Hold Onto Your Hats

Morning folks - well that was a strange one - sleep disturbed by awakening in room which was completely pitch and then getting a bee in my bonnet and going in hunt of the DVD of Alan Bleasedale's "Boys From The Black Stuff".

Pre-bed it was the full immensity of the Doomsday Clock set at 100 Seconds To Midnight and today awakening to what I once thought were noctilucent clouds, but are in fact just snow-heads; or could it be the drifting souls of all those lost in conflict over the years, demanding that this time something has to stop.

Coo that's a lot of ground covered, and it doesn't even factor in the fact that we're on the brink of something incredibly serious.

The Normality Of War
Dubrovnik, 2017

It is hard as a child born just 16 years after the end of World War II to imagine such a conflagration ever happening again. 

Does nobody watch "The World At War" any more?

It should be part of the World's National Curricula.

 

When I was young, London, even my bits of North London, was riddled with bomb-sites. 

The South Bank still bore scars of bombing. 

Even Neasden, Wembley and Harrow had weed and water-filled holes in the ground, surrounded by hoardings and so on.

My father's kit bag and ARP helmet were in the loft. 

My Ma's pressed steel first aid box, with instructions on how to deal with gas and burns was in daily use.

My generation grew up with war - it was at us the whole time. 

Not just the aftermath of WW II but Vietnam in particular and all the things you got your kids for Christmas and birthdays like Action Man and Johnny Sevens'.

I was fascinated by it with daily playing with Airfix soldiers and indeed anything else warlike I could get my hands on.

And on into adult life, the Falklands and so on.

And then you need to factor in all the other manly, call-to-arms crap, like Korea; Vietnam; Former Yugoslavia; Syria; Afghanistan etc etc . . . drone drone drone . . . Africa, Asia, Middle East, South America, Ireland - my life has been surrounded by it.

On holiday in Dubrovnik, post-conflagration, we saw the repairs to roofs, the scars and history, all worn on the city's sleeve like a badge of honour - and I mean no disrespect by that.

On a trip to Berlin a couple of years later, the walls around Museum Island are riddled with bullet scars.

There are memorials everywhere. Air-craft shelters. The infamous car park. 

Berlin too wears war on its sleeve.

Back in the UK with numerous anniversaries, people still get lumps in their throats talking about Grandad, or Uncle Tom and what they did during WW II.

We're still living with the aftermath of it..

It never ceases to amaze me that, like so many serfs and knights, people can be wheeled into conflict just like that. 

Does nobody think about anything, ever, at all? 

Oh, I need a job. 

Good here's some money, decent grub and sturdy clothing. 

We will become more than your family. 

Now go and kill someone over there.

There's a well-known expression:

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

So why, as a worldwide population, are we in thrall to a bunch of pseudo-silver backs.

All that posturing, grunting, beating of chests and showing what great gorillas they are. 

I'll name no names, but they're all there, from politics and tech, to every single aspect of life. 

Were it not so sad, you would consider it a great joke.

Why aren't they called out for the self-obsessed folk that they are?

It won't happen though. 

Power is meaningful and as such the problem with mankind is mankind.

There seems to be no common cause save greed and money/power - we mire ourselves in old enmity rather than see the bigger picture, which should be, live life, accept and help others, try to be as best a bunny you can be and above all else work towards a greater unified goal. 

It is 100% stupid that this goes by the way- think of the advances that would occur, were it to be decided that mankind needs to work towards a common cause for mankind. 

None of this chest beating. 

No great ape pretensions here.

We have to be beyond that.

Yet time and again we fall back into the same old ruts.

Not only is this depressing, but it is also worrying.

I would draw anyone interested in what could have happened (and bear in mind we're way beyond the measly little weapons shown in this) into the most terrifying and actually prescient piece of documentary I can think of, Peter Watkin's banned documentary "The War Game".

You can find it HERE

OK, it is slightly dated, but the info is still chillingly relevant.

Be very scared.

Holocaust Memorial Berlin
A Surprisingly Solemn Yet Joyous Place
Love and Life Must Triumph.

Holocaust Victims Statues
Jewish Cemetery, Berlin

I know it seems trite to say it, but as usual I had to mention the photography. 

The first photograph was taken in Dubrovnik on the Sony A6000 and 35mm, f2 Nikkor "O".

The others were taken in Berlin on a Canon EOS 50D with the pancake 40mm, f2.8 lens.

They're as war-like as I could muster.

They all show the consequence of conflict, but if this continues, we can sex it up and modernise as much as we like, but I can guarantee the faces of people will look just the same as the statues in picture 3. 

I think, to the young, raised to an extent in the shadow of the shadow of war, armed conflict is going to come as a real shock.

God help us all.

And that's it - brief again but why not - if it all goes shit-shaped this could be it!

Before I go, I couldn't say it any better than this:

They shoot without shame

In the name of a piece of dirt

For a change of accent

Or the colour of your shirt

Better the pride that resides

In a citizen of the world

Than the pride that divides

When a colorful rag is unfurled

Me? 

I am praying to the Aliens.

H xx

Kung Fu Rescue Job

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!

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

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'!

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.

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.

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."

The Good, The Bad And The Fiddly

Morning - I hope everyone is keeping well and safe and greeting the shit-storm of a New Year with typical British stiff upper lip and a tough set to your shoulders. 

Ha, this is nothing like it was when I was a boy.

They used to beat us to bed in the dorm and we'd be awoken by a bugle call at 3.30am for a 16 mile run.

Then it was weights, a hose-down and just as the sun was beginning to rise a luverly runny egg for brekfast,

Cooo, gosh . . . . 

Eugh, gosh!

Made us Britons wot we are. 

