The Perils Of Vanity

Morning folks - how are you all? It's been a while I know, but them's the uncertain times we live in!

Anyway, today's post is a salutary tale of a face-off between gut feelings and caution and a hang-it-all-why-not-throw-caution-to-the-wind attitude.

Oh yus, it doesn't get more intense than that. 

Like an episode of Looney Tunes with two angels, one on each shoulder, I battled with myself, until,  backed up by some goading and encouragement from friends and family, I capitulated.

It wasn't entirely unconsidered, but all the same, it was highly unusual for me.

And, as if I hadn't expected it, at its bitter end lay a bottom line that was a waste of the equivalent of roughly 5 rolls of FP4 money and a sour (entirely self-inflicted) taste, rather like eating a couple of bulbs of raw garlic and then going straight to bed.

What, you've never done that? Goodness me, what a sheltered life you have led!

 

On a positive note, it was also a welcome validation to myself that art (sic) can often be a largely pointless (but thoroughly enjoyable) exercise, and that I shouldn't expect any back-slapping or champagne corks from said engagement in it.

If you proceed further please bear in mind this blog is its own wee country and any views expressed within should be taken with a pinch of salt anyway.

So there I was, with an idea in my head and some really (so I thought . . really?) not bad photographs. They'd been gathered over a couple of years and after quite some time spent editing and thinning and reassessing and beard stroking and bum scratching and gallons of coffee, I got the herd down to seven images.

Why seven?

Ah well. It's that masked banditeer, that siren of dreams!

El Potty!

QUE?

Well Manuel, wait whilst I slap you around the back of the head and poke your eye with my thumb, El Potty, El Presidente, Channel 9!

Oh OK, when I go off onto one like this it is always (in my head) a mix of Dance Commander (by The Electric Six) and anything on Channel 9 courtesy of The Fast Show.

El Potty, is actually LPOTY, which, is actually an acronym of that fantasy land of fame: 

Landscape Photographer Of The Year.

So y'see,  the title of this blog is correct - The Perils Of Vanity.

I have to say kudos to the organisation - the whole process from cradle to grave is exceptionally smooth - it is easy to register, pay your money, upload your (albeit really small) thumbnail images, add the necessary attributes, write a bit about yourself, bask in the glow that you've actually done something and then sit back and await the Herald Angels with their trumpets, who are going to come down and hang about your house, drinking beer and smoking tabs, and then, when the message finally comes from the Gods of Landscape, they'll grab those horns and proclaim:

"Hark, all ye with eyes and ears, for they are here! 

Great Images, worthy only of The Second Coming Of St. Ansel await your attention. 

Come forth in great multitude and gaze in awe at their wonders!"

Or something like that, but the batards pissed off and hung about somewhere else . . .

Anyway, these are the really small thumbnails I submitted.

They were resized to about 1.5MB each - I do have massive scans of them too, but of course, being scans they're really not doing justice to the full-on print experience . . . but they're OK.

Abandoned A-Frame

Ancient Path

Dawn Woods

Disused Railway Cutting

Flooded Path

Pre-Christian Sacred Site

Ritual Place

Rocks, Moss, Wood Sorrel

I entered them (funnily enough) in the Black and White Competition, which (from what I can see) largely seems to be slanted to that rather strange thing Digital B&W. 

I've often thought that was a peculiar one - you have a camera that can make a, what?, anywhere between 10 and 50+ megapixel image in colour and then you footer around and try to balance the software to make something that looks like it might have been made on film and printed in a darkroom on paper. 

It's about a thousand times easier to actually print an image the old way (as long as you do have access to a darkroom) and you know what, even bog standard, vin-ordinaire prints look pretty decent. 

When you get up into the heady realms of experienced printing then things become a tad more intensive, but they are still well within the bounds of being able to be done by ANYONE with a negative and some time on their hands. 

It's cheaper too (believe it or not) if you're going to be handling things, making prints and shoving your grubby thumbprints left, right and centre on an actual physical thing - if you don't believe me, go and have a look at the cost of 'professional' monochrome inks for inkjet printers - it is truly 100% shocking.

Anyway, I diverge. 
The 'we'll notify you' date passed and I was left with a sour taste in my mouth - worra BABY!

I suppose I should have known that competitions are vanity exercises anyway, but all the same, when you're beavering away at something like this and genuinely think you have a feel for Mother Nature, Atmosphere and Landscape In General, there's a bit of you that sort of hopes that after all these years  (a not inconsiderable 40) someone somewhere, might somehow quite like your stuff.

