Showing posts with label Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. Show all posts

Monday, April 19, 2021

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.

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Occam's Razor (ish)

Morning folks - well I got there eventually - sorry for any tardiness in publishing, but sometimes, well sometimes you're busy.
Anyway Spring is a Springin'!
Mornings are getting lighter and every photographer worth his salt should be getting out from under that thiosulphate-stained quilt and heading out with some fresh film and an attitude!

Attitude?

Oh yeah.

You've got to get moving!

Over the latter Winter months this year, I photographed seriously around (on average) three times a week. Now that's a lot for me, but it was good from the point of view that it helped sharpen my compositional viewpoint and instilled in me a realisation that I am really not getting any younger, and any day lost, is one less day of light.

Oh what a yawn dahling, what a lazy use of English.

It is true though, because it is the light that defines us.

It's easy for me to write that this morning, when the sun is up, but it is still brisk outside, but trust me, the light 'round these parts has run the gamut from utter pish through to heavenly. 
Overcast ghastliness and liquid silver; chucking rain; hard, low Winter sun; calf-length snow and bitter winds - I did them all.

It's been fun though; intensive and hard, and I discovered I rather like photographing buildings. 
I've done the found objects to death, so concrete stone, glass and steel it was. 
But rather than boringly detail each and every building I thought I'd get this melange of photos together and  show you what I did with relatively simple (albeit exquisite) equipment.





Oh, and why Occam's Razor? 

Well its underlying principle is that the simplest explanation is often the most correct. 
Not only that but I like the expression!

Photographically, I think there's way too much guff spoken about photography, both in the execution and also in the production of an end product. 
For instance, regular readers will know I have a total aversion to split-grade printing as I think it may possibly be useful, but on the whole feel it is far too footery for my ends. 
In the darkroom, and paraphrasing my old mentor Joseph McKenzie, simple is best.

I also re-read some of Fred Picker's Zone System Manual recently and oh boy, no disservice to Mr. Picker, but it really makes you want to put your lens cap on. 
Well it does me, even though there's plenty of useful stuff in there, the sheer complexity and footeriness really is enough to send one running.

So, simple is the by-word and without further ado, here's the pics!


Wall


Extreme dullness in the extreme, the above has something about it I like. I think it is the off-kilter banding from a mixture of pillar shadow and low sun.
This was made with a newly acquired, super-cheap 250mm CF Sonnar. It's got a couple of cosmetic issues but is a fine lens. As sharp wide open as it is stopped down, it has made me reconsider viewpoints. 
It was taken on HP5 rated at 200, processed in Pyrocat-HD and printed on Grade 3 Ilford MGRC.


1960's Concrete Brutalist


D'amore of a D'asame, as me old mate Sting used to say. 
Sonnar 250, HP5, Pyrocat and MGRC.
There's something gruesomely beautiful about the 'new' building at Duncan Of Jordanstone.
I think there's an air of Cold War stoicism about it.
Dundee has actually modelled for Russia in TV and film a few times - weird eh!


Progress


Back in the 60's the old Hawkhill was a mix of cottages, lanes, tenements and mills. It had character in spades and was torn down in the name of progress. 
When i arrived here, the last of the Hawkhill was condemned buildings, small shops hanging on by the skin of their teeth, and major works.
A great shame.
The modern thing in the background is part of the Life Science Centre and is a world leader in all things, er, life sciency.


Tree And Wall


There's something about the juxtaposition of tree, shadow and wall that I really like.
The sun was low and hard and weirdly I was wielding Ilford's SFX with a deep red filter. EI was 6!
The lens was a CF 150mm Sonnar. Hasselblad's cheapest secondhand lens on average and a sterling performer at all apertures.
It was processed in Pyrocat and printed on Ilford MGRC again.
I use the RC to make work prints, which I'll turn into 'proper' prints on fibre paper when I get the time.
Making work prints this way on 5x7" paper is a quick and easy way of working that doesn't cost a fortune.
Again the old simple is best epithet applies.
Occam's Razor!


Winter


Yeah I know you Pickerites, there's no texture in the snow. 
Well actually you're wrong - there is, but this was just a quick print to assess things, so I shall burn the snow in slightly when I print it properly.
The snow is actually quite gungey and ugly from slush - maybe it's better pure white?
Film was HP5 in Pyrocat,  printed onto Grade 3 MGRC.
Lens was the 60mm Distagon - as fine a lens as anything you'll find. 
Zeiss recommended it for weddings, but I think it works brilliantly for landscape and 'tecture.


