself back to the time when it was whole and intact. 

The light must have been awe-inspiring and reverential all at the same time. 

As Frederick Evans discovered with cathedrals, tall windows and holy airs make for wonder, peace and a contemplation of the great beyond.

It was lovely to be in such a place with zero visitors or even passers-by. Just me and the crows.

The photos aren't great and I put that down to me struggling to see quite what was going on - the 65mm is a f4 and it is a hell of a lot darker to view things through the VF than you would think. 

Allied to this, with just a general rangefinder spot on this particular screen, focusing and composition were challenging, not to say bloody dark in interiors (even with using a big torch to illuminate focus points.) 

Next time I take it out I am going to clearly demarcate the edges of the frame with masking tape on the VF.

There's also the dread converging verticals, but again, operating on a tripod at waist-height with a 65mm lens, what did I really expect. 

The thing is, I know that if I'd used the Superwide, things would have been very different. 

It probably really is the ideal camera for all things architectural - no focus to worry about, just judge it and then stop down a bit. The torpedo finder can get you into a very close approximation of the actual scene and is easier to use than a traditional VF. The bubble keeps you right, and the lens has little or no distortion - quite remarkable when you think about it.

I tihnk I might go back with it.

Anyway, the film was FP4+ rated at EI80. I developed it for my now standard time of 9 mins and 30 secs in 1+75 Fomadon R09 - as a combination they work very well together. The 1+75 dilution gives a very nice balance between sharpness and compensation - some of these exposures were between 4 and 60 seconds - as you can see there's little blow-out.

Anyway, without further ado, here's a few.

These are all scans from the prints made on  Ilford MG Fibre. 
After a long time of farting around, I have decided to standardise on it - why waste more time trying other options when it is pretty much the only reliable (and constantly AVAILABLE) option in fibre over here anyway.

They've all been archivally processed and selenium-toned . . none of your Ai stuff around here - the bot can't get down the step into the darkroom anyway.

They're printed quite somberly, such has been my mood recently with friends and relations dropping off their perches with a sad regularity.

Having seen so much stuff just skipped - both goods and chattles and artistic endeavours, one almost begins to wonder what the point in any creative pursuit is. 

It's even made me question keeping on with this 'ere blog, simply because (I wonder to myself) who the feck can be bothered reading - I've actually lost two subscribers in recent months which wounds like a dagger in the heart.

We shall see what the New Year brings - I almost feel like I have run out of things to say (gasp!). 

You never know though.

Anyway, the Mamiya RZ - in the words of Jam Kalawinski (you need to adopt a heavy Bolton accent to say this) "Very Nice!"

Christmas is a comin' up fast, so this is it for another year.

Take care, have a wonderfully festive time.

TTFN

H xx

Along Some Rivers

Morning folks - please excuse me for a pinchin' Robert Adams' book title, but I kind of thought it was appropriate.

It's amazing when you're travelling along some road - either well used or not - and you see a small gorge and think to yourself:

"I'd really like to explore that" 

but you rarely have the opportunity, because you're literally passing through (as it were.)

I was lucky enough last year to be staying somewhere where there was a nice wee under-bridge gorge just along the road and I explored and photographed it, and got a decent tick bite to boot! 

If you can help it, never cross a deer path is my sage advice . . oh and don't wear shorts in the Scottish countryside either!

I wrote about the gorge HERE

Anyway, the one I am writing about today is closer to home - just a few miles up the road actually and whilst it is close to a well-travelled road, it is as far removed from reality as possible. 

I have also written about it and shown the photographs before, however recently, doing some tidying up, I realised I'd done some further explorations with a few different cameras and had not shown the pictures - indeed they were stuffed into the side of one of my print drawers. 

(This year has been something else for other stuff going on, so I obviously just put them aside and promptly forgot.)

I do hope it isn't a sign of me approaching T.A.M. (That Alzheimer Moment) as I have recently done a few things that have surprised me including putting jars of instant coffee in the fridge and turning up to a dental appointment a week earlier than I should . . 

Anyway, back to the gorge. 