But it was not to be. 

I heard nothing, and threw my toys out of the pram, resulting in a solid 4 months of camera neglect. 

Really stupid dontcha think, but I guess in some vain way I was looking for validation of me and my snaps.

I am sure you'll be the same as me - you photograph because you enjoy it, but somewhere at the back of your most private thoughts there's a little bit of attention craving associated with our hobby. 

What if, someone, somewhere, went:

 I really like that. 

And sure, we'll get it from contemporaries and friends and in the case of this 'ere blog, you, my readers. I've always appreciated people's comments, but still some mad part of me craves more. 

Hence my folly in entering. 

And folly is the correct word. 

Why on earth should it matter to me (or indeed you) what people think? 

I've always been avowed that any artistic (sic) pursuit has to be about personal satisfaction first and then anything else (champagne, canapés, back-slapping, tipped nods) that follows is a bonus. 

But for some reason the dark cloud overtook me and there I was, £25 handed over to LPOTY and Associates and a sour taste in my mouth. 

Incidentally, my images were (on the site) in the range of entry numbers 36,000-ish. 

So that's 36,000 submissions from people all craving the same thing - obviously the actual number of entrants will be less as you're allowed a maximum number of images, however that is an awful lot of landscape wannabees.

 . . . Hmmmm, things that make you go hmmmm . . .

Anyway, enough of that - it sounds very sour on my behalf.

If I can say something positive about my rejection (sob, sob) it is that it has made me sit and think long and hard about this. 

And I have come to the conclusion, that I was right all along:

If I like it, that's fine and if anyone else does, well that's fine too, and if they don't well that's their choice - it's like water off a duck's back.

Why do I need validation from anyone, and especially from a bunch of 'experts' who mostly I have never heard of?

 

Madness indeed.

There is a coda to this, and I was going to include a nice little video of me setting fire to The Making Of Landscape Photographs. It's a decent book, but not my cup of tea as to what makes a good landscape photograph.

It was given to me by a compadre from Scottish Photographers as he no longer had any use for it - venting my ire seemed a good thing at the time (none of that bottling up of angst for me!) but down the line, I think its current state is more preferable - chewed by a really lovely dog called Bailey. 

The baby in me would say "Well done Bailey", however, to quote the old TV advert tagline for stout:

 "Like The Murphys, I'm Not Bitter".

I actually prefer Guiness these days so I am off to dip my Farley's Rusk into a nice cool pint of the Black Stuff.

TTFN - and remember, please keep taking photographs that please you and you alone.

Übermensch

Morning folks - y'see, there I was with the germ of an idea for a post, and I started, and got a title and everyfink, and then I continued expounding until all I had was a page full of words and myself, tied up in unreadable nonsense.

Goodness it was long and dull, and I got to the point whereby I thought, I really can't get myself out of this corner I've painted myself into.

So what did I do? 

Yep, chopped it all out and started again. 

(It had taken me bloody weeks too).

I like the title though, don't you?

Here's a little snippet from der Wiki:

In his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (German: Also sprach Zarathustra), Nietzsche has his character Zarathustra posit the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself. The Übermensch represents a shift from otherworldly Christian values and manifests the grounded human ideal. It is a work of philosophical allegory, with a similar structure to the Gathas of Zoroaster/Zarathustra.

And with that title came this picture . . . not that it has anything to do with grounded human ideals.

It was taken around the back of Duncan Of Jordanstone College Of Art, a couple of years back.

Camera was a Hasselblad 500C/M and a 60mm Distagon, on I think Ilford HP5, developed in Pyrocat-HD.

I don't know what mentor and surrogate father-figure Joseph McKenzie would have made of it, but I wish I'd had the balls and the eyes to present something like it back in the 1980s'.

Why I think it suits the title I have no idea - maybe it's my deep subconscious at work. 

Anyway, in hindsight, I really should have taken the legs home.

Übermensch 1
Hasseblad 500 C/M, 60mm Distagon, FP4+

The splashy stuff and writing are as a result of me resting the lens hood against a window and focusing on the legs - there's something about reflection photos taken this way that adds an air of dreaminess to an already unreal scene. 

Thank goodness it was just a wired safety door and not double-glazed. 

Double glazing ruins most reflection shots.

