River Boy And The Autumnal Darkness

Well folks - good morning and apologies for the length of time since I last posted anything, but my bloody eye thing isn't really clearing up and to be honest I probably have more swirlies now than I did back at the start of the Summer. 

If you've ever seen Quatermass And The Pit, where one of the workmen drilling into the alien craft disturbs something, is chased by a telekinetic vision of Martian life and is heard to utter:

"They were jumping, leaping through the air, in and out, them big places . . . in and out of them . . huge, right up into the sky!"

Well, that's what a PVD can be like with floaters!

Anyway, what excuse is that when you have nice little DOF engravings on your lenses? 

Oh YUS! Hyperfocal focusing is a wonderful and useful thing - it's like bungee jumping without knowing whether anyone has attached your bungee to the bridge, but fortunately, physics has clipped you in, so you can jump to your hearts content.

So, have I taken any photographs? 

Oh yes. 

But are they any good? 

Oh no. 

Not really; however there's a few that I do quite like, but that's mostly from the point of view of the light conditions.

The below were taken at dusk (approximately 7.22 PM ST [Scotsman Time]) whilst on holiday.

Having our tea and then heading out with my wife's blessing and a camera around my neck has been something of a feature and great pleasure of holidays for me for a number of years. 

I love the gloam, and especially so when you add in some top-notch countryside.

River Dark 1

I think I love it so, because it takes me back to being a teenager living next to one of the great trout rivers in the South of Scotland and having a quarter mile stretch of riverbank as my own domain. 

I would sit in the oncoming dark and watch trout rise; birds settle for the night; mist rise from fields and gently lay itself over the water; fishermen (unaware of me) about their business; coypu (honest); mink; kingfishers; heron; clouds of flying biters (who never bit).

In fact anything you can think of that could call a river home were my subjects  - I'd have my beady mincers on them all.

And somehow this recent holiday, spent alongside another of Scotland's great rivers, connected me with that time.

It made me think deeply. 

Maybe it was the fact that everywhere I looked, everything looked like something published in Camera Work (and you'll have to look that one up . . Steiglitz' Camera Work - fab Taschen Hardback around at the moment!). 

The glare and fuzz (like an early portrait lens at times) made me deeply aware of my own mortality. 

I'm no spring chicken, but I like to keep healthy and fit; however when something like a PVD (OK - Posterior Vitreous Detachment) happens you realise you're not anything special, just a hummin' bean. 

I felt that the dark was oncoming, both metaphorically, literally and (in my case) physically.

When you start counting the counters, you realise you've spent over half of what you were given and some monkey is pinching your change.

I've just re-read that and realised there are only two possible outcomes to the ageing process.

1. Oh alright then, that's fine. I'll just get my slippers and a nice cup of tea. Remember to close the curtains when you leave.

Or.

2. F**k me! I am going to die. SOON. Right you bastard, I am going to meet you head on (with my crash helmet on of course!) and have a bloody good go at keeping going as my old self for as long as possible.

Age takes everything. 

Your hair; fitness; facial structure (I won't even talk about the beard shaving-off that happened during lockdown . . well OK . . it was like Invasion Of The Body-Snatchers . . . but with Gnomes); mental faculties; memory; word to speech co-ordination; memory . . . 

But what has this got to do with photographs and gloam you might well be asking?

Well hold onto that swig and listen to the sound of birds and a fast running river . . . ah, that's better isn't it!

Well, it's just that in that glorious oncoming dark, with the sun dropping fast behind the hills (which in turn threw the whole river valley into a state of noise and peace) I realised that he was still with me.

He?

Yeah.

Him.

Over there, young chap full of vim and hope. 

I quite like him actually. 

He's not too bothered what you think any more (that's the consequence of being a reformed fat-boy) but he's quietly hoping for a future that isn't too difficult.

He'd really like to do something of consequence with his life, but then the future is darker than the shadows under those sloe bushes. 

He can't read it. 

He can only hope.

The worst thing is that he's leaving this place soon - this bank where he has sat and dreamed and watched and listened. He's only known it for a handful of years, but the time has gone so fast - an all too brief interlude in the noise of life. 

However in that short time, it has eaten him. 

All the serenity and the weight of time and the power of Mother Nature in all her rawness - it's eaten him right away.

He feels at one with the world. 