None of your Jonny Forener muck round here, all that garlik and unyons and stuff.

Oh no, it's boyled beef, spuds, carots and grave from here on in.

Also just for this year, theres going to be extra reeding, more words, and, chiz, tests at the end.

Coo gosh.

Pleez Sir can we go home Sir . . . .

Anyway, you might recall that at the end of last year I said I was going to have a bash at using a Large Format camera again.

The Wista has been sitting in its rucksack for a few years and there was a likelihood I could punt it over the posts on the games field. 

I won't even mention the Sinar F which is currently safely packed away in a box in a chest in my study . . . no doubt plotting something Swiss.

It was all a bit daunting to be honest, but you know what, I had a go . . . and I enjoyed it too.

So carry on reading whilst your erstwhile blogger has a breakdown and rebuilds opinions as he types!

Haunted Lane

Y'see, whilst having a clear out, I found myself with a surfeit of well-expired 5x4 film - I'd always known it was there, but I just hadn't realised there was so much:

Delta 100 - 12 Sheets

TMX 400  - 7 Sheets

TXP320 - 30 Sheets

TMX 100 - 45 Sheets

So what do you do with so much film? 
Yes that's right - you use it! 

I also decided that rather than hang about in the dark for hours on end (if you're tray processing a sheet at a time, believe me there are better things to do) I would try and find a different developer that might  shorten processing time. 

Bruce from t'OD suggested Adox FX39II, so I gave it a go.

As you'll know, it is generally recommended practice when you footer photographically that you only try one thing at a time, just to see how you get on with it. 

You absolutely do not thow the baby out with the bathwater and change everything at once.

Not me though.

Oh no.

Why do anything by halves?

So:

New developer.

Well expired (2012 some of them) films.

A format I'd forgotten how to use, as the last exposures I had done were in 2016.

Cold weather - nothing better for testing the mettle of a proto-LF photographer.

PVD-affected eyesight, which makes a lot of things (like focusing!) more difficult than they could be.

Oh yes, I was ready . . . but before we get to the main monkey-business, here's some backfill. It's long and no doubt boring, so if you fancy a yawn or are in need of a good sleep, please read; if not just skip it all till you get to the bit that says:

You Can Carry On Now

A long time ago, when I first started taking Large Format photos, I threw myself into it.

I had a Sinar F (for Field, or for those of us who have actually used them in the field, F for Feck Me That Weighs A Fecking Ton!); a 150mm Symmar-S; the world's Biggest Tripod and Head (Linhof Twin-Shank and Gitzo SERIES 5); a Sinar loupe, and couple of nice Toyo DDS. 

Oh and Gumption. 

I carried it all neatly wrapped in a Tee-Shirt Dark cloth, packed in a Deuter 22 litre (!) rucksack, with the Dark Slides in a lunchbox.

Oh boy was I dedicated!

My initial practice exposures were done on cut-up Ilford MGRC slotted into the holders, just to get an idea of things. Those were the days before you could buy the likes of pre-cut Ilford's Direct Positive.

It was a total bastard trying to neatly cut MGRC down to an accurate size under a safelight with a scalpel . . . well actually I didn't even have a proper safelight either, just a Philips red bulb.

But I was dedicated!

I then moved onto film and Kodak's HC110, coz I woz no longer just dedicated, I was serious too y'ken.

I lugged that set-up all over the shop, urban, suburban, haunted sites, woods, hills and one notable trip into the wilds that very nearly killed me (though that is a bit of an exaggeration).

Becoming frustrated by trying to produce contact prints I wanted to print something, so a call to the lovely man at the much-missed MXV Photographic resulted in £375 well spent - a DeVere Bench 504, 150mm Rodagon, all inserts and hand delivered too!

Printing was fun, but I still felt a need to break free, so hunting around I found a new friend.

I have to say, looking back, the acquisition of the Wista made the biggest difference - it was like carrying a kitten as opposed to a struggling bull-mastiff.

Looking back now I wonder where all that vim came from. 

Was it just a younger man's energy and enthusiasm, or was it something else?

From 2007 to 2014 I was like a man possessed, it was pretty much all I could think of.

And then it stopped dead.

For some obscure reason, my enthusiasm wained and I let it drop like a stone . . . right after the acquisition of one of the last 90mm, f8 Super Angulons ever made.

A final 4 more exposures were taken in 2016 and then nothing till this Christmas.

Why did I drop the ball? 

I have no idea. 

It might well have had to do with Hasselblad lust (a known affliction) but I've never really thought about it until, this holiday period, whilst kneeling in the dark for an hour loading all my film holders, I pondered why on earth I had actually taken up LF photography in the first place. 

And it sort of struck me, like a box falling off a top shelf, that it was (I think) a yearning for Validation.

Ah yes, the Heffalump in the room.

I believe I thought (in my Oh-so-SERIOUS-LF mind) that if only I approached photography with a BIG idea and a BIGGER format, I could validate my creative attempts and be taken seriously. . . as a . . . as a . . . ahem, coff coff:

Photographique-artisté

Make that a small herd of Heffalumps.

You see in those days I cherished an idea that someone somewhere would actually like my stuff enough to say:

Here y'go Sheepy! 

Go forth and make photographs you poor unrecognised thing! 

Here, have a grand!

Go and buy some nice gear, you poor thing. 

All these years labouring with a knackered old Rollei T - how on earth did you manage dahling?

I think you're GREAT and that world out there deserves to see your work

Or something like that.

I think we all feel like that don't we?

Maybe it's what drives the hunger for gear we all have.

If only we had better stuff we could make better work.

Tempting isn't it - you could be recognised, or even, gasp, appreciated!