Hmmm - Übermensch - Beyond Man.

Whilst not as photogenic as the legs, the title also brings this picture to mind.

Übermensch 2

The above could be a file snapped on a phone, but it isn't.

It's Hard Data - exposed silver halide on a polyester base, printed in a darkroom on resin coated paper. 

Snapped from a bus, on a dark, wet Winter's night with a Nikon F, that moment is now out in the world.

A private observation becomes tangible, physical.

The negative exists in a file, in a folder, on a shelf; the print in a box.

I can hold that strip of negatives in my hand, taking them out carefully and print them. 

When I use film and make prints, by chemical process, I bring light and time into being. 

That point in my life when I took that photograph is cemented into emulsion.

When I started thinking about this it quickly became very weird indeed:

I have stopped time. 

Pulled a piece of the universe away from its fabric.

Maybe it's no surprise that indigenous peoples feared the camera because they thought it would steal their soul.

I photograph you at a moment in time and make that part of you, then, into a physical representation of you in a print.

The print is the child of the negative.

The negative is another version of you because you will never be that version of yourself again.

That version of you, captured, exists; but unlike say a reflection in a pool, it has become an object that transcends the momentary.

You could argue that the image fixed in emulsion is truly unreal. 

Even without the translation process of printing, negatives are strangely beautiful objects.

I enjoy looking at them in their own right.

I like the way that (at the right angle and with the right light behind them) you can see a ghostly brown-grey positive image. 

I like the fact that they have to be handled carefully, and cherished really, like delicate children.

Hmmm - Übermensch - Beyond Man. 

Hmmm - Jenseits der Zeit - Beyond Time.

Talking of which.

The negative and the print of this exist. 

 

Stranger In Town
© W. Eugene Smith / Magnum Photos - All rights reserved

They're not data in the cloud, they're physical; beyond binary 1's and 0's, a human has taken materials and not only torn a piece from the fabric of the Universe, but also turned them into something that goes way beyond their mere physicality.

This photograph, whilst obviously old (1942 actually) transcends time. 

It speaks eloquently and across the ages, to all.

Who hasn't, at least once in their lives, felt like this?

Stranger In Town.

Übermensch.

I'll leave the last word to another from my old mate Eugene Smith. 

Possibly the finest photograph ever taken in my eyes.

As full of grace, power, emotion, skill, craft and beauty as anything ever produced by anyone ever.

Nun Waiting For Survivors - Andrea Doria 1956
© W. Eugene Smith / Magnum Photos - All rights reserved

It might have been set-up as he was wont to do at times, however I am not sure of that. 

It speaks in spades, communing emotion way beyond the event and beyond time itself.

I've looked at this image hundreds of times and yet every time my eyes are drawn to the beauty and poise of the Nun, and then to the small bear in her hand, and I am moved. Moved beyond it's reality as a mere photograph.

To tears.

A translator to the life beyond, caught so very briefly in a deeply human and humane moment.

Beautiful.

Almost eternal.

And that's it - you can start stroking your whispy, lockdown, humanities teacher, proto-beard and go Hmmmmmmm.

Over and out - photography next time, and lots of it, and I might not even shut-up.

Beam Us Up Scotty!

P.S. - I latterly discovered a nice little article about the meaning of the word, or meanings of the word - hey, Quantum Philosophy!

You can find it here.

Art, Pain And The Eternal Struggle

Morning folks . . in fact, to coin a phrase from a friend of my Dad's, who was Welsh and not Irish 'Top o' the mornin' to you! Don't you just love it when the dawn beats you to rising . . my favourite time of year.
Anyway, enough of that, because we are about to talk about graft.
Hard Graft.
Damn Hard.
In fact, if you don't feel up to a bit of a solid workout, then you might as well give up now, because, and I'll say this only once:
"The Darkroom Boot Camp Makes Men."
There.
Now any of you solid young fellows that don't feel much like working, well, you can leave now, and take your dollies with you, because what we are talking about today is Man-Stuff.
It soon sorts out the wheat from the chaff, and if you don't feel up to it, you jolly well know what you can do.