His soul is at peace - how could it not be? - however the excitement, uncertainty and sheer terror of the future are weighing heavy on him, because (even though he's never heard of Heraclitus) he knows that: 

You really can't step in the same river twice. 

This is it.

He's leaving.

His world will change dramatically.

In truth, he's scared to death.

So yeah, him. 

River Boy.

He got left behind when City Boy, Work Boy was born. 

He was packed away carefully though - mainly because the wrench of pain at having to leave somewhere he felt truly at home was all too much to deal with.

Yet, in the current dark of a quiet 2020 Autumn's evening, beside another powerful river, I realised that he was still there, standing there in the oncoming dark, watching whilst I fussed with focus and composition and light meter.

He'd been waiting, waiting for a moment like this quiet twilight to come forth and say:

It's OK. We're still OK.

Phew!

A while back I said:

"A boy and a river, once joined, can never be parted."

I liked it in a Ray Bradbury-esque sort of way, but it's true.

Me and River Boy - we're so different, but we're oh so the same.

That evening, the similarities struck me like the splash of a big salmon breaking free of its domain to briefly grasp the stars, before crashing back down to a watery reality.

I realised (standing there in really dark conditions - 0 to +1 EV on FP4 if you must know) that he would be well satisfied with the outcome of 40+ years; because here I was, NOW, trying to write (in essence) onto film, the feelings of awe and peace my soul had felt on our old riverbank all those years back. 

I was honouring the nature we both love(d) to the best of my abilities; quietly and with respect; the old intonements of reverence and silence measured by the soft buzz of a shutter. 

My concentration on the process a fit meditation on time and spirit.

Maybe this is all borrocks (as they say in Tokyo) and everyone feels the same. 

Probably. 

At least being Supreme Commander at FB I can please myself and air this and make sense of things.

40 years ago, all this guff would have been confined with brevity, to a diary, to possibly be read by those coming after, or else chucked in a skip. 

It might never have made it anywhere, only internalised, never to see the light of day.

Life is short.

Physical things like a PVD really hammer home how short.

We're not invincible - you don't need me to tell you that.

All the more reason, when you find your natural state of being (and I guess I am lucky, I know that a river runs through me) to pursue it, and if you are fortunate enough, to live it.

Being cut away from that is some sort of purgatory.

Not that I'm saying anything about where we currently live, I'm not, but it's not the same by any stretch of the imagination.

Maybe it is why I hunger for these sort of places - it's a hunt to recapture that state of otherness, yet naturalness, which goes beyond the normal physicality of life.

It's deeper than the life we know. 

It's a well-spring of feeling that transcends time.

Mother Nature will continue long after we have gone. 

I love that.

As for me, whether I am scattered to the winds or buried in the rich soils of the Southern Uplands, somewhere, at some time, along some lost riverbank, me and River Boy will be walking with just the one set of footprints again. 

I know that as completely as anything else.

River Dark 1

River Dark 2

Whatchoo talking about Willis?

You know, I don't know - sometimes I just write and stuff comes out.

Hope it makes you think though. 

If it does, that pleases me.

Right, at last!

Photographically the above were made on Hasselblads. 

The first on a 500 C/M with a 60mm CB Distagon. 

The second with a SWC/M.

Exposures on both were quite long - 6 and a half minutes in the case of the second one - I told you it was getting dark.

The first was HP5+, the second FP4+. 

Both were developed in Pyrocat-HD and printed on (for the first one) Adox MCC, and Agfa MCC for the second - just 'cos.  

The second print was also tootled in Pot-Ferry because the printing was a little heavy-handed.

Adox and Agfa MCC have the same emulsion but the surface's gloss is quite different. The Agfa is a late-90's box I picked up. Lovely stuff!

And that's it really, apart from . . here's a message from our sponsors:

River Boy then and River Boy now. 

River Boy 1978

River Boy 2020

1978 and 2020 respectively - the first was taken by (I think) my Dad - handler of all things photographic at the time, on my old Polaroid, though it could well have been my Mum. The mug contains whole milk with Camp Coffee in it (we couldn't even afford instant! . . and before you ask why I was using Polaroid film if that was the case, the film was around 4 or 5 years old) and that is my second Digestive. I was just in from school, before heading down onto the riverbank in the gloam.

It's a scan off the original Polaroid and has been stored in a very haphazard way over the years and is fading slightly, but then so am I. 