At some point in its life, it must have been a proper roaring one, indeed there's a small waterfall there that is called locally "The Devil's Cauldron". 

But sadly the force of water (which is actually an accumulation of a multitude of small burns running off the back of the Sidlaws) is now semi-stilled by a smallish loch and what does run down is beautiful, but hardly enough to put Hades out . . this is because at some point in the late Victorian era, it was dammed. 

No Simpkins, not DAMNED.

The dam (I presume) was to provide a regular and tamed water supply to the nearby local village . . but it also provided regulated water to a small fish farm which was built in the early 1900s.. 

The fish farm is long gone (sadly) but it's ditches and buildings and tanks remain and it was these and also the gorge that I explored over several journeys with impunity.

Who's Impunity? I'm not saying . . . .

I think they work well as a sort of series.

They were all photographed with the following:

Mamiya C330F with 80mm Blue Dot.

Hasselblad SWC/M.

Hasselblad 500 C/M with 40mm Distagon.

All images were taken with film (naturally - Ilford FP4 and SFX processed in 1+75 Fomadon) and printed initially on Foma fibre, Ilford MGFB and Ilford Portfolio and then latterly as a series on 5x7" Portfolio. 

Scanned on ye anciente Epson flatbed with no unmasking, debriefing or general shenanigans  

Processed and printed by me, back 'ere at Sheephouse Turrets.

It felt good to be in the darkroom printing this lot.

I've looked back and I don't seem to have published any of these, so go on, sit down, reach for that pint of foaming nut-brown meths and have a scroll.

To be honest, there's quite a number more I could have added, but I don't want you getting all bored and petulant, so I trimmed them. 

I quite like the transition from moody waterfall, to the stillness of a small pool - were I pharty, I could say it is an alegory and metaphor for my ageing . . but nah . . it's just a bunch of photographs that interested me.

Regular readers will know that I've been practicing some digital stuff recently . . well this lot is as firmly schooled in the old school as you can get - can you not smell the fixer coming off the screen?

Are there many people out there writing about printing?

Anyway, I am happy with them - they're especially nice to handle on Ilford's Portfolio (though this will still exhibit a curl depending on weather conditions) but it is a fine paper and Ilford should be bunging me some for the sheer amount of promotion I have given it 😃

And that's it   - a wee stop-gap, before I get out with some nice medium format cameras again.

Take care and remember people in glass houses shouldn't throw gnomes.

H xx

Self Portrait With Doors

 
Morning folks - whilst we're waiting for the film stuff to drop as the kids say these days . . . here's a little digital oddity. 

And please don't worry film fans, consider this as an interlude in between the main meat and potatoes and the B-film. 
Look, there's an usherette down at the front, go and get yourself a Strawberry Mivvi and sit back down!

I recently bought myself a remote control (ML-L3) for the Nikon F750 and initially thinking it was knackered (apparently they don't work very well with Duracells) I decided to test it, and ended up with the picture you see below.

Self Portrait With Doors

It is quite a distance from the camera to me, and the control worked perfectly - all you need is a line of sight to the camera . . you don''t even have to point it EXACTLY at it, just its general vicinity.

The weird thing is, I am decidedly happy with said photo . . . 

As a long-time, now non-time, reader once said, I am always putting doors and gates and windows in pictures - could it be some weird Freudian indication of my inner feelings about art and self-expression? To which I will reply, after some years of reflection (and in the words of the psychiatrist in High Anxiety):

 . . Bullshit . . .

I just like them (doors, windows, gates etc etc).

Anyway, the journey to said photograph begins in the manner below - please bear in mind that I was playing, and as such, absolve myself of all responsibility as to their content or merit and the lack of . . . .

I think they're quite funny including the no-holds-barred horror selfie (5th photo).

Nice And Comfy

Is This Thing Working?

The Light Didn't Go On

It Didn't Go On Again

F'ing Technology - It's Still Not Going Off!

Maybe It Did That Time

Calm Returns - How Far Can This Thing Reach?

And that''s it!

Briefer than a wrong-way-around sparkly mankini!!

