Rescue Job

Welcome to a tale of horror that awaits even the most experienced photographer - yes, it's that old arithmetical conundrum:

Confidence ÷ Carelessness = Total F-Up!

Oh yes, sometimes, the shit hits the paddock and all you are left with are some nice memories and a severely underexposed film which yields virtually nothing.

Look, here's a hankie, wipe your nose and get over it.

OK, technically (to my eyes) the print below is OK, because I've managed to rescue it but on the whole, for film #66/52:   
£4.70
went down the toilet.

A Smashed Window On A Dull Morning

                           

Well, what can I say? How did I get there?

A Brain Fart? (Well, to be honest, I've never understood this expression, because unless you are really unlucky and digestive gasses are exiting your nostrils, mouth and lug'oles ['cos you've been wired up wrongly] then there's no such thing as a Brain Fart)
So did I knock something off on the meter and misread every single scene?
Well, erm . . NO!
Some mystic mischievous elf fiddled with the meter reading wheel thingy whilst I wasn't looking?
Well . . .
Actually and being brutally honest, hands up . . . IT WAS ME!

Y'see, it boils down to being far too over-confident and blithely thinking that I could get away with a rough (AND wrongly interpreted . . . gargh!) shadow reading at the start, then trust in the film's latitude and be fine from there . . .

Sadly (or perhaps not sadly . . . sorry to bring the argument to the fore again Bruce) you learn from experiences.
In Scotland, if you're handholding a camera and it isn't bright sunshine, and you're rating at anything less than about EI 400, then readings around and above 1/30th at any aperture smaller than f8 really have to be taken with a pinch of salt.
This probably won't occur in your part of the world, but it does up here.
Of course you can easily go lower and slower, but it requires extreme care a steady hand and confidence in your own lack of endemic shake, and not happy snappin'!

'Endemic shake'? 

Well, yes, everyone does, whether it be a bad positioning of your legs, breathing at the wrong moment or just a lack of concentration.
Even the old Roger Hicks' tip of breathing in, composing, and as you GENTLY exhale, releasing the shutter, will sometimes fail you. Though actually that is a fantastic tip that I have put to good use more than once.
Anyway, to get back to the whole point of this, I F-D up big time!
The contact print below looks semi-OK - believe me it isn't - I've had to do some jiggery-pokery to get it to such, so any comments like:

"Oh it definitely looks better on the contact" 

won't be appreciated..

FILM #66/52

Film #66/52

Right so here's my notes for each frame - seems dull . . maybe it is, but when the going gets tough, the tough have a cup of tea:

#66/52, HP5 EI 200, 6/1/19

1./ 1/8th, f5.6, ZIII Gate
2./ 1/60th, f11, ZIII
3./ 1/125th, f8, ZIII, Ali
4./ 1/30th, f11, Z?
5./ 1/30th, f11, Z?, Bridge
6./ 1/15th, f11, ZIII, Rail
7./ 1/15th, f11, ZIII, Window
8./ 1/15th, f11, ZIII, Refl.
9./ 1/15th, f11, ZIII, Shatter
10./ 1/15th, f11, ZIII, Elec.
11./ 1/60th, f.5.6, ZIII, Ali
12./ 1/15th, f8, ZIII, Mausoleum

All handheld and u/exposed

PHD 5+5+500 21℃.
Agit 30 sec, then 4 per min,to 17 mins then stand to 21. No waterbath.
Shame  - some good stuff had they been exposed properly.



Funny, when you look at it I am sort of within my recommended times, so I'll just say that I have not a clue as to why what happened, happened,  'cept I must have made a total balls-up on my initial reading.
Anyway, faced with such a dog's dinner of thinness, what did I do?
Too right, I had a go at printing some of them!

I had to have a go - maybe it is masochism.
Anyway, old pearl finish Ilford MGRC got trawled out, a swearbox was placed next the darkroom door and away I went.

Mausoluem

There's virtually no bones on the negative - it's thinner than the top of my head. I figured that printing on even Grade 2 would render a soot and whitewash finish, so I had a wee chat with myself, and printed it on Grade 0.
Low Grade printing is something I rarely do, 'cos my negatives are always perfectly exposed 😀

But this was a different case, so Grade 0 it was, however even that proved to be too much, so what did I do?
Yep Potassium Ferricyanide.
The more I use it the more I realise that it is a dangerous thing.
Very easy to get over-confident and leave a print in till it is a shade of its former self - you'll also get a yellowing of the print if you're not careful, and such is the case here.

Allied to this, in a spirit of 'F-IT, why not?' I (frustrated at the seeming lack of bleaching that was going on) added MORE crystals whilst the print was in the solution and this has led to that streaky bit at the left side of the door that looks rather like I have captured a spirit exiting the scene.