The second is a scan from a negative on Delta 400, taken by t'missus a month ago on a Nikon F3 with the 28mm f2.8 CRC lens - it was quite dark, so it was about a 30th at f4. There's something about it I rather like.

And that's it.

Sometimes you need to do a bit of meditation and that's what I've done here. 

Writing it has explained something about life and growing up to me.

Till the next time, take care and Gods bless.

Ritual Landscape

Good morning to you!

Whizz, Thrub, Boing Boing - better get those Cormthrusters adjusted, because Ye Olde Sheephouse Time Machine is in operation again.

Oh yes, none of this modern stuff - we're heading back to a time when peat-smoke and rush-lights were all the rage.
When life hung by a thread.
When magic was real and something as mundane as a small wood could bring you out in cold sweats of awe.
Got yourself buckled in yet?
Good.
Off we go!

I've battled with myself about publishing this, because, whilst the place is relatively well-known, it also isn't, and to be honest I'd rather keep it that way.

So all I can say is if you do recognise it, keep it to yourself; and if you don't well, you can find similar - dig deep into your local topology; study maps and stuff - as my recent find of what I believe to be two unmarked (on maps) Neolithic (? - certainly incredibly old) way markers proves (well, it does to me) if you open your eyes and start to strip away 'modernity', you'll open up your Inner Ancient.
The world is littered with sites waiting to be found - pre-history stretches back further than the imagination.

They're out there, possibly waiting to be photographed - or (more likely in this world of Trip Advisor Recommended Mass Tourism) wanting to be appreciated quietly - always ask permission - that's what I did here.

Once again I am also in debt to a camera - the Hasselblad SWC/M and also to the lady called Florence who assembled them back in the '80's.

I can't define what it is, but to my eyes, photographic magic happens within it.

That's not me saying there's anything special about the photos I've taken with it either; it is more that in every film I process from it, light can be transformed into something both true and ethereal all at the same time.

Oh, and I'm also indebted to Ilford's FP4.
After years of trying this and trying that, I keep coming back to it. Whilst it isn't always ideal in Scotland - especially in the Winter - if you're using a tripod you should be fine.

There's just something about it - a balance, that I can't define, however HP5+ and Delta do look very different (when they're printed) as does all the Kodak etc etc stuff.

So, FP4 it was.

I felt I had something special to my eyes when I was taking them.

Reviewing and prepping this blog a few weeks later, I am going to go all wishy-washy on you and dedicate these photographs to the memory of my old mentor Joseph McKenzie.

Way back, and before Big Stoppers were ever even dreamed of, he encouraged me to make longer exposures of rocks n'stuff - I am not sure they were ever really successful tho'. 

They were inspired by the 'new' stuff I was seeing by John Blakemore! Gosh 40-odd years ago! I'll dedicate this to John too - he was groundbreaking and every landscape photographer, whether they know it or not, is indebted to him,
And not only to John, but also (someone I believe to have been an influence on him) Wynn Bullock who deliberately exacerbated the time/motion of long exposures and is about the first I can find who did it deliberately.
So this is dedicated to Wynn too!

Anyway, back to the main drag.
There I was (son dropped off for a very early shift) whizzing through the early-dawn, quiet lanes, with hope in my heart and a smattering of (steady . . .) excitement.
It's a weird feeling, because (and I don't know about you, but it happens to me all the time) when you get to where you're going, you almost feel like turning around and heading home. Numerous doubts creep in - the biggest for me, is does it feel right?
It doesn't have to just be about the environment - though that can influence things a lot.
It's more:

Is my heart in this? 

AM I UP FOR IT?

Without a doubt, it is self-doubt.
I could whine on about the confidence-sapping of a tiny fat-boy, by a few teachers (it's a big thing!).
I could tell you that I've doubted every single creative thing I have ever done.
It is real, and a total pain in the arse.
However, sometimes you just have to have a stern word with yourself, muster the energies and get moving.
And that's what I did. I got myself out of the car, donned super-chunkers (for muddy conditions), cleared my mind, and appreciated that I was on the edge of a place that oozed something.

It was around dawn and the cut where I was, was still smothered in a deep gloam - Mother Nature's Big Stopper as it were.

It was really pushing the abilities of the Gossen Lunasix 3S - a supremely capable low-light meter . . Some of these readings were heading to minus 2 EV.
Hardly the most ideal of situations, especially with a film as slow as I was using.