It is really rather easy to see why hardly anyone bothers to print with traditional darkroom materials these days.
To put it bluntly, making a 'proper' monochrome print (on silver gelatin paper, using an enlarger and a negative) is fucking hard.
There, I've said it.
I can't say I have ever seen it put like that before (not even in the original proof version of Mr. Ansel Adams' Meisterwerk 'The Print').
But it is true.
And how can I say it?
Well, I have spent a large period of my adult life spare time toiling away in darkrooms - approximately 30 years actually, and whilst I consider myself a good and able printer, I am not sure whether I have ever even crossed that borderline into the legendary realms of the 'fine' printer.

Others might disagree with me, however (and this is where the tao of self-belief comes in) they're wrong. You see, my problem is that I tend towards self-criticism and a lack of self-confidence in all of my creative endeavours, and this leads to the rather unhealthy situation of being too critical of my prints.
I can print. Sure I can print well.
But I am not 'fine' .
See what I mean? That damn lack of confidence. Hoist 'pon my own petard as it were.
If I were different I'd be saying:

"Yeah, 30 years Analog (how I bloody hate that word) - man I can print up a storm. 

Split Grade? Yehay, piece of easy shit. 

Toning . . send on the selenium. 

Archival processing? Man, my shit will last longer than that radiation leak from Fukashima 

l'm ALL ANALOG man."

Or words to that effect.
But the proof of the pudding and all that - the object, is sitting there in your hand staring you in the face and it's either the cat's pyjamas or a total mutt, because you see, there's no glossing over things with printing.
You are holding the truth in your hand, and it is either being held with an archival cotton museum glove or feverishly clutched in your nicotine-stained hand whilst you shake your other fist at the sky. There's no escaping the truth.


I spent a reasonable amount of time this morning scanning through tons of old prints for the first time in months and months, and maybe the break has done me good, because I was clearly able to see the rejects and the also-rans, the winners and the sure-fire pleasurable prints. 

You'll find some scans at the end of this blog and see if you agree.

The thing is though (that apart from the total hounds) at the end of each respective printing sessions I loved most of the prints I had made, because that is the nature of printing.

It can be a pleasurable activity. 

You are crafting something of the three-dimensional world into the critical and narrow realism of the two-dimensional print

And sometimes, just sometimes, that 3-D world is transformed into a 2-D image of such passion and beauty it takes your breath away.

But a lot of the time it isn't.
You can't escape the truth.

It is though, an object; and an object you've made.
It may not change lives in the way say a viewing of Edward Weston's contact prints does. But it is you.

And if you've made the negatives and processed them yourself as well, it is all you, and stands or falls on your skills and vision.

It is (or can be) the culmination of a very complex process, a juxtapositioning of skill, eye, taste, ability, luck and craft.

And it is fucking hard.   

There's that 'f' word again.

I'm not labouring the point either, because darkroom work is mostly a solo activity.

Nobody else is around to see the eye-strain, the smells of spilt chemicals, the blue air, the messed-up borders, scratched negatives, dust, fevered dodging and burning, test-stripping, counting, airless-sweating, more dust and bad skin/chemical reactions, until you emerge from your not-so-secret bunker clutching a couple of pieces of paper, blinking in the cold daylight and shouting "AT LAST!".

Oh no - if you're lucky someone will say, "Hey, they're nice."
And that's it.
And as if this slaving away in the red room wasn't enough, then there's the masochism of  penury:
Penury?
Yeah, you know, that noun that equates to "the state of being very poor; extreme poverty".
Viz: "he couldn't face another year of penury"

Some synonyms are:
extreme/dire poverty
pennilessness
impecuniousness

impoverishment
indigence
need
neediness
want
destitution
privation

See what I mean - appropriate don't you think, because photography in general, has never been a poor man's hobby.
And in fact I can think of no other hobby (apart from say diamond collecting) that requires such an ungodly amount of cash to keep it going.

Again, no wonder hardly anyone prints any more . .
Why's that Sheephouse? I hear you cry

Well, to put it bluntly, it is fucking expensive.
You know, you can spend the best part of £80-£90 on a box of 100 sheets of 10x8" fibre paper.
Add in say another £20 odd on enough chemicals to get 50 or so archivally processed prints out.
And subtract from that 50 prints (of which maybe 5 to 10 are acceptable if you are being honest and of those, maybe 3 or 4 are truly things you love) the rest of that paper (approximately £40-odds worth in today's prices) which gets put away in old paper boxes, never to be looked at again!
So looking at that box of 100 sheets, you've maybe got 8 in total that you love; maybe 20 that are acceptable, and 72 that don't cut the mustard.