That's a younger man's dreams right there, and fortunately, such a thing never happened.

No one came knocking and nowadays I just beetle about being creative in my own way without anyone asking where the work is.

Self-funded creativity is the only way I think.

An understanding and patient partner is a massive help too.

If you're happy - great, that's the most important thing.

If others like it - great.

And if they don't - well so what.

But back to the main banana, WHY THE MADNESS?

Because, I have to say (rather like me old mate Bruce) I do find a large portion of Large Format photography relatively dull.

I know, because I've taken most of it, so don't get insulted and chuck your Dagor out of the pram.

It's a controversial statement, so let me justify myself. I've railed against it many times on here.

Just as a f'rinstance:

 

Buachaille Etive Mòr from that angle again, on an 8x10 camera and in colour too. 

Jings, just because someone famous took an iconic image of it, why copy? 

That single £20 sheet of colour film is sent off to be processed and printed (roughly a further £10 for dunking and another £10 for printing). 

Approximately, £40 for one colour image.

It's like owning a Rolex. 

Nice, but really expensive and almost pointless, because at the end of a day is it a craving for validation or something else? 

Does spending enough to cheaply feed a small family for a week on one image really make you a

Photographique-artisté?

Don't get me wrong - I'd love to have a go on the likes of a really nice 8x10" camera, and to be able to print it . . . Sorry for knocking a hole in upstairses staircase darling but the DeVere 8x10 enlarger wouldn't fit! 

But I don't necessarily think that having all that gear is going to make your work any better.

By the way, please notice the sarcastic use of work there; it's all over forums and gatherings and I loathe it. 

It's an effette term that's elitist and has all the hallmarks of Art School Bullshit. 

Work often hurts, can be mind-numbing, satisfying, exhilarating, soul-sapping, enjoyable, rewarding, stressful or a form of modern slavery. 

But please don't say photography is work, because it isn't.

Photography is a pleasurable experience that you do because you (hopefully) enjoy and are enthralled by it.

 

At the end of the day, no one is forcing you to take a picture.

So when you finally do decide to go all Ansel, mortgage your kidneys, leave a weeping family group and lug an 8x10 a couple of miles from the car, then give up because you're knackered; plonk your tripod down and think:

This'll do . . .

That is not work! It's Large Format photography.

Is it a form of masochism? Possibly.

Is it an urge for justification of the image? Possibly too.

Is it a craving for validation? Yeah possibly.

I'm not knocking anyone with the hunger to do it - after all I've been there, I can sympathise - you must have iron constitutions, but I am just pondering the reason we do it out loud in an effort to explain things to myself.

Maybe (and you can take this with a pinch of salt) most Large Format compositions are a result of the (not so) complex equation:

Weight + Distance = Image

I had to chuckle when I thought of that one; you see something promising, however, whereas with smaller formats you have the liberty to move around a bit and find something that looks exciting in the viewfinder, you are inexorably tied to that tripod (unless you're using a press camera), so you plonk it down and go through the rigmarole.

You fit camera to tripod; check camera; erect camera; lock down; open lens; compose and focus; get happy; check shutter; check meter; check f-stops; check film holder; double check composition; check focus on groundglass; make sure the corners are sharp if you want them that way; close down lens; stop down; cock shutter; insert film holder; remove slide; wait for fleeting light; take exposure; insert slide; remove film holder and place it somewhere safe; tear down set up, or else, more likely, carry it around (dangerously) on a fully erected tripod to the next place.

All the initial enthusiasm you felt for an image (well all my enthusiasm) can be rendered null and void by this activity.

Phew, is it just me or is there a pontificating twat in this room?

Anyway, again, WHY THE MADNESS when you could have just skipped in with a Medium Format camera and got pretty close to the same image?

I have thought about this a lot over the past few weeks, and I think this is where I (that's ME) am coming from now.

You see it isn't just a question of the ritual, though that is a huge part of it, but rather like doing Yoga or Tai Chi in a park, I think that the whole process gets you into a zone whereby you are entering some transcendental state of consciousness. 

The procedure is part of one whole thing. 

It's almost like a form of meditation and the image is the result of your concentration. 

Weird thought eh.

I am constantly surprised after immersing myself in taking 4 sheets of film, that a couple of hours have passed and all I have done is concentrated my attention on doing that.

Nothing else has mattered.

If you do make LF images though, please, these are just my thoughts, mad though they are - I'm really not having a pop at you - it's kind of addictive isn't it.

I'm there (behind that misted-over groundglass) with you.

There really is something rather satisfying about seeing the world on a groundglass in an upside down and reversed way and gathering all that conflicting information together so that it makes sense to your brain and ultimately to the final image.

It is certainly a challenge to do it well.

I don't know if I'll ever get there.

It actually just struck me, that it has a lot in common with my favourite TV series of the 70's, Kung Fu.

Anyway, you're not here for the pontifications of an old twat are you Glasshopper, you're here for photography . . aren't you?

You Can Carry On Now

The contacts below look utterly shite, and I would agree with you too, but that's what happens when you are trying to ease yourself back into something and trying to remember the process at the same time. 

It wasn't easy.

Gargh!
Delta 100 and TXP 320
90mm f8 Super Angulon

The 90mm f8 Super Angulon was like looking through a misted (it was very cold, the ground glass became condensationy immediately!) black net curtain. 

I hadn't a scooby what was going on.

Giving up all hope, I pointed the camera in a general direction, adjusted focus a bit and let rip.

Compositionally I have committed visual suicide as you can see.

You'll never take me seriously after this.

Developer was Adox FX39II. 

It has made me go hmmmmmm in a high-pitched way . . bit like a mozzie really.