Film #66/74

FP4+ EI 80

1. 2 --> 4 Seconds f16 ZIII - Hyperfocal

2. 4 --> 7 Seconds f16 ZIII - Hyperfocal

3. 4 --> 10 Seconds f16 ZIII - Hyperfocal

4. 30 Seconds --> 2 Minutes 25 Seconds f16 ZIII 

5. 8 --> 20 Seconds f11 ZIII

6. 15 --> 55 Seconds f11 ZIII - Votive

7. 15 --> 55 Seconds f11 ZIII

8. 1 Minute --> 6 Minutes f11 ZIII !!

9. 6 --> 10 Seconds f16 ZIII

10. 4 --> 8 Seconds f8 ZIII

11. 4 --> 10 Seconds f8 ZIII 

12. 5 --> 16 Seconds f16 ZIII River

Developed in Pyrocat-HD 5+5+500ml 22℃ - Usual Agitation to 15 minutes - Stand to 18 Minutes and 30 Seconds.

As you can see from the above exposure record, these were really long times, and as such you have to reduce every single movement to nil.

How D'ya Do Zat Zen?

Well, it's actually really hard - I've no idea how Michael Kenna does some of his night exposure stuff, because wind always comes into play. 

The camera will always move no matter how tightly constrained. 

Don't believe me? 

Put your camera on a tripod and just watch it - it can be very alarming.

So with that a factor, you really need to cinch things down tight.

I use a very small (4 inch) Kaiser locking cable release, as it doesn't blow around too much if it is windy, and you can actually lock the end of it into the SW's body with the crank. 

The tripod was my beloved CF Gitzo series 3 (GT3530S).

The head is an OTT Arca B1 PMF - it was really reasonably priced when I bought it and locks like a bulldog on a postman's leg.

I've an Arca plate (though solid the screw for attaching to the camera isn't really recommended!) and this is attached to a Hasselblad QR plate. It means I can swap the two 'Blads around quite simply. The Hasselblad QR system is mechanically simple and effective.

And that's it - sounds a bit over the top I agree, but it is as solid as I can get things.

In case you are wondering, the ZIII mentioned above, is in reality a bit of a borrow from The Zone System, however these aren't true Zone System-based photographs, but I believe I can operate like this in my own way. 

Basically I get the lowest shadow reading I can get from my light meter, and then reduce the exposure by 2 stops - so say I have measured 1 second at f8, I am turning that into ¼ of a second at f8 - this gives some cause a effect to the shadows. Were I to leave it at 1 second at f8 the shadows would be rendered mid-grey. 

But this is like teaching your Grandmother to suck eggs - you know all this stuff already!

I also don't shoot at box speed - with FP4 rather than EI/ISO 125 I'll use EI 80 - effectively almost adding another stop of extra exposure too - this is something I got from a Barry Thornton book, and I just blithely accepted it - now I begin to wonder why. 

I do think maybe, what with Barry using his BT 2 bath (a good developer, but ultimately lacking in contrast - that's been the case for me and Bruce from The Online Darkroom) whether he was compensating for that to get a bit of guts in the negatives. 

I'll try some stuff at box speed and see what happens!

Exposures of these times, unless you're operating a Zone System expansion and contraction methodology with regard to exposure and development, can be rendered fairly useless by blanket development with a standard developer over a whole roll of film. 

There's just way too much variation. 

Thankfully, Pyrocat-HD has been a total boon - it smooths out any highlight burn-out, but still brings substance to the shadows. 

Whilst I should mix my own, I don't and have been using the premix from Wet Plate Supplies - you can find it here - it isn't cheap, but it really does last very well and you'll get roughly 20 rolls of 120 developed per 100ml kit.

And the beauty of it, is that you can standardise your development time for all the films you use - for me I can develop FP4+, HP5+, SFX, Delta's 100 and 400, Kodak films (though they've priced themselves into a corner these days) and anything else I can think of with a standard regime.

Here it is.

21 or 22 ℃; constant agitation (gentle) for the first 30 seconds; then 4 inversions (or twiddles with the Patterson twiddler) every minute; to usually 14 minutes; one last agitation; then leave till 18 minutes.

I wouldn't recommend it with tray processing for sheet film (they'd just find a skeleton hunched over the trays) but I think my times seem to be around the average ballpark of other users.

