Showing posts with label Kentmere Fine Print VC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kentmere Fine Print VC. Show all posts

Thursday, September 12, 2019

Tunnel Vision

Well folks, a mercifully short one today!

Y'know, there I was farting around with digital colour stuff recently, and I would enthusiastically go out and make a few photos and come home and view them on screen and they looked nice and that was that.
None of them have ever been printed.
Same with holiday things too - see my recent posts about holiday cameras for all the boring detail . . .
You know, since acquiring a 'digital holiday compact' about 11 years ago we've only printed ONE set of photos whereas when we used to send the film off, despite the groans, we always had something to file away!

Anyway at the same time I was thinking about upgrading digitally, I was also reading a book by William Boyd called 'Sweet Caress', whose main character, Amory Clay, is a female photographer (! I know, who'd a thunk it !) . . and there was one bit in it, that hit me like an ice-pick between the eyebrows . . 
She said (semi-retired and photographing her growing family) that when colour processing and colour film started to become more readily available and cheaper to use, she couldn't see things in colour, only black and white.

"Amongst the few pictures I did take some were in colour - Kodachrome slides, expensive but becoming the norm. However even as I could see my pictures reflected the world as it was I somehow wanted the world as it wasn't - in monochrome. That was my medium, I knew, and in fact I came to feel it so strongly I wondered if, as the world turned to colour photography, something vital was being lost. The black and white image was, in some essential way, photography's defining feature - that was where its power lay and colour diminished its artfulness: paradoxically, monochrome - because it was so evidently unnatural - was what made a photograph work best.
  I would carefully rewrap my cameras    - my Leica, my Rollei, my Voigtlander - and place them back on their shelf in the cupboard and, as I locked the door on them, I wondered if I'd ever be a proper photographer again."

© William Boyd, Sweet Caress, Pub. Bloomsbury, 2015

And like a seagull coming down and crapping all over your bag of chips, there it was . . ME DEFINED.

I am a monochrome photographer.

Suddenly the fartiness and cobwebs blew away and I thought, what on earth was the point in chasing a digital dream in colour, when I only, trulydream like early Ai - they were making them back in the 1960's y'know - that is comprehensively and completely in BLACK AND WHITE.

Boyd (not a photographer, though he'll often jemmie in a Leica or Nikon into his books) has somehow managed to nail something so firmly and perfectly that I (as someone who takes a fair number of photographs) has had to stand back and think.

Thank you William.

I've enjoyed the majority of his writing over the years since discovering Armadillo back in the 1990's,  but since Lorimer Black (of Armadillo fame) I've never empathised with a character of his like I did with Amory Clay - even though we are of different sexes (well, we were last time I looked) . .

It's funny recommending books - does anyone actually read any more???

All I can say, is if you don't mind a bit of swearing and sauciness, and enjoy the living of other lives that good writing can bring, give it a shot.



Chinese Gentleman Plays Tale Of Tale's Game "The Graveyard"
V&A Dundee, June 2019
Leica M2, 35mm f3.5 Summaron, Ilford FP4+

The above was shot on FP4 at f3.5 on the Leica. I think I was braced against a wall - exposure was about a half a second. It was pretty much dark darkness, and I thought:

Bollocks, I'll have a go with the Summaron wide open and see what comes out. 

It was one of those Noctilux moments with not a £3000+ piece of glass in sight!

There's a lovely quality to the f3.5 Summaron that isn't as contrasty as the f2.8 version - it somehow lets light breath.

It was processed in my new mix of Pyrocat from Wet Plate Supplies. I am standardising down a few minutes from my usual, so now I agitate everything to 14 mins (Constant first 30 secs, then 4 gentle inversions every minute) then let it stand to 17 mins. Seems to work fine.

It was printed on some really really old Kentmere fibre - I'll tell you how old it is, it was made in Cumbria before Ilford took them over!
The paper is fine and still fast and gives super blacks - the print will outlast me and somewhere down the road if it doesn't get skipped someone will wonder what on earth was going on in 2019 (I always write printing details and dates on the back of my prints in 2B pencil).

Were I of a different bent I'd have said:

"Well the camera was stopping me taking the picture because it thought I was wrong, but I hunted through a few menus and managed to over-ride it. What you are seeing is a RAW file on a screen. The bloody lens was hunting all over the place though and the Chinese man, concentrating on leading the old lady around the graveyard, started to get really annoyed when my focus assist light kept going off."