Future Dream


I haven't taken reflection photographs in a while, but I was so taken by this, that I had to take it. 
Sadly the double glazing has totally mucked up the quality of the reflection as it always does - bring back Victorian Plate Glass!
This was the 150mm Sonnar again and pretty much wide open.
Film is SFX and a deep red filter is in use.
Oh Yus . . .


The Hanged Man


Can you seen him? 
Me too, well I would wouldn't I because it was me. Not that I was hanging or anything . . .
This was taken about 2 weeks on from the last one - amazing the changes Winter will wrought. Snow was calf-deep in places, but I didn't let that stop me. 
The light is what I wanted to capture, but sadly it hasn't appeared here - maybe a better print would do it.
Lens was the 60mm Distagon.
It's a simple straight print on Grade 3 MGRC.


What If They Gave A Party And Nobody Came?


This was off the dreadfully under-developed roll of FP4. 
I now know my timings for next time so all is not lost and at least I hadn't walked 10 miles!
It's actually pretty underexposed too, but them's the breaks.
Camera was the SWC/M, and it was handheld at 1/15th at f8. 
It's very sharp.
The print was Grade 4 on MGRC - no need for split trousers or bleaching.


What The F?!


I really didn't realise I'd captured a Wild F, but I had. I just liked the shadows on the wall.
It was a tricky shot, me being on the ground and this being halfway up a fire escape.
I developed the film and lo and behold a Wild F!
Sadly the print is nothing like the contact print - could do better is what I'll say.
Lens was a Sonnar and Ilford SFX again.


Tunnel Of Weirdness


You know where dogs keep going back and peeing on the same wall?
Well . . . 
Though it doesn't look it, again this was the 150mm Sonnar with Ilford SFX.
I've tried to keep the composition as simple as possible, yet it's an enormously complex image.
Grade 3 print on MGRC.
Dead simple.


I.T.M.A.


Whilst technically not an architectural photo, I feel remiss for not including our old mate.
There's been many photographs of him since I discovered him, but this is one of my favourites, and I suppose that IS a building so I am excused a bit.
This was 1/15th at f8 with the 250mm Sonnar. 
I was a loooong way down the lane and it sort of shows what a long lens can do to space.
I actually like it very much.
Film was HP5 rated at EI 200 and developed in Pyrocat.
Print was a Grade 3 on MGRC just to snap things up a bit.
There was no wafting or wizard cloak involved in making the print: set grade, shove paper into easel, expose, develop. 
The whole thing was done in a few minutes.


Where Man Meets Nature


This isn't technically a 'simple' photograph as it is from the fogged and yucky roll of Bergger I detailed in the last FB, however it is a simple photograph.
Camera was the SWC/M, print was about Grade 5 on old Tetenal MGRC, which was already a very contrasty paper.
My nose was nearly touching that right hand wall!


Aliens At The V&A


The above is my absolute favourite. That marker post is so inutterably 'alien' that is sets the whole thing off.
It was taken on Ilford FP4 rated at EI 80 and developed in some really ancient HC110. 
Sadly the film is well under-developed simply because I couldn't get the right time. 
Times these days are all over the place - I think the assumption in all the literature out there is that you will be scanning the negative rather than actually projection printing them. 
Oh how the times (!) have changed.
I have to say, that I err on the side of Ralph Gibson and prefer a negative to be slightly on the cooked side - it gets you more meat and potatoes in a print. Not only that but a more developed negative is more easily correctable than an under-exposed or under-developed one. 

Oh and you might be wondering why I am talking like this - it's simply because I have nearly run out of Pyrocat, and am using anything and everything else I can find, and not only that, a change is as good as getting arrested.

Anyway, given the thinness of the above, I had to execute a swift side move. 
And what was that? 
Well, simple really, given the lack of snap in the negative I just printed it on Grade 4! 
It's a straight print apart from a wee bit of dodging to the out of focus beam at the top left.
That simple.

I really like the tonality.
It's weird really, FP4 is the most reasonable, consistent and reliable black and white film out there. I am stating that as a fact. Why waste your time testing films where the QC isn't a patch on the Mobberley Mob?
I am done with spending time composing, only to come back and develop something either flawed or inconsistent. I would use Kodak films too, because the quality control is impecable, but since they've decided to be so expensive, I'll no longer use them - shame.
Anyway, FP4 - its tonality can be wonderful. 
In my opinion, it is the pinnacle of monochrome tonality.