Give it a go and tell them I sent you.

It gives me a negative that is a cinch to print.

Back to the main drag - I was so excited when I saw the developed negatives that the next day I actually printed the whole roll. 

I have never done that in my life.

Paper was the 5x7" Agfa MCC fibre-based paper I mentioned recently. 

Some of the prints seem to be slightly out of focus - this could be the effect of the PVD on my eyes vs. the grain focusers - it's really hard work! 

Hopefully it'll improve soon and apologies to all you sharpness nuts - please bear in mind the actual image size is only a tiddler - around 4½ inches square, so it isn't actually covering the side of a building - and the effect on small paper is fine and pleasantly viewable.

Anyway, get your druid gowns or woad or full body-tatts on.

Please don't go all Celtic-brother on me though - this is a Pictish site.

As you can see, remarkably, after millenia of use, it still means something to people.

I find that heartening.

Thankfully there were no dirty campers, dogs, camp fires or beer . . 

It was just me, the Mother and a dawn-light that made me want to cry.

But there was none of that namby-pamby stuff going on - the Time Machine was only there for the briefest of windows . . . I had work to do!

Ritual Landscape 1

Ritual Landscape 2

Ritual Landscape 3

Ritual Landscape 4

Ritual Landscape 5

Ritual Landscape 6

Ritual Landscape 7

Ritual Landscape 8

Ritual Landscape 9

Ritual Landscape 10

Ritual Landscape 11

Ritual Landscape 12

Well, that's it. I know there's a couple of them that don't cut the mustard but on the whole as an exploration I feel they work.

My favourite is without a doubt Frame 12, however the print this is scanned from isn't entirely sharp and neither is the negative, though it is sharper than the print.
I'll put it down to my gorilla-like grip on the cable release - I didn't lock it, just gripped and prayed, giving the tiniest of movements to the camera . .  . amplify that by 16 seconds and you get the drift.

Despite that, to me the overall impression is one of light and I dunno, hope and peace too.
I think that carries it through any technical deficiencies. 

The print looks lovely by the way.

As before, these were developed in an ancient but fresh mixing of Kodak Polymax (still got loads left too) stopped in Kodak stop and fixed in First Call's soft-pack fixer - which I believe to be based on a Agfa formula - it's a very sensible bit of packaging for those of us who aren't printing every day. They were lightly toned (1-2 minutes) in a weakish solution of Kodak Selenium and air-dried (with clothes pegs holding them) from an ancient retractable caravan clothes line (which I inherited along with the house).

I still find myself muttering (as I carry a tray full of prints and water out of the darkroom and into the bathroom):

"I'll bet Ansel never had to wash his prints in a bath"

Ah the delights of a guerilla darkroom!

And that's it for this time.

I also have to say that I am going to have a wee break from writing this, as, apart from a bit of colour exploration, I am completely up-to-date in detailing everything. 
But aside from that, the PVD is really getting to me and rendering everything quite difficult, from taking photos (it's really hard to see aperture markings!), to printing, to even writing this. 

So, give it a few weeks or so and I'll see how I go - it's amazing how something so seemingly inconsequential (and commonplace - the optician's own words) can have such a large effect on one's life, but it is doing so.

Anyway, until the next time, go on, get some paper maps out along with a nice mug of beer and have an explore in your head, and then go and find some parts of this ancient landscape we're all surrounded by and record them - you never know, the Earth Spirit might just be kind to you.

Beam me up Scotchman.

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.

Homeless

I pondered about this one, because, despite the title it isn't technically about being Homeless - please read on though - hopefully I'll be able to explain myself better.

There's a gulch near my house - I guess round these parts you'd call it a glen, albeit a really really small one. It is steep and contains a well-maintained public footpath.
It's been there for a long time as far as I can tell.
There's a wall alongside it that I would say dates back to at least the mid-1800's by the look of it, however it is probably likely that the course of the path runs much further back in time.
The wall is certainly on the 1847 Charles Edwards Survey Map.
In my experience boundaries of all kinds are usually far older than they seem.

Prior to the railways arriving, the Firth of Tay was boundaried in this part of town by a cliff before it hit the docks of the city centre. This gulch runs down through what is still there of the cliff.
There is vegetation everywhere - dense old trees, ramsons, ground ivy, bramble, gorse. 