And where's the charm in that?

Anyway, trousers firmly nailed to the flagpole.
Never say die.
Black and White tattooed on my bum.
That's me.







Tuesday, November 05, 2013

The Ralph Gibson Experiment (Part Three)

Mornin' Maties.
Eggs
Or in the words of me old mate Gollum (the original one, you know the one that has lived in my head since I were young, not the fake New Zealand one):
Eggss's!
Oh yes, Easter is a comin' and there's nothing yer Cap'n likes more than a nice Easter egg. As many as possible so that I can put me ol' seaboots up on my cabin table come Easter morn, give thanks to the Lord and stuff myself full o' Albumen and Yolk.
Chocolate I hear you ask?
Nah, not here.
It gives me the monster-jips. I remember a time when we was runnin' a Brigand full o' Cacau beans down in the Southern Seas - oh yes. Very nasty. But you don't want to hear about that. Suffice to say I can't look a bar o' Lindt in the eye in the same way no more.
Nope, a good ol' hard (or soft) boiled hens egg, and as many as you like.
That does for me at Easter and bless the chicken that lays 'em.
Remember Cool Hand Luke? He's got nothin' on me come Easter Monday.


***


Well, as regular FogBlographers (why didn't I think of that before?) will know, I can drone on with an intensity which could send a caged and smoking lab Beagle to sleep, so today I am going to do something different.
In the words of the world-renowned Buitoni Ravioli TV advert from the early 1970's:
Don't talk . . . Eat!
(Actually, go on, search for a picture of a tin of Buitoni . . I dare you . . you won't find one . . again . . why?)
I am going to let the pictures do the talking and save my fingers the walking.
I will refer new readers back to The Ralph Gibson Experiment Part 1 and The Ralph Gibson Experiment Part 2, in which the whole ludicrous thing is explained, but if you are short of time, here's a précis:
The preface is simple:

Make photographs with a standard shutter speed that does not change and a standard aperture that does not change. All that needs to change is the focus, and even then . . .
Have a standardised processing procedure.
The camera I used is a 1960 Leica M2 - it's as sweet as a nut and I love it. The lens is an uncoated 1934 Leitz 50mm Elmar. It lacks contrast, so to help things, it is also fitted with a FISON lens hood.
The film is developed in a particularly strong solution of Agfa Rodinal (or R09 as it is now known) - Mr.Gibson's objective was to achieve a dense negative, and strangely this has helped me, delivering better results from the rather soft Elmar that are more akin to a modern coated lens.

I'll detail the procedure now:

SHUTTER SPEED: Well Mr.Gibson states his sunny day shooting speed is 1/250th of a second, however this is Scotland (Hoots!) and I chose to use 1/125th of a second, just in case.
APERTURE: Ralph uses a standard f16. He believes this gives his pictures a uniformity. It is a very cleaver move because it removes all faffing around and means you concentrate on the picture. I used f16 for every picture on this film.
FILM: he uses Kodak Tri-X, with EI's ranging from 400 down to 100.
DEVELOPER: Agfa Rodinal (or R09 as it is now known). He uses this at a dilution of 1+25 and a temperature of 68° Farenheit, with a 10 second agitation every 1 minute and 30 seconds, for a total time of 11 minutes.

And that is it.
Simple?
Well yes.
Brilliant?
Well yes, because you are freed of the general process and apart from focusing can make images pretty much on the fly.
My variation on this for this post, is that I had no Tri-X and was down to the last roll of fast film in the house, an expired (November, 2010) roll of Kodak TMY 400.
Because of this, obviously development times were different from Tri-X, so I roughly grabbed a figure out of the air, and settled on 9 minutes, with Ralph's agitation regime. I used 10ml Rodinal to 280ml water in a small Paterson tank. The Massive Development Chart recommends 5 minutes for this combo at EI 400, so this is well over!
The other variation is that for some of the last shots, I took the shutter speed down to 1/15th and 1/60th at f16, simply because the shots were of interiors and through windows. Yes I like the idea of a set speed, but I am not stupid and film is expensive.


Contact Sheet


***


After making two shots at the bus stop, I hit the upper deck of a bus on the way home from work. And as you can see, it has been fine in one shot, but, worried about the unholy way in which the bus was throwing me around and camera shake, I upped the shutter speed to 1/250th and with f16 the combo hasn't worked for shadow detail at all.
The sun was low, but it wasn't exactly dark, but it was a stop too far!
This being said, Frame 3 (the only one at 1/125th) is a corker.
I'll call it The Buddha On The Bus, simply because the rear of the man's head reminds me of Buddha's serene pose.
What isn't seen is his young son, who was running around causing chaos. I think the guy just closed his eyes for a second and assumed this serene pose!