Gargh 2!
Delta 100 and TXP 320
90mm f6.8 Angulon

It was slightly warmer - well the sun was out briefly and the wee 90mm f6.8 Angulon, whilst barely covering 5x4, did the job and I could see the ground glass a bit better, however it doesn't excuse the visual ghastliness of the above.

Maybe it IS that 5x4 thing.

I don't know.

All I do know is that the proportions of a 5x4 image are probably the most difficult to compose with - well they are for me, and strangely, unlike other formats, they seem to imbue the whole pantheon of Larger Format Photographers out there with a similar look - it is very weird.

Is it that the inherent proportions of a sheet of 5x4" or 10x8" are locked against the wider view of an increasingly widescreen world? 

Think about it, we all viewing everything in effectively Panavision.

Your TV is big and widescreen - you're so used to it that anything older than the mid-2000's looks cramped and small.

The world is 16:9 mad.

Over the past couple of years, cosying up with some old boxsets (Frasier, Cheers and Only Fools And Horses) it made me think that the old 4:3 ratio that the world lived with for so long, has far more in common with a 5x4" negative than modern 16:9.

Like the best advertising, auto-suggestion is subtle. Ergo, if you are viewing something W-I-D-E then you are thinking wide. It colours the way you view the world.

Maybe . . and it is a big maybe . . . that is why Large Format photography looks a tad out of kilter to modern eyes.

It is just a thought.

Again the sheets were developed in Adox FX39II. 

Anybody want some? 

OK it is optimised for T-Grain films (lower speed ones) but even with Delta it has produced muddy looking negatives.

Don't mention how it acted with TXP 320.

Look, don't mention it right!

That's Better!
Kodak TMY 400 (Expired 2012!)
90mm f8 Super Angulon

I had come close to deciding to wear the 90mm Super Angulon like some sort of 1990's rapper's neck attire. MC Sheep in the House, or something like that.

Fortunately I chose to lug it and the gear back to the Art College and try again.

I thought I'd better use the TMY 400 because it was the most ancient of the ancient ones I had - it expired in 2012.

The sun was out again, but really low and seeing as the whole slant of the Uni campus is South facing . . . well, what could I do but invoke the gods of flare!

Developer? 

Hmmmm - I stroked my chin - the thought of processing one sheet at a time in Pyrocat for my nominal 14 minutes leant an air of total ghastliness that I couldn't even contemplate it.

I thought again, and herein lies more madness.

It certainly wasn't going to be FX39II!

I've had 2 small containers of HC 110 (the old original un-f***ed-up stuff) sitting in my darkroom for 10+ years. It's gone a bit orange but I thought, why not, so tried it.

My reason there, is that I'd had a bad load on a sheet of film - fingers all over it trying to get the little bugger into the holder - so I thought why not try the developer and if the load was buggered up, I had nothing to lose. 

So, one 5x7 tray, 9ml of HC 110 and 295ml of water at around 20℃; 6 minutes in the dark for development, 1 for stop and around 4 for fix and bingo! A result.

I was so chuffed that it actually looked normal (compared to the mud the FX39II had produced) that I decided to process the rest of the sheets in it.

To say I was delighted would be an understatement.

HC is a nice clean-working developer and the time is very convenient, although these are now salient points as Kodak changed it entirely a few years ago. Plus it is now nearly £40 a bottle!

God bless 'em.

I think if I continue along this route I'll just use Ilfotec HC which is supposed to be virtually identical.

Haunted Lane (again)

Him (again)

The Planet Takes Over

And that's about it really - the above are scans from work prints, quickly done on Ilford MGRC, Grade 3.

I quite like them actually - it's enough to make me want to persist with the Super Angulon's dimness.

By all accounts,  the Super Angulon design is a Biogon derivitive and seeing as you've seen a lot of that courtesy of the SWC/M on these pages, well maybe there'll be an air of uniformity to the images.

Anyway, I'll let you go now - you've read a lot, and they'll be coming around with your cup of tea and scone soon.

Remember to say hello to that nice lad Herman, he might look a bit funny but his heart is in the right place.

TTFN.

Get Stuffed

Morning folks - well it's that time again. 

Time to sit and groan as another mince pie is force-fed into your open, dribbling gob.

Oh yes, It's Ker-ist-mas!

I've had the sprouts on a gentle simmer since October and we're all fully prepared for a day of debauchery. 

Don't you think it's amazing that so much effort and thought is put into just one day and at the end of it, everyone goes:

 "uuuuuurgh, Uncle Tony's stomach has just split, get the hoover will you . . . . urgh . . . well, was that it?"

I do. 

Let's face it, post about 15 years old it looses its appeal don'tcha think? Well, actually, that doesn't seem to be the case with most people and if you are one of them, Wassail!

I do enjoy it though (really!) but, rather like Halloween (and especially what that has become) to me it just seems to be a thing that has utterly lost all meaning. 

I'd love to strip away all commercial aspects of Christmas and see what would happen. 

I do wonder whether people would actually bother. 

But then again, here I am, with a tooter and a Santa hat on my head, awaiting that magical tinkling of bells and the thunder of hooves . . .

Anyway, enough pontificating, you're here for negatives AND positives, so let's get on with it.

There's a lot of reading below, so consider yourself warned. 

It's sort of fun though.

In the words of the marvellous Franco Battiatio in his song Strani Giorni:

"I had fallen into reverie

I dreamed a vague outline

The whisky flowed

Sending me into the past

Action! (roll the cameras)

Here comes a lightning tour of my life!

The two in the corner didn't say a word. "

JANUARY

I started the year off with a Rollei in one hand and a map in the other and got into a new regime with my precious Fridays off. 