You see what I mean, printing is not just hard, but economically it's fucking hard.

I'll stop using the 'f‘ word to put my point across now - apparently it tells you (the reader) that I am substantially lacking in vocabulary . . make of that what you will . . .

So why, when this is an obvious case of pouring money down the drain do the few hardy souls left doing it, actually do it?

Masochism?

Blind Faith?

Insanity?
Well blind faith is close to it actually, and the pleasure of making art - you might only be scratching your shitty stick against a corner of a cave in the furthest reaches of the Lascaux cave system, but at least it is your bit of cave . .  the compulsion to make beautiful things is as old as mankind.
The compulsion to make something that might just last longer than you, is even older.
In one of my favourite films (Moonstruck), a man asks a woman why men have affairs, to which she answers "Because they are afraid of death".
Whilst printing isn't quite like that, it is in a way.
Aside from the conscious deliberation to make something that is pleasing to the eye, I feel the underlying urge is to make something that will be your little piece of eternity. Something to which massed hordes might flock and worship, in much the same way that true vintage prints by the greats of traditional photography provide the same attraction. You stand and marvel at someone's vision and soul scooped from light and form and writ large with passion on a flat piece of sensitized paper.
It is magical.
Almost as magical as those hand prints in Lascaux, though maybe not as archival.


I had the good fortune to view the touring Ansel Adams exhibition in Edinburgh a few years back - it was really extraordinary. Not just for the images, but for the quality of the printing, which was absolutely superb. The images breathed an air of unqualified precision of concept and untouchable artisanal skills - they were really special, and whether their totem-like qualities were helped along by the subdued lighting and the fact they were under glass and proper artistic OBJECTS I knoweth not . . all I do know is that they made such a deep impression on my wife and I that we went back to see them again. They were in their own way a photographic Lourdes . . where the outcome could be life-changing.
I left determined to be a better printer . . but haven't succeeded.
But back to that compulsion


I also like to think of printing as being rather like climbing a hill.
You are always trying to reach that distant pinnacle.
You might well reach one impressive top or plateau, but you can always see more tempting ones to head off towards, and each one of those is your image's potential,

But look!
There!
There, miles away!!
The most beautiful one!!!
Well that my friend, that could well be the best print you've ever made in your life . . .
But can you reach it?

It is going to be a hard slog, and incredibly daunting, and you might well fail.

Surely it would be easier to sit down here and take it all in
After all, you can admire those peaks from a distance. There's really no need to trouble yourself, because it probably isn't worth the effort to make it to those lofty snow-covered crags.
And besides, isn't it supposed to be fucking hard?

Well yes, it is, and a number of you will fall along the way and be content to rest your weary bones, after all, this craft stuff takes stamina, steely determination and downright grit.
But then this is your craftsmanship we're talking about. Are you just going to sit there and be content to munch your sandwiches and slurp your coffee on the great tartan blanket of also-ran printing, or are you going to pack it all away, hoist your backpack and get moving before the light goes . . remember, this is one life . . there's only so much light left to determine how immortal you'll be.
You have to keep moving, keep walking, keep taking in the sights and sounds and keep enjoying the journey, because despite the effort involved, remember it is (or can be) a pleasurable activity . .
So my friends, I'll remove my soapbox now and say:
Practice, practice and practice . .
Printing is like learning a musical instrument — you'll never improve if you don't practice.

And you never know, if you keep heading on to those distant peaks, maybe Ansel, or Edward or Wynn will be up there ahead of you on the trail, holding themselves back, just waiting for you with a nice refreshing draught of inspiration.

The snarlin' hounds:

It's a print Jim, but not as we know it. Totally lacking in any impact whatsoever.

Ghastly. Bad Grade Choice and the spectre of the film masking blade on the enlarger causing underexposure on the left of the print.

The photograph has real atmosphere, but the print is as flat as anything.

Even when you think you have a good print, things conspire against you. The black top right edge is a manufacturing fault!

The Cat's Pyjamas:

This is a little series called 'City Of Discovery' all made in Dundee. They're 35mm negatives made with my old Nikon F2 and the 35mm f2 pre-Ai Nikkor.
The pale edges you see next to the blackness of the rebate are adjacency effects from film development.
Paper size is 10x8" and they're nice as physical objects.