I quite like this actually - when it happened I snatched the print out, washed it, re-fixed and then placed it in the washer.

It's a physical artefact, albeit a flawed one.

Old City Best Seen Through Glass

This was an unusual one - there was so little exposed material on the negative that I did wonder whether I could achieve anything.

The exposure even at Grade 0 was incredibly short, though I did add an extra 4 seconds at the lower section just even things out. Despite all this it was still incredibly dark, so, what did I do?

Yep, Pot Ferry.

It was fascinating to watch the sky because though initially it was really dark, in transition through the bleach, I saw a reflection of myself before I over-did everything and rendered it as you now see it.

I then washed it.

And again, in the spirit of F-IT, I did something highly unusual.

I've got a bottle of Agfa Viradon - their legendary brown sulphide toner from days of yore. It's at least 15 years old, so I thought F-IT, mixed some up and bunged it in and left it there for around 5 mins and indeed, much to my surprise, it has given the print a subtle 1970's brown flared trouser look - sort of velvety.

It seems to suit the washed out view in a morose sort of way.

After that, I took the print out, bunged it in a weak Sodium Sulphite bath, rinsed it and then chucked it into some selenium!

You'll not find this sort of work mentioned in The Print, but, so far, no stains.

Après selenium I used hypoclear - actually it was the bog standard Toop Sodium Sulphite mix again.

And then it was into the wash.

Of everything I printed in this session, this is the one I am going to revisit with proper paper and attitude. It would suit being bigger - maybe the few sheets of Agfa MCC 9.5 x 12" that I have left would be appropriate.

I like it a lot.

At the end of the day, whilst this probably doesn't hold with traditional darkroom practice, I think you do have to have a bit of a muck-about with things. And yes, you can even end up with a physical artefact that you could look at 20 years from now and say:

"Why on earth did I make this???"

A Smashed Window On A Dull Morning

Well, yes I suppose this is the poster boy of the whole session. 

The thing I would say in my defence (yes I KNOW it is poorly composed and taken) is that the bridge we were on wobbles like blancmange the moment anyone steps on it.
Look, there were people coming, lots of them, I was cold. The thought of being jiggled around like, well blancmange, whilst looking daft, holding a really unusual camera really didn't appeal to me.
I even had awareness of being a bit selfish when we were supposed to be on a walk together and there I was a snappin' away (actually my darling wife minded not a jot, but all the same) so, I initially didn't notice this, turned around, noticed it, ran back and snap.
So, it's sort of level but had I gone lower it would have been MORE level (no converging verticals). 

This one was actually a tad over-exposed too as I was shooting into the morning light and the 'shatter' was damn hard to capture.

Anyway, in the darkroom again, a short exposure on Grade 0, normal develop and fix, then Pot Ferry (which made the shatter crisper and also brought out those light marks on the glass).
It was then washed and toned in selenium and hypo'd again then washed.

There's little drama with this one, but I like it, as there is something about the way the cracks have juxtaposed light and dark (they're dark at the top and light at the bottom) that gives an air of unreality to it (to my eyes).

But then again maybe I am just talking out of my arse.

As a non-exhibiting, non-involved in clubs/'arts'/exhibitions/foundations LONE photographer, I have to do a lot of talking and convincing to myself:

Is this stuff any good?
Good?? Define good?
Well, y'know . . 'good'.
Well, I suppose it depends on your definition of the word.
Drone . . . drone . . . drone.

Maybe you recognise your own conversations in that.
It's tough isn't it.
I suppose all this blog is, is some way of getting all this stuff littering my house 'out there'!

I might have a go with it on Galerie - we'll see.

And that as they say is that. Thank you for reading. If you feel inspired to have a fart-around in your darkroom, feel free - just remember the gas mask - I'd forgotten how wonderfully awe-inspiringly, smelly Viradon was. It quite reminded me of myself.

Oh and I forgot to mention that the camera was the Hasselblad SWC/M, which made for a challenging (but fun) lightweight walkabout camera.

I'll maybe have to revisit this bunch of negatives again and print frames 1 and 4 too - that first one is damn tantalising.

That's all - TTFN, be good, have fun and remember to keep eating your peas . . . yes even those ones that have rolled away over there.

The Black Hit Of Space

Mornin' Varmints - well, what a snooze that was!
Ar yes m'dearios. Me and Mog finished off 16 stone o' Turkey leftovers on Boxing Day, settled ourselves down for some well-earned shuteye and the next thing we knew it was the 4th o' January!
"Well," I said to Mog -"Happy New Year to you, old friend."
"Happy New Year Cap'n," he said back.
That's weird I thought, he couldn't talk before we went to sleep.
I did wonder whether it were something we ate that was affecting me hearing, so I asked him,
"When was ye born me old soak?"
and he said,
"That's no' clear to me Cap'n. I can only remember the sack and the water."
And I thought, that's good enough for me. If it were my ears playing me up, he would have said something like the 24th o' May.
So I believes him.
Imagine that.
A talking cat.
I'm not going to let too many folk know though - there's a ton of people would pay a pretty penny to own one.