I got t'missus to drop me in the vicinity of my work and then headed down through Broughty Ferry and along the Dundee docks waterfront and thence home. 

It is quite a walk - roughly 6 miles.

I liked it so much I did it a number of times.

In a stupidly enjoyable photographic way it was great though - tootling along taking pictures of all sorts of stuff, minding your own business and getting really cold in the process.

Dundee/Bauhaus

It might surprise you, but the above was unfiltered SFX. 

Camera was a 500C/M with 150mm Sonnar . . . 

And no tripod!

Most of it made fairly dull photographs, but I suppose at the end of the day, just what is the point of this stuff we all do?

Are we aiming for world recognition (very unlikely) or are we doing it as a form of catharsis against the madness of modern life? 

I don't know about you, but I find the sense of order in the acts of seeing, composing, measuring, adjusting and then finally taking (not making) a photograph, profoundly comforting . . .

It's a bit like eating 15 Creme Eggs in one session . . .

Well not really, but you know what I mean.

Or do you?

FEBRUARY

Never properly Winter-cold up here, February was more of the same; long walks, poor photos, random finds and fun!

Hurt

The above was taken with my 1971 Nikon F and an old 24mm pre-Ai lens.

I should really have rescued Johnny from his fate.

This was a bin at the side of a hotel.

Lovely.

I was still doing the riverside discovery process, and (strangely, to these end-of-the-year eyes) mentioning something that seemed to be starting to get some prominence in the press - Coronavirus.

Oh and the Doomsday Clock had gone to 100 Seconds To Midnight at the end of January.

Shite

That is the closest it has ever been.

Concerned? Me too.

You can see the timeline here

In the words of my Mother:

"You've made a bloody mess of that!"

MARCH

I got it out of its controlled storage and took the M2 for long walks and had fun. 

I was swapping between the Canon 28mm f3.5 and the Canon 50mm f1.8. 

You could buy these lenses for peanuts years back, but their reputation has slowly increased, especially given the stupid prices of Leitz lenses from the same period. 

Though try and find a 28mm Canon these days . . . 

I like them though.

However, dare I say it, I've had similar results from the old redoubtable Russian Jupiters. 

Ah you didn't know about my Soviet background did you?

Привет, товарищ

Blame a brother with a Zenit E Sniper.

Russian optics are largely regarded as jokes, but there's a fantastic quality to them if you find the right one.

Pyscadelic Pub

Pub shots are always largely hopeless. 

The finest I ever saw was taken by Malcolm Thompson (RIP) of a chap smoking in the Phoenix (in Dundee). 

This isn't anywhere near the same league (though it is the same pub) but it seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Leica M2 and Canon 28mm. Ilford Delta 400 at EI ?1200?. 

All exposures guessed.

Seabraes Bridge

Same Film and lens. 

This is Seabraes Bridge - if you've read FB for a while you'll know I have been photographing it in a certain way for years - well, since it was built actually. 

Curiously, recently, I have started to see official Dundee Council publications featuring the bridge, with exactly the same treatment; that is, letting the reflections (which are many and superb) speak for themselves, so that planes of focus are played with . . . 

Hey, maybe someone from their Art Department is reading this . . and if it is you, HELLO!

Waiting For The Inevitable

Here's one I took earlier - about 3 years earlier actually.

Well before the bridge was constructed.

And also before this chap was ripped off his footings by a storm . . . 

To be left as a disassociated set of eyes in the grass, with . . . 

DOGS CRAPPING ALL OVER HIM.

Camera was my Sinar F. 

The lens was probably a 150mm Symmar-S

Think I was using some sort of compensating developer - what a drag.

After using the M2, fun though it was, it hit me hard that I really AM NOT a 35mm user at all.

Who'd a thunk it!

Seeds were sown. 

Sell the Leica? 

Get it all tootled up and then sell it?

It IS a lovely camera, but really, how much do I use it? 

I actually much prefer the old Nikon F.

I was in not one, not two, but at least five minds . . . 

However, by the end of the year, some stern talking with The Online Darkroom's Bruce has led me to decide to hang onto it and use it - if I sold it and changed my mind I'd never be able to afford another.

Did a stock take and discovered I had a massive stock of film:

20x SFX 120

10 x HP5 120

10 x FP4 120

10 x Delta 400 35mm

+ a couple of boxes of expired 5x4" film (and no inspiration ** - more of this later)

By the 13th of March I was detailing the clearing of supermarket shelves by human locii.

And then lockdown happened.

I wrote: 

"Cold War Paranoia is stalking the land!" 

. . . who knew where everything was going?

And on the 25th, working from home started.

APRIL

After a period of re-adjustment (I don't know about you, but it didn't take long) we all sort of settled into the new regime of working from home.

Gads though, it was hard at times, but me and t'missus dutifully manned our desks - me in here, and she in the a temporary office space in the living room. 

Cup of tea love? 

Magic!

I processed all the colour film I owned (some of it exposed 25 years ago).

The Tetenal kit was about 10 years old too.

Git Out Of Dat Barf - I Need It For Me Film!

It was a proper amateur job, involving washing basins, a bath and hot water, but you know what, much to my surprise the results were absolutely fine.

Who Are You And Why Are You Photographing Me?

Get a roll of Kodak Gold.

Leave it for about 12 years in non-friendly places, like warm rooms etc etc.

Pick up. 

Go "Urgh, wot's this?" 

Stick in camera. 

Take photos. 

Process.

Sheephouse SnappySnaps, we always get your film to you (in the end).

Camera was a Nikon F3, with an old non-Ai 24mm lens.

At the end of the month I took the Hasselblad for a walk around some of the city's old mill areas and was quite happy with the results.