The Buddha On The Bus
The Buddha On The Bus


Now certainly, on my monitor at work, this seems too contrasty, and very dark (and the same for the rest too - you might need to adjust accordingly) but at home and of course in the actual print, there is a nice glow and the subtleties of the shadows work very well.
I am also happy with the fact that it looks kind of weird because of the composition.
Printing-wise, I tried to get as Gibson-esque as possible with this. It was printed on Kentmere Fineprint VC fibre-based paper at Grade 5. Now that is a nominal Grade 5 simply because the paper is really old. Filtration was 130 units of Magenta on my DeVere 504. The lens was the El-Nikkor 50mm f2.8, new version. It looks quite contrasty doesn't it. I think it has almost transformed the look I get from the Elmar, and yet at the left of frame, there is that lovely Elmar OOFA (out of focus area).
I was pleasantly surprised.


***


Cheese



Next up was a grabbed shot in St.Andrews of a Saturday morning. It was one of those things - a whole bunch of people were gathered around this bloke applying window stickers to a bank. It looked quite surreal, so I just set a hyper-focal distance on the Elmar and went in like a sniper, one shot. The chap on the left looks like he has been stuck on, and strangely the shadow inbetween the two men looks like it is something out of Peter Pan, if you know what I mean.
I love the super-cheesy look on the model's face, don't you? and also the fact that someone has smeared the remnants of a 'kerry-oot' over the window near her face . . .
The world's (nearly) richest students?
Come on guys . . . keep yer lovely town clean.
Again, this is on Kentmere and a full-on Grade 5.


***


The next frame I am saving till second last as I am very happy with it. So I'll substitute in this one:



Cardboard Cat
Cardboard Cat



Why on earth someone would have a cardboard cut-out of a cat in their window, I have absolutely no idea! But they did, so I took a not very good picture of it. As you can maybe tell a bit, the film/dev and lens combo have made sterling work of the tracery of the curtain.
Old Elmar's seem to work very well in the medium/close range . . in other words, really, I believe they were optimised for people photography. Too close can be a bit mushy, infinity too, but in the 5 to 10 feet range, marvellous!
This was a Grade 3 print, but I reckon could have done with more, so I gave it a sharpish bath in Potassium Ferricyanide to tickle the highlights up a bit, and it has sort of worked. As I say, I don't think I am getting the full range of grades from the Kentmere paper as it is a number of years old.



***



Self Portrait With Dirt
Self Portrait With Dirt



OK - another one of my dirty window pictures. I tried to get in as close as possible with the Elmar, but I have just mucked it up as the dirt isn't as crisp as I wanted it to be.
This being said I rather like the ominous look of my reflection in this - it suggests something 'other-worldy' if you get my drift. This was a Grade 4 print.



***



Now I am going to shove in the print which should have come before the cat. I love this. 
It was one of those photos: I saw the shop display of the girls whispering, saw the street reflected in the window, and waited till the woman was walking in the right part of the frame and bingo.



Have You Heard About Her?
Have You Heard About Her?


What I just love about this is that you can see the girls whispering to each other "Have you heard about her?" and there she is reflected . . Walls have Ears etc etc.
I did actually print this a tad too dark, so have had to selectively pot-ferry the faces. This was simple enough to do - about half a teaspoon of crystals to about 300 ml of water; mix well; remove print from wash, let its wetness stick it to the back of an empty developing tray and use a shower head to wash the print as you are doing it; then paint the solution onto the areas required and almost immediately wash off - keep repeating till desired lightness is achieved; give print a good final blast of water and pop it back into some film strength fix for a minute or so. 
If results aren't still to your liking, then repeat the procedure. 
It is important to return the print to the fix, and the reason I use film strength is so that the print isn't in the fixing solution for a prolonged period of time..



Sectional Enlargement - 800 DPI


The sectional enlargement of one of the girl's eyes gives you an idea of how big the grain can be with this combo . . it isn't alarming. Also bear in mind that scanning isn't an actual substitute for seeing a print. In the print, the grain is super-crisp and quite a delight.