It is (unusually, for public land) completely wild; the council haven't attacked it with weed killer or strimmers.

There are what appear to be animal trackways - they could well belong to deer or foxes or just the humble coney. They're well used, but there's no spraints of any animal variety, just human and then not very often, but it doesn't half give you a surprise!

In amongst this wildness, this lost parcel of land, someone has, at some point in recent time, chosen to take refuge.

I'll pause there, because immediately to my mind the word desperation makes itself felt.

Well. you'll see what I mean when you see the photographs. 

I can sort of understand it though. 

The area is relatively secluded, well, actually, it is very secluded, yet you're within a ten minute walk of food shops and so on.

And yet, despite their invisibility, the sites (there are/were two of them) are despoiled.

Vandals?

Madness?

Who knows?

The site in these photographs contains a (not very obvious) sleeping bag kicked into the dirt and the remnants of a campsite - old buckets, plastic, bottles and tins.
The refuse is actually quite well hidden in the undergrowth, like they wanted it to be secret.

Slowly nature is reclaiming this brief intrusion, as she will always.

The other site contains the same detritus, plus the wreckage of a tarp shelter; a traffic cone; more buckets; some tins and, perhaps shockingly to these modern sensibilities, some sad, lone bits of excrement.
It's a weird thing - everybody does it, few talk about it, but when you discover such a thing, when you nearly plant your foot in it, it becomes a matter of outrage.
You feel really unclean.
I came home and sanitized my tripod legs and shoes

With regards to our depositor of surprises, where has this person gone? 

That's what I'd like to know.

In the past year of so, this is the fourth destroyed campsite I've seen, and not just in my area, but in various bits of the town - the Docks and Seabraes.
Is it the same person?
If it is, to just abandon everything like your sleeping bag, tarp, tent etc., why?

Anyway, I'll leave the unponderables.

Maybe you have a similar thing going on where you live.
It's always worth lifting those bushes and checking - if someone wants to take themselves out of society, well, though not easy, it can be done.

I'm actually reminded of a brilliant book by William Boyd, called Ordinary Thunderstorms, about a scientist, who, through no fault of his own, is thrust into the world of invisibility and starts sleeping rough.

It's a rip-snorter of a plot and highly recommended.

Anyway, enough - on with the photos, though as usual you get the notes too!

Film #66/72

1. 4 second reading to 10 seconds - f8 ZIII - Garage

2. 4 second reading to 10 seconds - f22 ZIII - 21cm Focus - Parallax - Gargh!

3. 1 second reading to 3 seconds - f16 ZIII

4. 1 second - f11 ZIII  - Homeless

5. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f22 ZIII - Tape Measure 48cm

6. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f16 ZIII - Tape Measure 52cm - Ivy

7. 1 second - f16 - ZIII

8. 1/2 second - f22 - ZIII

9. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f11 ZIII - Homeless

10. 2 second reading to 5 seconds - f16 ZIII - Ivy + Tripod Leg

11. 8 second reading to 19 seconds - f22 ZIII - Tape Measure 50cm to 150cm Focus

12. 8 second reading to 19 seconds - f22 ZIII - Quick Release Plate Came Loose

Used a small tape measure a lot - worked well, be sure to use it in the future.

5+5+500ml PHD 22℃ - agit to 14 mins, stand to 18 mins.

The detail on every leaf is extraordinary   - it's like they are etched - very pleasing to my eyes especially considering the blurriness from the PVD which is ongoing and very flarey

Homeless I

Homeless II

Homeless III

Homeless IV

Homeless V

Homeless VI

Homeless VII

Homeless VIII

I know, I can hear you saying it to yourself:

"But where's the filfth? Where's the grinding poverty? Where the Don McCullin man?"

Well, you know, they're/it's not there and that's the sort of semi-surreal thing about it, and I guess that why I am most pleased with Homeless VIII.

The 19 second exposure has given movement to the tree's branches, which in turn has added an air of unreality and dream to it. 

Well it has to my eyes.

Don't worry - I don't think I'll be going all Lee Big Stopper on you yet - that whole branch of modern photography is rather sad. If you want to see what it can truly do, please search out John Blakemore - he was innovating (after a manner with the baton from Wynn Bullock) decades ago.
If you've never looked at either photographer's works, please search them out.