But I've not printed any of those shots, so here's one (of different subject matter!) I took earlier (just to fill up the space and look pretty).

Haunted House Along A Haunted Lane

One of my little lane shots. 

We're littered with them in Dundee - lanes that is not shots. 

This was early morning and I think the 60mm Distagon - the slight glare and early morning haze makes the house look haunted to me - if you know what I mean.

There was a positive from Lockdown. 

We got to know our local area better than before. 

It was amazing how many lanes we went up and came down. 

To be honest, we're very lucky we don't live in a 30-storey tower block in some urban connurbation, rammed with other blocks. 

This small City on the Eastern edge of Scotland does have its advantages.

MAY

May was an incredibly beautiful month - the weather was clement, the skies were bluer (because of the lack of smog particles); birds were tweeting their hearts out. 

Me and t'missus settled ourselves into being a support unit for each other, ageing parents and a son who was missing his social life. I think the whole pandemic has, in a strange way, made familial groups closer.

Time seemed to be a blessing to be used with less urgency.

It was in a way heaven.

I wasn't even thinking about photographs as I needed to catch up and did a spot of printing over a couple of weekends. 

However at the very end of the month, the urge overwhelmed me (well, actually after the worst night's sleep of my life) and I got up really early and detailed a 1960's car park. 

It was quick shoot, but enormous fun.

Car Park

I do so love the light in this carpark. 

I like the concrete brutalism too.

I was so excited by the car park shots that two days later I was out again with a roll of SFX, a home-made infrared filter and the Rollei T.

I was chuffed with the results. 

My old Rollei T (nearly as old as me) still surprises me - weirdly it seems to be one of the lesser-regarded Rolleis. 

You see Rolleicord Vbs selling for more! 

No idea why.

The Tessar is just a single-coated continuation of the original Rollei line before they replaced everything with Planars and Xenotars.

Another Haunted Lane

Set the controls for the heart of darkness.

EI 12 and don't forget your tripod. 

Oh and it's a Rollei so don't forget to move your focus mark forward to f5.6 to adjust for the difference in IR focus.

Good ol' SFX.

I likened it to "HP5+ In A Spangly Mankini" and I still stand by that statement.

To me, .the greatest thing from this enforced period of isolation was Birdsong. 

I don't know what it was like where you live, but having a traffic-free audio landscape populated by birds singing their hearts out, was pure bliss.

JUNE

Ah, flaming June . . . 

It was a lovely month apart from my left eyeball exploding.

Despite this (which sapped any motivation I might have had) I found a great deal on a slightly battered Hasselblad Pro-shade and a 100mm Lee infrared filter.

I tried to do some printing too on Ilford MGRC (expired) and looked out some old prints, among which was this:

Haunted Bridge
(Can You See The Theme Yet?)

This was a 5x4" contact on (torn, not cut!) old Agfa MCC.

Camera was a Wista DX; lens a Super-Angulon f8; film I think was TMX 100.

I was still developing in dilute Rodinal at the time (no, not me you fool, the film).

There's something eerie about it to my old eyes (apart from the cottage at the left, but then there could be a chainsaw murderer living there, so you never know!)

Dere Street

This is a vintage print - about 10 years old.

It was printed on Adox Vario Classic (now gone too).

Camera was my Rolleiflex T with the 16-on (645) masks inserted.

I still love the light in this and there was something about the trees that really transported me in time.

Romans and Royals all used Dere Street.

Unfortunately, in mid-June, a much anticipated trip to Berlin had to be cancelled - drat and double-drat (oh go one then, and triple-drat!)

I bid farewell to birdsong and time and returned to work at the end of the month.

It was like Lockdown had never happened.

JULY

So what do you do with a Hasselblad, a Pro-shade, a Lee IR filter, a roll of SFX and some time? 

Yes, you go and waste it.

I'll say no more except read the specs of your film and filter.

Well, actually you might be puzzled by that statement. 

Basically, Ilford's SFX isn't a true IR film, just HP5+ in a spangly mankini. 

It only works with a narrow range of filters:

WRATTEN 29 - DEEP RED - EQUIVALENT = B&W 091 

WRATTEN 89B - VERY DEEP RED - EQUIVALENT = HOYA R72 and HELIOPAN RG 695

I spent 2 hours carefully taking all these great photos with the SWC/M and then an hour+ developing them only to find I had lots of shots of my out of focus filter ring.

I was so cheesed-off, that the following week I just went to a lost spot in this city, just so that I could and discovered that homeless people (person?) had been using this lost area of land as a camp.

I detailed it here. 

I should explore it more.

Abandoned Latrine

Camera was the SWC/M again. 

The print has scanned well. 

It's bog standard Ilford MGRC developed in the last of my Kodak developer.

Slowly but surely all Kodak stuff is being eradicated from my life.

That is VERY sad, but unfortunately the powers that be price it like they think it's a privilege to use their products. 

For some people (Hello America!) it is like breathing - i.e. a total necessity, oh but the shareholders require a profit . . .

Well. just a thought, how's about this - cut the wholesale price, so that it'll sell at £5 a roll of 120 not nearly £8 and then you'll sell twice or three times as many.

It's simple economics.

Future sorted.

At the end of the month I went and re-trod my own tripod holes around the back of Duncan Of Jordanstone Art College. 

I'd love to get in and teach people film properly. 

Sadly I don't think the fire is there to get people out with a roll of film and get down and dirty with developing and printing it. 

It seems to be (and semi-verified by a lecturer I spoke to) all 'imaging' . . just re-read that word . . . Gaaaaargh! 

Fecking hell . . . Joe McKenzie's LARGE legacy seems to have been diluted to the point of:

"Wot's the point?"