Photographically it couldn't have been simpler, albeit I was lucky with some really wonderful light and an eminently photogenic building.
The camera was my Hasselblad SWC/M and the photo was handheld, 1/15th of a second at f5.6.
As those bleedin' meercats used to say "Simples"!

And that's it really. 
Occam's Razor
Keep it simple.
I could probably have done the same with a Holga or the old Rollei T, or even the knackered Autocord . . . in fact that's a thought . . . . 
You really don't need bells and whistles to make images you are happy with.

There's an acronym: K.I.S.S.

Keep. It. Simple, Stupid.

I totally agree with that

Till next time, try it.
Unburden yourself from technicalities, sub-plots, menus, footeriness!
Go simple, and if you have a darkroom, get rid of all the stuff they tell you you have to have and have to use to get a result.
Use a single grade and your gut feelings about how the image should look, and have a go
You might well be surprised.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that at the end of the day, the final image is all that counts - if you can get there with the least possible number of complications, then that is all the better.
Why?
I don't really know actually, but probably backing it up is my old college conundrum whereby, given a problem to solve or a graphic to create, the more processes that went into the final thing, the more that thing was rendered null and void. 
Enthusiasm was sapped.
Energy drifted.
Creativity was stifled to the point of tedium, and at the end of the process, the initial thoughts and roughs seemed to be the ones that worked best.

Mies Van Der Rohe's epithet "Less Is More" rings true in so many situations, both literally and metaphorically.

Over and oot - beam me up Scotsman!







Thursday, January 14, 2021

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.


Phil Rogers, Dundee, Wista DX, 90mm f8 Super Angulon
Haunted Lane (again)


Phil Rogers, Dundee, Wista DX, 90mm f8 Super Angulon
Him (again)


Phil Rogers, Dundee, Wista DX, 90mm f8 Super Angulon
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.













Wednesday, August 19, 2020

f5.6 And Pray

Good morning to you - and if you are living through a PVD, my sympathies. Since manifesting itself in June it has become somewhat of a bane. My eyes run the gamut from crystal clear and sharp with blurry bits like the tail-ends of ghosts drifting around, to full-on, low-light blur. 
It is very very difficult to take photographs under such conditions - especially with an f4 lens as I was doing here and in low light too - well, more like unbelievable sunshine and deep shadow. But I got there, hence the title of the post.
Let me say this - hyper-focal focusing is a total Godsend!

I can honestly say that this is hardly the most inspiring set of photographs I have ever taken and in reality probably a total waste of a fiver's worth of HP5+, but sometimes you just have to go out and do something.

I've found photography, for me, to encompass:

All consuming times where everything clicks

Non-consuming (but fun) times where nothing really clicks but you enjoy yourself

Load, wind, look and snap - a semi-pointless exercise where nothing works

and

Explore, click, but what is the point?

This was the latter, where you go through the motions, find some places you've not been to, but still take photographs even though you know the end result will be fairly pish.





I've had a deep urge to photograph in heavy undergrowth in recent times, however it isn't always easy to find - or currently to deal with!
I've done The Gulch a few times and only want to go back there when I have got the IR filter thing on the Hasselblads sorted out - a vastly expensive and frustrating exercise.

So for this waste of time, I decided to re-tread my old stomping ground around the back of Duncan Of Jordanstone College Of Art And Design, or DOJCAD as it has been snappily acronymed.
Actually that acronym seems to change on a yearly basis, so I might just stick with Russel T. Hutcheson's wonderful Drunken Disorderly (and yes I know it isn't an acronym).

You know, its funny, I must have dozens and dozens of photographs of this place, but I've probably only printed a handful.

David M (a worthy commenter and reader of FB) commented a few posts back that I always seemed to be taking pictures of barriers (sic); ways blocked; doors; windows; reflections, and that metaphorically I was in a way photographing my own inhibitions.

It set me thinking and I kind of agree with him, however in the case of endlessly rephotographing DOJCA, what I think I am doing is subconsciously documenting my own failure to pursue a path in the creative industries.

I suppose I am desperate to get back in.
Or rather not get back in, but actually get in per se.

OK - mini-rant coming up - take it or leave it:

It's taken me a long time to realise, but deep within, I've an urge to teach people how to use film and how to print the results - I guess I would call it McKenzie Syndrome.
For a small part of my life Joseph McKenzie (go on look him up!) gave me the opportunity to learn a craft skill from which I am still learning - Darkroom Work. I've said it before, but printing in a darkroom is one of the greatest, most frustrating, but ultimately fulfilling parts of photography.