***


And onto my final frame, although it was an extra one, so number 37.
This was taken at Vision - Dundee's 'digital hub'. 13 units to rent, and only 3 occupied. It is a beautiful looking building inside and just the sort of place that should be rethinking its strategy and using its great space for exhibitions and workshops and things. I was so taken by the light and the reflection in the window and also the look of the window through the window and the tree in the car park that I had to make this. It was made by bracing the camera against the window and taking things down to 1/15th. This is easy to do with a Leica as there is no mirror flapping around making a nuisance of itself. I will happily say I love it.



By Evening's Light
By Evening's Light


I made the print darker than I should have and again there has been selective bleaching to the window and the highlights, but I feel it works. It is sort of a 'nature is just waiting to reclaim all this' picture, and I am fond of making such images.
Again, Grade 5 on Kentmere, oh and I forgot to mention - all prints were developed in Kodak Polymax and fixed with Agfa Agefix.


***


And that's it folks - hope you enjoyed it.
I suppose it does take a modicum of courage from me to stick the contact sheet at the start - my heart is on my sleeve . . . you can see my rubbish as well as my decent bits, but hey that's walking around with a camera!
Again, any questions or anything, please feel free to ask!
You should have a go at using Ralph's regime - it is surprisingly flexible and gives results which can surprise and please.
As usual, take care, God Bless and thanks for reading.

Friday, March 08, 2013

The Ralph Gibson Experiment (Part Two)

Phew, shipmates.
That's all I can say to you . . Phew!
The weather this week has been, to tell the truth, worse than a hold full o' Space Hoppers.
Oh yes, we've been powerful affected by wind, and plenty of it. And what does wind cause? Waves, and not just small ones neither.
Give the wind half a chance and it'll whip up 200 nautical miles o' ocean into something resembling a party of drunken intruders on a cosy evening in.
Now we's used to that, why wouldn't we be? but it does bring with it problems.
Yes we have supplies, and yus, most times the only things to do are to stow the sails and wait it out, but there's one problem they'll never show 'ee on Pirates Of The Caribbean . . . excrement.
Most times in good weather you can sit yourself at the stern and drop till your heart's content and no one'll disturb ye, or just whip off a quick tinkle and back to work.
But in a storm, all there is is the bucket.
And it's no man's favourite job to take that bucket a'deck and chuck it over the side, especially when the wind is coming at you at 40 knots, but it's a job that has to be done. 
I'll tell 'ee shipmates, it's no joke having ten men's droppings blasting back at ye in the teeth o' a gale.
But there, that's life on the ocean wave.
It's bad for old Mog too.
Cats is private creatures.
Watch a cat doing it's business and it'll not really trust ye again.
Normally he'll hop onto the rear rail and drop and spray like any man.
"Kathmandu!" comes the cry and we's leaves him alone, but tisn't safe for a cat on the rear rail in a storm, so he'll head to the bilge pretending he's looking for anything that'll provide a couple o'hours o'fun and we leave's him alone to do his business.
But this week he seemed different.
Like I say we were laid up with that wind and sea, but Mog looked damned assured of himself.
He kept mighty clean, and swaggered around the shop, no skulking, just cleanliness and spit an' polish.
In a word, he was up to something.
Now I abide honesty more than any man-jack alive and when I think something's up, I'll come right out and ask. So I did.
"Mog," I said, "you're up to summat, old friend!"
Now Mog, being a cat, obviously can't speak, but we've been around enough together to know what each of us is saying.
That cat had been peeing somewhere, call it a Cap'n's Sixth Sense. Call it a Keen Hooter, but amongst all the familiar smells of a ship with the hatches battened down, there was not one single whiff o' cat's pish.
Mog looked at me, in that sly way he has sometimes, and strolled off in the direction of Sheephouse's cabins.
(Sheephouse was up above, lashed to a mast with a decent length o'rope to stop him falling overboard and was chucking his interiors into the teeth o' the storm.)
Mog nosed open the door o' Sheephouse's darkroom, jumped up onto a worktop and used his rear to push a bottle forward.
I unscrewed the lid, and took a look. The liquid was a dark reddy-brown, and fairly concentrated looking. I took a look at the bottle again, and larfed. 
Oh how I larfed, my sides split. 
Even Mog was larfing too . . . .




 PSST . . . . DON'T TELL SHEEPHOUSE!