Anyway, 'nuff sour grapes, I'm not quite a miserable old git yet.

My eyes were playing merry hell with me and it was hard to get motivated, but I somehow did.

Ghastly Poster

OK, it is hardly inspiring.

Hasselblad 500C/M and 150mm Sonnar

It's printed up lovely though, on some NOS Agfa MCC 5x7"

There was just something truly ghastly about this aged and splatty poster I couldn't resist. 

My Mum would have called it 'Perverse'.

It never ceases to amaze me that you might keep on treading the same old ground, but there's always something to photograph!

AUGUST

Desperate to break the bounds of my eye-depression, I hit the ground running and went to a sacred site (pre-Dawn) and took what I think is my own personal favourite landscape photograph . . . ever . . .

This is it.

Ritual Landscape

The light was incredible and this felt special as I was taking it. 

Weirdly it isn't entirely sharp across the frame, so I can safely assume my gorilla-like grip on the cable release was causing camera shake.

The tripod was a tad unsteady too as I was perched on a couple of rocks in the river.

SWC/M and FP4+

I like to think that the Old Earth Gods of the place were smiling on my supplication for light and atmosphere.

I couldn't believe it when the negatives emerged from the wash.

The negative printed like a dream.

I have to say, despite the fact I am still paying it off (some two years later!) my Hasselblad SWC/M (Florence) was an investment in pure pleasure.

SEPTEMBER

After years of wishing and asking, I finally got my son up a Munro. 

We had a brilliant day despite the near-50mph winds on the tops. 

It was enough of a pleasure for him to ask when we could do it again!

The Road Home

Y'know, a SWC/M makes a surprisingly decent travel camera.

It's light and not too farty-aboot.

We still had about 4 miles to go, but at least it was all downhill.

The end of the month was a holiday next to one of Scotland's great rivers. 

Please Leave Deliveries In Bag

This was a strange one.

Nothing changed with regard to the bag for a whole week.

Not a very good print though - way too contrasty.

SWC/M and HP5+. 

Such is the wideness of the lens that from the tripod's position I could almost touch the gate.

Faery Path

Imagine being perched on a wall that is on average 4-5 feet high and about 2 feet wide, with a river on one side and thorn trees on the other.

In the twilight.

With a tripod.

Camera was Hasselblad 500C/M and 60mm Distagon. 

Film was Ilford FP4+

It was pure bliss and I was able to indulge twilight walks with a lot of camera work. 

The results weren't great, but the further on I get with this thing we call photography, I realise that that probably isn't the point.

'Faery Path' is so called because the first thing my wife said when she saw it was "That looks faery!'

Whilst on holiday, not to be outdone, my right eyeball quietly exploded too.

That's not one, but two PVDs (Posterior Vitreous Detachment) missus - cooooor, you don't get many of those to the pound do yer luv? Eh!

Dundee Museums produced a Joe McKenzie 'Love Letter To Dundee' exhibition. It was bloody marvellous to see the old masters prints in the flesh again. If all this ghastly lockdown stuff stops and things get back to normal, please find some time to see it (if it ever travels).

OCTOBER

My busiest weeks at work ever meant that I couldn't photograph - I was too knackered and had no days off (apart from the weekends . . . snoooooooze). 

It was a personal triumph to have packed the number of things I did, however I did end up with tendonitis.

A hero of mine, Eddie Van Halen died this month.

It was a tragic end to a true innovator and whilst I never liked their music post-Women And Children First, Ed was a great guy. 

What a lot of people didn't get was his endless search for great sound and yet he had it in spades already. 

A man with numerous patents to his name and a constant thirst to do new stuff, he sadly got tracked into the endless parade of Greatest Hits re-treading tours that seems to plague the majority of 'legacy' acts.

It was almost like caging a Lion.

I saw out the month playing my old Peavey Wolfgang Standard (a guitar he designed) to death, further compounding the tendonitis.

Kudos to his son Wolfgang for not jumping on the making as much money as possible in a short space of time bandwagon. 

Sit tight on your Dad's legacy Wolfie - it needs to be treated with respect.

Women & Children First

Norman Seeff is the photographer

If that doesn't look like a Zeiss Softar on a 150mm Sonnar, well.

There's a softness yet clarity. 

Look up his work - hell of a photographer.

I also managed to find a (fairly) cheap deep red filter on ebay and had a bash at using Ilford SFX with the Hasselblad in desperately DULL conditions. 

How dull was it? 

Well, suffice to say, it was like the sun hadn't risen.

At all.

Ever.

And wasn't going to ever again.

Monkey Wave

I like this.

Basically it was so dark, I pointed my camera at the sky for the sheer hell of it, opened the shutter and this is what turned up. 

Film was Ilford SFX, camera was the SWC/M

I ended the month on only one film shot and processed - there's lazy for you mister.

NOVEMBER

Ah November! 

A month when the skies greyed-out and sun was never seen . . . or at least that's how it seemed.

I would say this has been the greyest Autumn I can ever remember. Normally there's some let-up, but global warming has meant that waves of storms and cloud come in off the Atlantic with predictable regularity - i.e. ALWAYS at the weekend.

It was sheer torture actually - maybe I'll just become a house photographer like Edward Steichen at the end of his life - this being said, I'm not sure whether you've looked at any of Steichen's last days pictures, but for what on the surface seem to be loads of inconsequential stuff, there is a quiet acceptance of the mores of life fixed deep in them. It seems like he anticipated the end. The colours are wonderfully funereal.

Talking of Steichen, I had forgotten I had this:

A lucky find in a charity shop for a fiver. 

The binding is sheer quality, considering it was given as a present to someone in 1963.