I almost feel that without that ability to print your negatives on proper 'wet' paper (with all the associated smells, the red light, the tactility) you're like a one-legged sprinter.
I know it's probably just me and where I've come from in a craft manner, but to my mind, the two go hand in hand, and no, scanning (yes I know, I do a lot of it) and ink-jetting really is not the same thing.

Rant continued, in which your author goes all misty-eyed and attack puppy all at the same time:

A few weeks back, I spent a couple of hours with the SWC/M, a roll of SFX and a Lee IR filter, carefully composing and taking some cracking (to my blurry eyes) photographs in a IR-stylee.
Thing is, had I been a bit more sussed (coor remember that "You're coming with US, We've got you on SUS" - The Ruts!) I'd have realised and known that the Lee filter is entirely the wrong thing for Ilford SFX because it transmits Nm more suited to 'proper' infrared film, rather than SFX's HP5+ in a splangly mankini (which is what SFX is really).

Consequently when I developed said film I discovered that I had a whole roll of blurry reflections of the SWC/M's filter ring!
Oh how I larfed.

Anyway, that's all an aside, whilst lurking, yes lurking, around the back of the College, I saw a young chap with a camera, totally absorbed in what he was doing, and photographing the same things (sic) that I had been photographing. So I stopped him and started chatting.

He's a Fine Art student, finished his Foundation Course and has put in to study Painting and Photography in Second year.

And of course, the dam burst and I couldn't shut up.

I quized him, advised him, recounted tales of Joe McKenzie, asked him about his camera, showed him mine, found out that the photography department now only has TWO darkrooms, not the [if I remember correctly] SEVEN or EIGHT from my day.

Do you have any film cameras you can borrow?
I asked, because in Joe's day, there was a room stuffed to the gunnels with everything from old Takumar super wides for the ubiquitous K1000s, through to Sinars and their lenses, heading along the way with a mighty collection of Mamiya C330's (wot I learned my MF skills on).
His answer:

"Well, there's a cabinet with some cameras in it, but I am not sure whether you can borrow them."

I couldn't contain my disappointment. Why would you have a few cameras that might not even be for use, when (according to our young snapper and also something I heard from a lecturer in digital animation a few years back) there is a hunger for learning film?
Were it my department, I'd have a bunch of C330's again and also a bunch of Nikon F's (from a reliability stance that takes you from amateur to professional without missing a beat) and I'd be pushing the traditional; because to me, photography isn't just about wishy-washy art speak (and me and the young chap laughed about this); it isn't about re-treading the same poses and the same subject matter.

It's about trying to make it your own.

It really is about the craft of the thing.

Sure you can run and produce really rather top grade looking bits of work - it's relatively easy these days - but without a grounding in tradition, you're missing something.

I don't want to go all huffy on you, but to be honest, what is the point of a photography department or education these days?

Ah, that's stopped you hasn't it.

As we used to sing when young:

Everybody's doing it, doing it, doing it!
Pickin' their nose and chewin' it, chewin' it, chewin' it.

Look around you - you're awash with digital imagery and to a man 98% of it all looks the same.
Even flicking through that august journal BJP, you spot the posed urban portraits (40 years and counting - the same pose!); the fecking awful landscapes; the bog standard fashion photography; still lifes that are as devoid of life as a collection of inanimate objects; street photography (which to my eye is utterly indistinguishable from one continent to another) . . but, and here's the kicker, pick up a BJP from 20 or 30 years ago and it is the virtually the same.

So what has happened to photographic education apart from the fact that it is now mostly called Imaging, and has an armoury of simple tools which produce professional looking results.
Well, I think what is missing is groundwork.
Sure there are some excellent educators out there and it is entirely up to the student where they go. But I dunno, were it to start in a way like, say:

"Here's a knackered old Minolta Autocord TLR - the lens is scratched to infinity, however the wonderful wee Seiko shutter works perfectly. It might feel like an old cardboard box falling apart when you wind on, but you'll get results if you're careful."

then things might be different.

Frustration with semi-adequate tools doesn't half sort out the wheat from the chaff.

So how does that work?
Well simply, if you have a hunger and a drive to do it, because you actually love it rather than are just doing it because you feel you have to . . .
Well . . you're an educated reader, you can put two and two together.
Struggle fosters desire - kicking against the pricks as it were.
You hunger to become better.
Your passion spurs you on.
You try harder.