***

Been out all night, I needed a bite

I thought I'd put a record on

I reached for the one with the ultra-modern label

And wondered where the light had gone

It had a futuristic cover

Lifted straight from Buck Rogers

The record was so black it had to be a con

The autochanger switched as I filled my sandwich

And futuristic sounds warbled off and on

(The Human League - The Black Hit Of Space)

***

This week I genuinely wasn't going to write anything - call it Post Festive Disorder (PFD) - I didn't get half what I expected done, but I did have a fantastic time, which resulted in me indulging in one of my favourite pastimes ... reading. Lots.

Anyway, I got to Thursday morning this week and a little demon appeared on my shoulder and said 'You know, they're waiting . . .', so I thought Och bugger it and started. So this week's FB will be a little less heavy on the writing being as I've only had a couple of days to get it together - my apologies, but, given my subject matter it seems very pointless to regurgitate potted histories as the world is littered with them . . so here goes.

There's a dirty word still bandied around photographic circles.

It's pretty seedy and in fact, even though (and despite) the fact that it gets mentioned more now that it has been in the past hundred or so years, it's still a bit iffy. 

People get uncomfortable.

They stretch their collars, shuffle their feet and cough.

It is an unmentionable.

However, for myself I will stride into the arena, wearing my frock coat and winged collar, pommandered hair set nice and solid, moustache waxed to perfection and say, to me, there's never been a movement like it.

It was born from passion and enthusiasm and ideas of lofty artisticness way above its station.

It lived briefly like a Mayfly, wings glittering above the fast running waters of life in a dance of beauty, and then committed suicide. 

And when this tradgedy was all but enacted? What happened then? Why, its corpse was buried in a pauper's grave and its memory trampled and left to be picked over by dogs.

Sounds melodramatic eh? Well it sort of was like that.

And to what do I refer?

Brown paper bag ready?

Pictorialism!

Ah the Gods - PICTORIALISM!

Banner For The Photo-Secession

The greatest, most profound and beautiful photographic movement there ever was.

Lambasted, criticised, cynicised, ignored, Pictorialism stands large in the history of photography as a beautiful jewel.

Strangely I would say these days that is it arguably more important than Ansel Adams and Group f64. How's that for radicalism.

All of your realist movements of the 60's? As nothing.

All the shite that passes for 'art' photogaphy these days? Total bollocks.

You see, somehow, it has transcended its lowly grave and ascended to the heights.

Pictorialism, [which I am sure would be to the surprise of Mr.Alfred Steiglitz (its driver and mentor)] has become something other. As a movement I feel that there has never been another as profound or influential.

You see friends today, Pictorialism is all around us.
It's in films, on television, on posters and in magazines.
It influences and drives like never before, partly I believe because it saw the way naturalistically.
Think about it, and the world isn't really hard-edged at all. Centrally to your eyes it is, but the periphery? Blurred. And that blurriness and softening of image in the majority of Pictorialist photographs is incredibly naturalistic.
I think it is almost why the images speak so well.
Yes a lot of it was done to mimic 'painterly' techniques, but when photographers are already dealing with absolute realism, why not try and show it in a way that could be considered more 'arty'.
The Pictorialists were working with uncoated lenses, and there is a tendency nowadays to believe that lenses from that time (late 19th early 20th Century) were somehow not very good and soft.

This is a misconception.

Most of the greatest leaps in lens design happened in those times.

Ancient lenses can be softer, however they can also be as crisp as you like. There are incredibly wide variations in them, however Pictorialists, semi-eschewed the standard ones in favour of 'portrait' lenses (so called because they were able to soften an image to make it look softer. It was never good as a working photographer to have your customer's blemished skin shining out of a photograph) which when turned to landscape and still life and figurely photographs rendered things deliciously soft.
Pictorial pictures mostly exhibit a beautiful depth too, which somehow, to my mind, sends them over the edge from being a photograph. They are so very natural looking, possibly because my eyesight isn't what it was, but maybe that naturalness is apparent because of their lack of definition. Its the reason I suppose why all hard-edged CGI images in films look somehow so wrong, and why ordinary non-super-imposed filmwork looks so right.

Soft images are laughed at today, they are.

They are seen as being 'Romantic' in a brutal world, but to this I say what is wrong with Romanticism?