The lens was a 50mm f1.4 AF-G Nikkor - they're reasonably cheap for a prime and give an excellent quality image - well worth exploring. 

The remote is actually incredibly useful.

I've used it since like a faux cable release and MLU lever in a situation whereby the camera was precariously balanced on its tripod, on a bunch of brambles and was leaning into the subject - it worked great, zero movement and the added convenience of not getting your danglers entangled in sharp and scratchy bits.

When spare time comes and revisits me, then I shall get myself out with some more film, but in the meantime, and in the interests of keeping my fingers and brain engaged, thank you for reading.

It's a daft post, I completely agree.

TTFN and keep taking the pills y'bampot.

H xx

This Little Bird

 There's a little bird that somebody sends

Down to the earth to live on the wind.

Borne on the wind and he sleeps on the wind

This little bird that somebody sends.

He's light and fragile and feathered sky blue,

So thin and graceful the sun shines through.

This little bird who lives on the wind,

This little bird that somebody sends.

He flies so high up in the sky

Out of reach of human eye.

And the only time that he touches the ground

Is when that little bird

Is when that little bird

Is when that little bird dies.

© J. D. Loudermilk

Morning folks - a strange start I know, however, as with a lot of things these days, happenstance comes along and takes a thought process on a different route. 

I took the photographs in this blog a couple of days ago, on unfamiliar gear and trying to surmount a steep learning curve.

I was doing the dishes this morning and listening to one of the world's great radio stations - BOOM - it's in the UK and on the net . . (BOOM ROCK is superb too, but that is only net.) 

Anyway, Graham Dene - a DJ I have listened too since London days back in the mid 70's - played the Marianne Faithful version of J.D. Loudermilk's 'This Little Bird'.

I was immediately struck by its poignancy and relevance to a photograph I had been thinking about all night.

J.D. I think was referring to the Bluebird Of Happiness - a quaint and very old-fashioned thing,  yet so wonderfully powerful in its meaning. 

If only more people spent their time looking for it, rather than relishing some argy-bargy, the world could be a better place.

Am I the only person who loves the film K-PAX? 

Anyway - I am rambling as usual - back to the meat and potatoes - learning curves and unfamiliar gear.

Long-time readers will know that I am (to quote Joe Walsh) an Analogue Man.

I've dabbled with digital and more often than not hated it.

So, recently when hit with the phrase:

"We'd like you to do some colour photographs . . you're the official (and only) photographer . . ."

for my son's wedding . . . I thought long and hard.

The old Sony A6000 would not cut the mustard. 

In truth it was useless as a useable camera; the battery life was poor and it handled like an articulated lorry travelling at speed on an icy road. 

I thought even longer and harder about it and realised that I hated it.

(If ever a camera had been designed by someone who designed consumer goods (fridges etc) for a living, then it was almost the epitomy.)

I thought back to a Nikon D300 that I also used to own - again, no happiness there - I couldn't get my head around the crop factor and the lens I had with it, turned the whole thing into a boat anchor. It took decent photos though.

A brief passing: the Fuji 27mm f2.8 XF Lens coupled with an X-E2S - in truth a nice combo which proved to be unreliable.

I thought back further: a Canon EOS 50D with 40mm Pancake. Now that was a camera I enjoyed using (apart from the crop factor and being forced into buying a lens that was too long for my vision because of relative poverty at the time.) It felt like a proper camera though.

I remembered our stolen Lumix DMC-F5 - I used it, but it was definitely not a camera you could use for normal photography.

As you can see, I've had little luck on this front and it hasn't been for want of trying.

Why not use colour film? was a common suggestion . . . 

But have you seen the price of it? 

Also with something that will hopefully be treasured in years to come, the thought of doing my own C41 processing in the bath like I did a few years ago . . or surrendering such a precious cargo to the rigours of the postal system  (. . . oh sorry Guv - we've got no record of that . . . ) well it was too much to bear.

Plus, it would also have cost a fortune if I took a ton of pics.