It's all gone a bit aftershave adverty hasn't it!

But this being said, there's a lot of people out there in positions of influence, responsible for the direction and nurturing of future creative brains, who have got a long way, by producing . . . hmmm, just stuff and (more importantly) talking the talk.

Creativity is (or can be for certain people) an easy and well-paid activity - you just have to be lucky, or else really good - Mr. Joshua Cooper in Glasgow please take a bow - he walks the walk, talks the talk and seems to be one of the few old-school traditionalists still teaching.
Sadly though for some, it sems to have become a monthly pay cheque and a bit of a reputation.
They talk art speak and are accepted and unquestioned  - it's all as smooth as a James Bond. 
Look up your Port Glasgow colloquialism . . .

As I said to our young photographer (and he actually agreed) - if he really wanted to make it as an artist, all he had to do was approach anything with braggadocio and confidence and speak that speak, and nobody will take you down.
They're too afraid.
Art these days seems to be a world founded on utter bullshit - but then maybe it always was.

If you can glue Polo Mints in the shape of a cross to a bit of painted plywood and bullshit your way to a pass-mark by saying you think it symbolises your Granny giving you Polos to shut you up when she took you to Church, with conviction, then man, the Art World is yours.

That's my experience folks.

There is a point to all this - the sorry and real end for Joseph McKenzie (now called The Father Of Modern Scottish Photography) was that the department he'd built with love and love and love was considered old fashioned and was GUTTED in favour of the oncoming digital tide.
He and I spoke around 1991 and I got the impression that rather than being ignomanimously pushed out, he'd rather jump and so he did, into retirement and subsequent legend.

I wonder what happened to the Takumar Super Wides?

I guess that's why I rail against digital so much - it changed things, rather like having your childhood home bulldozed
Sometimes, progress, and I use the term loosely, isn't necessarily for the better.

I said all this to our (by now probably wondering what the hell was going on) young photographer.
I'm glad he agreed with me.
After assaulting his ears (and recommending some photographers) I bade him farewell and headed for home.

Phew! Sorry about that, I don't half get riled.

IF YOU SKIPPED THE ABOVE, IT'S ALRIGHT NOW, IT'S OVER, YOU CAN SIT DOWN AGAIN.

Camera was a Hasselblad 500C/M, lens a 150mm f4 Sonnar, and I had to use the Leitz Table Top Tripod to give me some bodily bracing.





I would normally detail the contact print here, but to be honest it really isn't worth it - the title of the post says it all - I could barely see a thing.
So here's the prints that I actually thought worth printing . . . should I have bothered?





This delightful little poster was posted on a window and I liked the way UV had aged the paste - fecking weird eh! - no, me that is, not the poster. Anyway, it's my favourite from this session.
It was 1/60th at f5.6.





This is the 'Fine Art' Department. I kind of agree with its epithet though - fines should be applied every now and then. 
I made the most of the gorgeous out of focus effects that a Sonnar can produce - it was 1/125th at f5.6.





Ah, our old mate - you know I have photographed and posted so much about this bit of graffiti I am surprised it isn't as famous as a Banksy.
It was a 1/15th at f5.6 - there's bracing for you.

The quote "Prejudice Births Malcontents" appears to come from computer game called Dark Souls and in a weirdly happenstance sort of way, this is what yer WikiP says about it:

Dark Souls is a third-person action role-playing game. A core mechanic of the game is exploration. Players are encouraged by the game to proceed with caution, learn from past mistakes, or find alternative areas to explore.

I shall say no more than that.

Anyway, and finally, your carers are coming soon and I'd better wrap up . . .
Briefly, I had great good fortune to find a box of Agfa MCC Fibre - unopened and cold stored - 5x7" and it was perfect.
It's an early warm-tone paper from the early-mid 90's and is bloody beautiful to use, especially at this image size, which is approximately 4½ x 4½ inches.
I lightly toned them in Selnium and it took the warmth down a tad - lovely.
It might seem daft to have such a capable camera system and then print so small, but they're little jewels of prints and I highly recommend everyone shooting square tries it.
This is a scan of an actual print - yes the border looks squinty-woo, but I've over-emphasised the right edge so you can see the actual edge of the print
I nearly typed pint there. 
Needs must and all that.


Mine's A Pint . . . Sorry, Print

Thanks for sticking with it - this was produced under very difficult circumstances for me old beady mincers - I think a visit back to the optician is in order.

Over and oot.
Beam me up Scotsman.