It moves me to tears every time I read it.

Taschen - a lovely hardback reprint would be perfect please, and thank you.

It is in my opinion one of the finest photographic books ever made, because it isn't just a collection of great images (which it is) it is more than that, it's a statement that came 10 years after the most terrible conflagration. 

It's an appeal to live and let live, to tolerate (to a point); to accept that no one is ever going to agree with you totally, but that's their human right. 

It is something we all need to think about these days - I think my Mum and Dad and indeed yours, would be mightily pissed off at the state we've got everything into.

Whilst looking around, I found this statement by Steichen which I think nails the art of traditional photography on the head:

“I don't think any medium is an art in itself. It is the person who creates a work of art. It's perfectly clear that photography is different from any other medium — but that's only procedurally.

Every other artist begins from scratch, a blank canvas, a piece of paper, and gradually builds up the conception he has. The photographer begins with the finished product. When that shutter clicks, anything else that can be done afterward is not worth consideration.

At that point the differences between photography and any other medium stop because the photographer has brought to that instant anything any artist has to bring into action for the creative act.”

He's right isn't he. 

Once you take (not make) that moment in time and fix it into place on film, that is it.

You can of course elevate it further through print making, but for a defined moment; a tiny slice of the river of time, well, the negative is the thing.

It doesn't sound like he regarded print making with such profundity, and yet, to me, the two cannot exist without each other.

In this age of screen viewing, having something physical at the end of an often long (and concentrated) process, well, to go all '60's on you . . . it's where it's at . . (man).

Thinking long and analogously about this, howzaboot the following:

If the negative is say, the page, then the print (or prints [as in all you have ever done]) is the whole book. 

A page on its own can be meaningless, but a whole volume, well . . .

Maybe that's a way of looking at your prints and negatives. 

They are your story. 

All the time you've spent making images. 

Travelling and looking and snapping and processing, and eventually turning those small bits of time turned physical, into something that you can show to someone and say: 

"Look, this is mine  - I made all this!"

I've often wondered what this space-consuming collection of old print boxes, plastic sleeves and (occasionally looked at) bits of paper were there for. And now I think I might have found the answer.

They're me.

However, as my old mate, childhood chum and respected Aunty (whom I never met) Ursula K LeGuin would have said: 

'Endless are the arguments of mages . . . '

Anyway . . . onwards!

I've long been intrigued by some of John Blakemore's time-based photographs and so I thought that using a ND would help me copy him. So, guess what, I bought a (slightly faulty) ND off the same bloke I got the B&W red from.

It's a Tiffen. Beautifully made too - actually the bay 60 thread is smoother than the B&W. Neither however compare to 1960's and 70's Nikon filter rings - they're smoother than a pint of Guiness West Indies Export Porter with a Brylcreem sandwich.

However, as I later discovered when I actually re-read his book (surely someone somewhere should reprint it!) he used a view camera and numerous slight exposures. 

I (being a twat) opted for the sledgehammer and nut option and slapped the filter on, stopped down and stood about whilst dodging the reciprocity failure bullet.

FP4 at EI 12?

You betcha!

Balgay Cemetery

I like the plasticity of this image.

It's not a great print, but it will suffice.

I was perched with tripod on top of a bench to get a better feeling of depth and height.

Exposure was about 10 seconds in bright Winter sun.

And that was November.

DECEMBER

Well that's now isn't it, and if you have got this far, thank you once again. 

You know, I've been blogging since 2012.

It has been a consistent commitment from me and though it has settled into a gentle monthly rhythm, I've enjoyed it. 

I know some of you have been reading since the start and I'd like to say a really big thank you to you for keeping going!

As for anyone else, well, dig deep - there's tons of interesting (a matter of opinion) stuff about cameras and the photographic process - you can access the whole lot at the right hand side in the Search This Blog box . . . it's to the right of this and up near the top of the page.

FB isn't a Pleez-Pleez-Pleez-Miss-Pleez-Miss-Look-At-Wot-I've-Got-Miss-Pleeeeeeeeez-Miss, sort of thing like many blogs, no. Hopefully it is a bit more thought provoking than that.

Writing this has helped me (and in turn maybe helped you) through some photographic thought processes and general good practice (uncommon for me admittedly).

Anyway, to round things off, this month I have come to some conclusions and gone a bit mad.

The main conclusion is this. 

The end is nigh. 

You get to half your allotted years and it really strikes you.

So with that in mind, what better way to approach things, but with a new vigour and enthusiasm.

It is so easy to get caught in the 'can't be arsed' frame of mind!

YOU SIMPLY CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN!

So, for next year, or even the rest of this year:

Get Yer Finger Oot.

Get to it.

Take photos.

Make prints.

Blow your pension. 

As a wise man's dead Aunty once said to me:

"There's no pockets in a shroud!"

Too bloody right.

For myself, I've discovered that I have nigh on 90 sheets of expired 5x4" film - most of it is Kodak and died around 2013/2015. 

So I have gone from thinking - I really can't handle a view camera any more, to, right, I am going to crack this bastard and get back on and use the Wista (and Sinar). 

Hopefully this season will see me with enough time to actually do it. 

I've even bought some Adox FX39II because of the shorter times for tray processing. 

Wish me luck.

Ferkin' Hell . . .When Did That Happen?

Anyway, that's it.

As always, many thanks for reading - I hope there was something of use and/or interesting in this. If it provokes thought . . . good. 

If it provokes laughter . . . even better.

I am off now - hopefully it'll be a good long break with a dark cloth over my head. 

I should have something new for you in January, so till then, stay safe and have a brilliant time.

And remember that if you boil enough sprouts now, you can have them all year round.

TTFN xxx.