In an ideal world, it would have been Tri-X in a Mamiya C330 for the main monkey-business and a Leica M2 for informals . . . but it isn't an ideal world and to be honest, travelling for a wedding means your weight constraints go out of the window . . .  A 330 in hand luggage . . . ? Hmmmmm.

So I retired to my hole in the ground and did a huge amount of reading; I asked really knowledgeable friends; I did more reading . . and came to a decision.

The Sony and some other camera gear was punted and I ended up with a nearly new Nikon D750 with a shutter count under 4K. In truth it looked barely used.

For lenses, well a 24mm natch (as I prefer the wider side of things); but for those all important wedding portraits?  Go for what you know (as Pat Travers once said) was the order of the day - so I got a very reasonably priced 50mm f1.4G.

The previous wedding I had photographed (our neice's) was centuries ago with a Nikon F2 and 50mm f1.4 pre-Ai so it seemed happenstansical.

Anyway, it worked. 

Once you get your head around the multitudinous options, the 750 handles like a proper camera. 

It's got a fantastic battery life, takes excellent images and is really a cinch to use. 

I am thoroughly enjoying it.

On the day itself it proved an accurate and reliable companion  . . . and . . . if the film world went belly-up tomorrow, I feel confident that this relatively small digital dinosaur would keep me going.

Surprised? So am I!!

Into this mix of something I've never really approached properly, this Wednesday past - came something else . . 

A ZOOOOOOOOOOM. 

The 70-300 VR Nikkor to be precise.

I have never got on with zooms, even though I own a pre-Ai 70-200 Nikkor (the legendary one). 

It's just never been my thing and I have hated the bulk and sheer "Oh bleeding hell - he's taking our photo . . . Go on darlin', HIT HIM!!!" OBVIOUS aspects of using one.

Friend Bruce has been exhorting me for years . . but I never capitulated. 

BAH! HUUUUUMBUUUUG!!

Anyway, getting the loan of one from my friend Neil and I thought, I really had better give it a go . . . and you know what . . it was a revelation.

No slinking about trying to serruptitiously snap passers by. 

Nope, I was going full-on-separation-of-colourful-elements-from-the-general-scene. 

Now THAT is a scene man . . 

Dead Gull

And that kind of brings me to the above photo.

Allow me to wax lyrical . . I was going to anyway.

Are those colours Pre-Raphaelite or what; they remind me of John Millais' Ophelia for some reason.

It's just a converted JPG straight from the orignal RAW file with nothing done to it.

No farting, no faffing and definitely no AI.

I saw the feathers mixed in with the other detritus, and thought 'that looks nice - shame about the piece of polystyrene but I'll include it as it's a bit of a 'don't shit where you eat' statement.'  

I zoooomed in, steadied the camera on a railing and took the picture.

It was only when I got home later and started looking big that I saw that the polystyrene is none other than the floating body of a Common Gull.

For all that seagulls are probably the most hated bird in Britain, they're in deep trouble. 

The changing world is changing their food supplies - it's actually no surprise they recourse to McDonalds and such-like. Indeed other seagulls too in times of need - pity they're not that bothered about Magpies.

The picture makes me feel deeply sad, and yet in death the remnants of this bird and the other detritus have achieved a strangely beautiful (to me) state of grace.

Normal, film-based stuff will resume soon - I crafted some prints back in about July - I firmly think they're the best prints I have ever made. 

I took them along to the forum and they barely elicited a murmur . . not that I take stuff along for comments, but these were as fine prints as I have ever made in decades of printing. 

As such I found it disheartening.

Hence the colour stuff.

I've actually always wanted to explore colour more - it is eminently suitable for grotography - and now I can to my heart's content with a digital camera that actually acts like a camera.

Anyway, that's about it - short and sweet.

We'll see where things go from here. I've been loaned an inkjet too, but just in case you've brought your tea up, I was in the darkroom printing just this week . . so all is right with the world.

Lonely Gull

Oh and the above - a lonely gull is probably wondering what has happened to their pal. 

It wrings yer withers doesn't it?

The concrete is the Tay Road Bridge and beyond you see what I believe to be the old foghorn foundations in the middle of the Tay - now beloved by cormorants.