Kudos must be paid to Pyrocat-HD as a developer - without a staining developer there's no way in heck the highlights would have had a chance of being printed.

I know I am lucky too in having the SWC/M to rely on - every single piece of veining on leaves shows up - the Biogon is without a doubt the greatest lens I have ever used.
Not the easiest, no, but certainly the one that renders foliage in a most extraordinary way.
The closest I can get to it is by saying that you can count every leaf and blade, which you really can't with a lot of lenses.

I used my handy Ilford Reciprocity tables - basically, apart from SFX, most Ilford film under time pressure exhibits the same reciprocity failure, so I knocked up a sheet (along with Kodak) affixed it to some card, and laminated it with cellotape - works great!

These are all 800 dpi scans off of the original prints. 

They're all made by me, on my knees (!) in my guerilla darkroom - I guess where there's a will there's a way.

Paper is my current easy go-to paper - Ilford MGRC and they're all on Grade 3, except the contact which was Grade 2. I suppose if I was using a condenser head on the DeVere I'd be Grade 2 for the prints, but no, it's a colour head, so  Grade 3.

I will say, that with my current PVD affecting my eyes, it was damn hard using the grain focuser - they both seemed to be disagreeing (I have two - a Paterson and a Micromega) but in reality it was my eyes at work - very difficult . . but I got there.

Weirdly and cosmically, there's a denouement to all this:

Last night me and t'missus settled down to watch the physicist Brian Cox in his Wonders Of The Universe series - she had some wine and I enjoyed a couple of fine glasses of Ardmore whisky.
Old Coxy boy was explaining atoms and elements; you know the 'We're All Made Of Star Stuff' stuff, and it hit me, that this homeless person and their soon-to-be-returned-to-its-natural-state camp; all the detritus; my camera and film; tripod; the time measured with my Gossen meter and its handy Zone wheel; clothes; me; chemicals; paper; Ardmore; the missus; Coxy; my TV; the tide running deep and wild out in the estuary; my CD player (and Mike Oldfield as I type this); keyboard; ICs in the Mac; phone cables; satellites; you . . .

We're all from the same gaff.

From the same complex, vast in both time and complexity, mishmash of cosmic mashiness.

Like the best bubble and squeak you've ever had, where everything works together, or should work together.

Humans, we have to get there.

There's no going forward nowadays without tolerance, kindness and co-operation.
We're at a point in time where it could soar or go utterly shit-shaped.
For human-kind to progress and lift itself above the sad, petty madness, people have to change.
It is probably unlikely, because there's nothing humans like more than regularity and confirmity and the certainty of the known, but I think you have to move out of that comfort zone sometimes.
Change is good.
It's why we're here.

Maybe homeless person has changed or change has happened to them?
Maybe they 'got lucky' and are driving around in one of the countless bloody Audis you see coming up fast in your rear-view.
Or maybe they copped it and are hidden deep within some Lost Council Wildness waiting for some unfortunate photographer to discover them . . .
Maybe they're still out there, sheltering under some forgotten hedgerow, waiting for time to be kinder to them . . .
Who knows.

That's all there is to it.

For myself I've resolved to think even more on things and try to be less persnickety and pernickety.
Sometimes you have to force yourself to approach things differently.
To quote my hero, Rambling Syd Rumpo from the Sussex Whirdling Song:

"So there he is, a-plighting his troth ...

A troth, by the way, is a small furry creature with fins. It's a cross between a trout and a sloth or slow-th, and it's a curious match. I often wonder what they saw in each other in the first place, though I suppose the sloth, hanging upside down, tends to have a different slant on things."

There, something that makes me laugh, with language distilled from that most disliked of humans (next to the immigrant) the Romany.

It's what everyone needs though - a different slant on things - celebrate your inner sloth.

Weird eh, and sorry for expounding when all you wanted to do was read about film and stuff . . but that's what you get from getting up at 5 AM and drinking too much tea (Hi Mike!!)

Anyway, that's shallot.

I am relatively up-to-date photographically now, so it could be a while before I post anything new.

I did think I could do some more SFX stuff, but the spectre of wrong Nm hit me - it was ghastly and might well be a tale further down the line . . .

Oh and things might change on the next FB simply because Google have decided to change the way you use it to write - I've tried it already and it was more for phone-users and not keyboard heroes . . . 

Over and out - watch out for that trout.

Told you so.