This is called 'The Pilgrim's Way' and it was taken on St Cuthbert's footpath, which follows the route of Dere Street in the Scottish Borders. I was so taken by the quality of light and the ethereal feeling I had whilst walking this ancient track that I had to make a photograph. It's probably boring to you, but to me it has feeling. The camera was my Rolleflex T with the 6.45cm mask inserted. The quality of the negative is very fine.

I adore this photograph and print.
The photograph was made on my Rollei T using Trix-X on an incredibly bright day. What you are seeing is shadow and reflection and the dehydrated remnants of water on a window in one of the hot-houses at St Andrews Botanical Garden . . one of the finest little botanical gardens in Scotland - visit it and buy some plants.
Paper was 10x8" Ilford Galerie and I would happily display this print anywhere and not look sheep(house)ish.

Believe it or not these two images were made on the same film and on the same day - they flowed together and all was right with the world.

However, even in my hour of triumph you'll maybe notice in the first print that spectre of the masking blade encroaching on the right side of the image. Still, it'll do for the moment . . should anyone ask me to exhibit these I would of course reprint.

Both are printed on untoned 8x10" Ilford Galerie.

Archival Storage. Silverprint Archival box and crystal clear polyester sleeves.

Donkey derby stables - that's about 500 sheets of fibre 8x10.

The print as a real object

Two more.

This one didn't scan well, so this is all you get.

Rum, Sodomy & The Lash

             

" 'Said Captain.
I said Wot?
' Said Captain.
I said Wot?
' Said Captain.
I said Wot?
' Said Captain.
I said Wot You Want?"

***

Sometimes you have to suffer for your art, and, there's no way round this, darkroom work is one of those times. It does really seem ridiculous to me that these days, the key thing that defines you as a photographer (your images) is usually parcelled out to software and a machine. It is sort of like a music box. All of the right notes in all the right places, clearly defined, nothing left to chance, with each little tine being pinged at the correct time. Yes it is music. But it isn't music.

A musician (well a decent musician) can coax an unwilling lump of wood or metal into warm, organic life with a depth of feeling you wouldn't believe possible. A simple vibrato on a note can bring a full grown male human to a quivering blubbing lump. I think this is because music is such an intrinsic part of being human that we have an art form that can cut through all the insanity of modern life to the quick of what it is to be human.

I own a number of albums where the essence of organic musicianship has been distilled into something which is so heartfelt and deeply meaningful, that they seem to transcend the medium and become something other.

I am sure you've got a few like that too, but they are sort of rare aren't they?

Two I can point to with a definitive "That one" are by the Canadian artist Bruce Cockburn.

He's a funny sort is old Bruce. I must admit that although he has been going since the late 1960's/early 1970's there's been a certain patchiness; a patchiness which seems to have increased with time, but then again maybe he just changed . . .

So, I'll forgive him that, but will go back to 'High Winds, White Sky' and 'Sunwheel Dance' (his second and third albums respectively) and state that in them he has created two complete worlds.

Even (and especially) the covers work with the music to create a whole.

Obviously recommending music is a difficult thing . . one man's meat and all that, but if you have a penchant for British folk of the 1970's and like the thought of being tucked away in a cold Canadian Winter, then either of these albums does the trick completely.

The Cover to High Winds was taken at a place in Toronto called Ward Island. The photographer was George Pastic and somehow, the cover and the songs on the album fit like a hand in a glove. It even extends down to the whimsy of the enclosed booklet - Bruce on a bicycle; Bruce being mysterious in a river; hand-written lyrics - it's as near a total artistic statement as albums get.

And that is an important thing, because it is a statement of intent; a complete world, and you, buying the album (and thereby contributing to the artists's well-being) are being invited to purchase a seat to that world. For the asking price and a possible lifetime of pleasure, it was (and still is) a small price to pay.

The booklet was small and very beautiful.
It sets out with a purpose and achieves it.

Though not quite the same as a statement of intent, 'Sunwheel Dance' from 1970 (recorded in Toronto like its predecessor) has, if you let it get into you, such a feel of a lonely, homely cabin in the middle of nowhere, that you would never want to leave.

             

The cover photograph is by Bart Schoales and is as near dammit a perfect introduction to the themes of the album (light and spirituality).

The final track brings in outsiders to the cabin, visitors if you like (though the band has been present throughout the album, they have done what really good bands do, become transparent) and their singing in harmony is a thing of great wonder. It makes you feel so completely homely and comforted that you transcend the music. Your soul takes wings and moves and is moved in no uncertain ways. Well mine does anyway.