God knows the world is difficult enough - if a photograph can touch your soul because it is soft and ethereal looking then all the better.

Of course I am tarring every Pictorialist there ever was with the 'romantic soft image' brush - it was in reality a little like this, but then on the other hand you have Steiglitz's 'The Steerage' - as modern as you like. And of course, the nail in the coffin, Paul Strand's disturbing and harsh and beautiful 'Blind Woman - New York 1916', published in 'Camera Work' the journal of the Pictorialists and as loud as any death knell you could wish to hear.
I could go over this forever, however it is digressing from Pictorialism.

I won't write a potted history of it - pointless - there's loads of stuff on the web.

What I will say is that it repays studying. In spades.

From Clarence White to Paul Strand, from Annie Brigman to Edward Steichen and Frederick Evans - names that have greatness hewn into them.

To be honest I could have chosen twenty images to illustrate this, however I will just go with one which I believe to be the greatest . . but then that's just me.

Clarence White's 'The Orchard 1905' could have been top (it is an image laced with meaning drawn deep from Christian spirituality, and for all its carefree appearence, it is as set-up as a photograph could be) however it isn't.



Clarence White - The Orchard, 1905

To my mind the finest thing ever published in Camera Work, and that is a tall order, is something so old it is modern. It is so poetic, it is a script waiting to happen. Like all great photographs, it tells a story, and can also inspire a story in your head.

Are you sitting down?

Probably my favourite photograph ever is by a man called Mr.George Henry Seeley.

It is called 'The Firefly'. 

George Henry Seeley - The Firefly, 1907

It was made in 1907.

I love this photograph.

It is about as perfect as a photograph can get.

Yes it is soft focus. Oh God isn't it beautiful?

Compositionally, I don't think you could do better actually.

The curve of the bowl leads your eye in.

The woman (his sister I believe) is beautiful in a timeless way.

She could be from now.

She could be from the Dark Ages.

She has the headpiece as a prop, but again, date it . .

And there, she is holding a firefly, its tiny light like a jewel in her hand. The flare from the uncoated lens aids the whole feel of melancholia and age. It exudes carefulness in its composition, but also an instantaneousness, like she has run up to the camera and is saying 'See, brother, see what I have found!'

It is also as modern a photograph as you could ever want to find. I think it actually sets the bar. 

Can you imagine photographs like this in Vogue? I can.

If you are at all interested in looking at more images, then, if you can find it, the Taschen publication 'Camera Work - The Complete Illustrations 1903-1917 [ISBN 3-8228-8072-8]' is to be highly recommended.

If you can find the hardback (for less than the price of a car) all the better as the paperbacks have a tendency to split, due to their massive bulk!

Anyway, from beauty it is a trip back to earth, with an image that is no less profoundly moving, but very different.



Paul Strand - Blind Woman, New York 1916

From the last issue of Camera Work

This was really the loud clanging of the death knell. 

Steiglitz I believe realised that the end was nigh - you can't stand in the way of progress - and yet what an image to sign that warrant. 

Curiously, it is as obvious an analogy with regard to the golden, pre-WWI years and the sound of mechanised death from the Front as you could wish.

On one hand, beauty, etherealism and softness, and on the other, grim reality, indignity and the vision of a world changed forever.

In it's brief 14 year life Camera Work gave more to the world than the world gave to it.

For myself I find it as profoundly influential as I always have done.

If you wish to read further, just Google things like 'Camera Work, Photo Secession, Alfred Steiglitz, Pictorialism. The images really will work their way into your psyche. I think they can help to make better photographers of us all.

***

As usual with FB, I thought I had better do some shameless shoe-horning in of photography - so here's my pathetic attempt at emulating a Pictorialist style, with a Twin Lens Reflex!




The Woman In The Boughs

I actually am rather fond of this photograph, for a start it is my wife, so that is the best place to start.
It was made with my beloved Rolleiflex T and I was using a Rolleinar close-up set, with the focus somewhere between 10 feet and 30 feet, so totally out of focus.
Not a lot of people know that with the Rolleinars on a Rollei you can have a very subtly variable soft focus lens - at infinity things get more definition, but in the close range they are wonderfully soft, as you are using the natural lack of depth of focus you get with close-focus devices. I daresay any close-up lens used on a camera for a use that isn't a close-up would work, but the Rolleinars are something else optically.
Film was FP4 at EI 80 developed in Barry Thornton's 2 bath. The print was made on Grade 2 Ilford Galerie (my favourite paper) and it was archivally processed and then toned in Agfa Viradon for that vintage look.
We'd watched the film  'Possession' not long before that and the name of the photograph just sprang into my mind, inspired by that film.
Anyway, nuff z nuff. That's me, over and oot.
As usual, take care, God bless, and thanks for reading.