***


I know, I know . . you have been pacing the floors, not sleeping, off your food. Your libido has vanished entirely. The washing-up hasn't been done. Your wife is checking your smartphone for evidence. Your skin has taken on a wan hue. You haven't made a photograph all week. What's wrong? What's wrong!
Nothing is wrong you big baby - worry no more, because Part Two of 'The Ralph Gibson Experiment' is back.
It's big, bold, brash, brave, chock-a-block with bonhomie, bravura and beans. Oh yes, never in the field of photographic experimentation has so much been done by so few for so many.
So hoist your trousers and put a Do Not Disturb sign on your brain, because when we are done, things will never be the same again. Indeed, the world may never be the same again, because we are treading new(ish) and unknown territory, where a monster lurks 'round every corner, and fortune favours the brave!
Of course, literal interpretations of the above are welcome, but then again, most people would consider you utterly mad, so take it all with a pinch of salt and just mutter "F'in Sheephouse" to yourself a few times. You'll get there. Just imagine what it is like for me -  I have to share the same brain with him . . .

Firstly I will preface all this for those of you expecting to see some photographs that look like Mr.Gibsons'. 
It isn't going to happen
Why?
Well, as I stated last week, this was purely an experiment to see whether his shooting and processing technique (as detailed in the book Darkroom) would work for me. That is the be-all and end-all. I couldn't emulate him and I have no wish too.

Last week I set you up with a feast of information, and this week, guess what? yep - it's info overload. It will all be needed to be digested, however it is easy, and especially so, if I distill last week's post down to a paragraph.
Would you like that? Would you?
OK, seeing as I am feeling benevolent.


Kodak Tri-X, at mostly EI 400
Sunny day shooting regime: 1/250th of a second at f16
Shoot in bright sun on Tri-X with the camera set for f16
10cc of Rodinal for every film used.
Dilution of 1 + 25.
Temperature 68° Farenheit.
Agitation for 10 seconds every one-and-a-half minutes
Total development time 11 minutes.

How's that for the summation of a life's work and technique (apologies to Ralph - no disrespect meant) but at least if you read the above, it means you don't need to read last week's post . . what do you mean . . you couldn't be arsed reading it anyway?? Were I not of sound mind I might take umbrage at that . . however I am not so I won't. I generally like to think that if you have learned something, and it can be passed on, then one should out of human duty.
So, long-winded preamble out of the the way . . where was I?
Ah yes, basic reference meter readings taken, film loaded, pack-mule fed and burdened with Koni-Omega and sprightly spring in my step as I head off towards Ye Olde Hawkhill in search of some eye-candy.

Grossly romanticised Sheephouse, and we won't be having any of that around here you know. This is Britain.
Eye-candy?
You mean pleasant subject matter don't you?
(Official communication from The Ministry Of Britishness; dated 25th February 2013)

Well, yes, eye-candy isn't really a word that can be applied to the Hawkhill in Dundee - it is a bit of a 'non' area these days - all the interesting bits were demolished back in the 1960's and 1970s and it is now a rough collection of University buildings and low-lying industrial units.
Apparently, in 1954, the Hawkhill boasted 13 pubs, 2 wine merchants, 12 sweetie shops, 15 bakers, 21 grocers, 7 Scots/Italian chippies and 2 bicycle shops. Some 20 years later, it was almost reduced to rubble by redevelopment.
My lecturer and friend from college days, Mr.Joseph McKenzie, detailed the whole lot in an extraordinary photographic essay called Hawkhill, Death Of A Living Community. Sadly this hasn't been exhibited in years, which is a terrible shame. It is a an important statement on the corruption and frenzy from a black period of time in British Architectural Improvements.
Anyway, here's some pictures from the opposite end of the Hawkhill to where I would be starting, to illustrate the changes wrought.




BEFORE
Session Street is on the right

AFTER
Session Street is still on the right, but where has the character gone?