Till the next time, keep taking the tablets and watch out for the normal people.

H xx

Photographing A 'Ghost'

A provocative title perhaps, however this is probably one of the strangest things that ever happened to me photographically.

Readers of FB will know that I have long railed against digital photography, however I have often used it!

Starting with the Lumix DMC-FS6, through to a Canon EOS 50D with 40mm pancake; a side road into a Sony A6000 with a Metabones adapter and then the Sony kit 16-50 lens; all via a visit into the world of biggish SLRs in the form of a D300 plus 18-70 DX zoooooom. 

I've actually owned more digital cameras than Bruce from the Online Darkroom, but not quite as many as my friend who must have gone through about 15 (and still has them).

My main thing (along with the inevitable: how am I going to keep this lot organised?) has also been the intangibility of medium. 

Sure it is there onscreen and you might have even printed it out . . . but it really isn't the same as reaching into a cabinet, locating the right folder and pulling out a sheet of negatives.

I find the stack-ups of duplicates and also-rans quite frustrating.

Now I realise the odds of me seeming normal in this nouveau world are about 20 Trillion To 1, so I have decided that rather than hiding in the corner, clutching my head, I am going to go down fighting.

As such I started reviewing all my old digital 'negatives'; trying to get stuff organised and unduplicated and into some sort of ship-shape and Bristol fashion.

And one morning, I got a surprise.

Entity or Tramp?

Many moons ago, whilst on holiday in Rome (and toting the D300 AND a Leica AND a small Lumix!) we came across this chap. 

It was very sad - Rome has plenty of homeless people, rather like most cities these days - you just feel so helpless. 

Anyway, after some debate and the fact he seemed to look sooo peaceful (despite his lot in life) I quickly stepped back and took the above photograph.

Walking off down the road I debated with myself, simply because I am not fond of such photography. Anyway, a couple of hundred yards away, we looked back and there he was, standing upright. 

He was making pulling movements with his hands rather like he was bringing in a net. 

I thought it very strange. 

As he was looking back down the road at us, it also looked like he almost knew us and was being friendly and doing some sort of strange wave.

Off his nut I thought in typical Scots fashion and thought no more of it, until, after an exhausting day in red-hot heat, we got back to our hotel and I had a quick review of the images.

He wasn't there.

VERY ODD were my initial thoughts - I hunted through the memory card plenty more times, but him and his image had definitely vanished into thin air.

I'm not given to too many flights of fancy these days, however, the more I thought on this, the more I wondered if maybe I had photographed 'someone' or 'something' I wasn't meant to photograph.

Had his gesticulating and the pulling in of his 'net' actually been something else?

Had he actually taken back the image I had taken from him?

Daft eh?! Well, I am usually up early and drink too much tea, so you can probably add those into the equation.

You could probably call my thinking fanciful - I certainly did over the intervening years. 

I reviewed my Rome images more times than I can remember; playing out that scenario in my head loads of times, to no avail. 

But no matter what I thought, one thing was certain . . . . 

He had gone.

Then, a few weeks back, whilst having a weed-out of old photos (all [before you question my storage options] from the same place they are usually stored) - there he was.

Still asleep on that warm Roman morning; as peaceful as ever, but back in my life.

I was so shocked (and joyful!) I immediately called t'missus (who had obviously known about it from day one.)

She was pretty astonished too.

I have no idea how this happened (or indeed what happened) but it did, and just as I have told it. 

Did I photograph something or someone I was never meant to photograph? 

Is it possible that they pulled back that digital file . . and if so . . why has it reappeared now?

Was there any chance the physical world (albeit 1's and 0's) could be disrupted in such a way?

I really don't know - there's far more going on (despite our pretensions) than we're ever aware of in my opinion.

Whatever it was that happened, I have no real explanation.

And indeed no LOGICAL explanation either.

All I can say now is that if he/it was operating on some other plane, maybe they could help me get back my old Lumix which was (how shall we say?) requisitioned by some lovely person after being accidentally left on a park bench for 5 minutes on that same holiday . . . . 

Till the next time. watch out for the explicable.

H xx