You see, certain pieces of art can transcend their weighty dimensional anchors and move you to places where spirit and feeling and consciousness combine.

You can get that with photographs too - there are images that bear multiple viewings, whereby the photographer has transcended all the dimensional realities of a piece of the world carefully chopped down to fit into a rectangular or square view of the world, and somehow managed to imbue the essence of their art into what you are viewing.

I could choose many actually, but two random examples are as follows:

Wynn Bullock - Tide Pool 1957

Walker Evans - Alabama Tenant Farmer's Wife

As you can see, they are utterly different, and yet I never tire of looking at either of them, simply because they speak to me.

So . . . remember at the top of the page before I started digressing, I was talking about darkroom work and how it was important?

Right, here we go.

It isn't just important, it is vital.

And why do I say that? Well, despite what the populists would have you believe, photography is a craft rather than an art.

It can be an art, definitely, but when you look back at its history and the great men and women who have made it their own, you are struck by one thing. Most of these people were craftsmen. 

They nearly all developed their own film.

They nearly all printed their own prints.

Most got their hands dirty (and stained, and suffered metol-fingernail) letting selenium and hypo and acetic acid and pyrogallol and metol and hydroquinone seep into their souls.

They laboured in dark places for our education of what it is to be human and in doing so managed to be able to transform the seemingly mundane into the everyday extraordinary.

That is craft.

They captured our intensely incredible, three dimensional world and rendered it into two dimensions.

And what dimensions.

They can take your soul and inspire.

They can make you weep and laugh and rage and crave change.

And they can change too, providing a voice, a proof of a world transformed or laid bare for all to see.

The seemingly humble photographic print is a powerful thing. it can change the world. It can change your life. It can be an exquisite object of love and labour. Tactile and beautiful; signed or unsigned, it is the distillation of photography, and as such should be treasured and revered, because you see print-making walks hand in hand with photography. 

It is as human an activity as making music.

Joseph McKenzie once said to me he thought I was lucky being a musician (which I sort of was) because of the immediacy of being able to create music. Were I able to speak to him now, I would say he was far luckier being a great photographer, because he was able to produce lasting works of extreme beauty and truth.

And that is why friends, I urge you. If you are at all interested in photography, you simply have to try and make photographic prints. It doesn't have to be a complex setup. I loaded film into daylight tanks in cupbards for years; I have contact printed 35mm negatives onto 6x4" resin coated paper. I have worked at the very most basic level of exposing paper with a torch and processing the paper in the dark because I couldn't afford a safelight, and what moved me to this madness? The love of the print.

I still operate on the same 'guerilla' basis; yes I now have a darkroom, but it is very rough and ready (and without any running water or sinks) however I can happily produce works of art that are entirely of my own creation, from making the photograph to developing to printing to archiving to writing notes on the back.

If you really want to achieve the beauty of the print, something that you are entirely in control of, then it can be done. It just requires a bit of thought.

I am not going to teach you how to make a print (there are many great texts online or on bookshop shelves that will do the trick), all I am going to say is that if you farm all your photographic effort out to the same software that everyone else uses and then let a machine spray ink onto paper and then say you have a print, then you are only half a photographer. There. That's me damned for ever!

Is it any wonder that most serious galleries these days still tend to poo-poo the inkjet?

I think they feel the same as me.

Yes it is an image, but no, it isn't a photograph **.

The following pictures, whilst poor scans are of prints.

The prints are properly processed and archivally stored.
They will outlast me, and you.

They are my wee attempts at rendering the world I see into something that hopefully moves the viewer in the same way I was moved when I made the images.
 They are entirely my own work from beginning to end.

Woods.
 Reverse of print with printing details

Woods.
Full frame negative.
Grade 2 Ilford Galerie
Kodak Polymax Developer
Archivally Fixed in 'Plain' Fix
Archivally washed
Untoned

A pleasant surprise
 flip the sleeve over and another print!

Silverprint Archival polyester sleeve.
These are great for long term storage.

I store my best prints in Silverprint Archival sleeves and then in Timecare Archival boxes. 

Yes it is expensive, but why not take the best care of what is, after all, a highly crafted product.

One day I might try and put on an exhibition - you never know.

Thanks for reading and God bless.

** I have no choice with regard to colour - it seems to have gone too far, but the monochrome print (my own concern) is as vital now as it ever was.