Look at that. I honestly feel that if the wholesale mass crushing of Dundee's architecture hadn't happened, and the money had instead been spent on improving the older buildings rather than knocking them down, you'd have a city that could possibly be regarded as one of the world's architectural jewels. It still retained most of its medieaval street layouts well into the 20th Century.
Anyway, mostly gone now, and along the Hawkhill, one is overcome by, how shall we say, dullness. It does still have a couple of real olde-time pubs though .  .The Cambeltown Bar and The Hawkhill Tavern, but there used to be so much more. 
Anyway, enuff o' me shite . . onwards. 
(Oh, actually, if you are at all interested, photographically, we have the most incredible archive, made by a [ahem] Amateur photographer, Mr.Alexander Wilson and made between the 1870's and early 1900's. They capture a city that was a hub of Victorian Britain - famous for its 3 J's - Jute, Jam and Journalism, but also its lesser known industries of ship building and whaling. It was a place of extremes, from total poverty [found in backies in the likes of the Hawkhill and the Hilltown, to mansions on the upper reaches of the Perth Road and Millionaire's Mile on the East side of town - at one time containing the highest proportion of millionaires in Britain - pretty remarkable when you are talking about Victorian Britain!] Anyway, if you have a half an hour you can find the photographs here.)
Am I trying to take my time here . . well, no . . but I do enjoy a nice meander.
Anyway, here goes - I will warn in advance that my scanner, even scanning in Greyscale, has imparted a pinkish tinge to the following images. They're scans off the contact print, and they've been sharpened a tad and contrast has been adjusted a tad too.
For the full effect of Tri-X in Rodinal one merely has to go to the very last photograph of the crop of Sir Alan Sugar's face and bear in mind it was a hand-held photograph. I think you'll agree the performance is none too tardy.
Oh and I am going to shoehorn in a bit about meter readings here - as I stated earlier I took some average ones before I left the house. According to my Gossen meter the EV's (Exposure Values) ran from 13 to 16, which is fairly typical for round here, so based on the recommended box speed of Tri-X:
At EI 400, EV13 = 1/30th @ f16
At EI 400, EV16 = 1/250th @ f16
His recommendation is right at the top of my readings, so I adjusted by one stop to 1/125th @ f16 for every shot and hoped it would all work out.
Oh, and the text in calm blue is linked to appropriate pages should you be interested.
Right here goes folks - in a rather un-photographer-y way, I am now laying my heart and my embarassment on my sleeve, and showing you the full contact sheet (split up) - there's nowhere for me to hide. Most frames are terrible, but one is a keeper.



***



1


Right, Photo 1:
Well, I hit the Sinderins behind this bloke. He stopped right in front of me, and I hate that, so I backed up whilst he was texting, and snapped at him. I then realised that a Koni-Omega is not exactly a snapshot camera - it is surprisingly easy to use, but it isn't good for an instinctive shot. By the time you have lifted it to your face, the moment has gone, or, people think you are going to assault them - it is that big.
As big as a face actually.


*




2


Photo 2:
I turned up Peddie Street and headed towards the industrial units there - they are bleak and interesting and contain one of Dundee's greatest gems - Clark's All-Night Bakery.
Famously described as 'heart attack central', basically if you find yourself in need of tasty stodge at any hour of the day or night, it is the place to go.
Want attitude? You'll apparently get it, though we have only ever encountered friendliness.
More importantly, want Chips and Curry Sauce at 3AM on a Sunday morning? You'll get it.
This photo is of the roof of Clark's. I have made loads of this same scene over the years and still can't capture it.
And I wasn't successful this time either - soot and chalk in extremis.

*



3


Photo 3:
I headed back towards the Hawkhill, but wandered into Halley-Stevensons - a relatively unknown gem of Dundee. They're the oldest producer of waxed cotton fabrics in the world. So, I would say they supply Barbour etc . . quite something eh!
Situated in The Baltic Works, there are many photographic opportunities.
I was taken by this reflection, but here you see that a rangefinder isn't so good for closeups, because stuff intrudes into the frame but you don't realise until later. It is unclear on the contact, but on the negative the de-silvering of the mirror adds a strange edge to the reality.
Anyway, cropped I think it would work.

*



4


Photo 4:
Halley-Stevensons again . . but look at the vertical . . it's off, and thus renders this permanently annoying for me. Incredible detail though!

*



5


Photo 5:
Same place, but another dull photograph - again the detail is very good.

*



6


Photo 6:
Now this is the one I like the most. It is more me. I like this sort of carefully composed urban landscape detail.
It's at the sculpture entrance to Duncan Disorderly College Of Art.
I used to go there you know . . . and whilst it was a valuable education, despite the nice website, I'll quote Public Enemy again . . "Don't believe the hype".
Unless it has changed dramatically (it may well have; in fact it probably has) I found it to be a creative mincer. Bright optimism in, stifled creativity sausages out. But thinking about it, that was probably just olde curmudgeonly me.
My one solace from the shoehorning of ideas that was occuring in the Graphics Department, was Joseph McKenzie's oasis - the Photography Department.
Joe ran a wonderful ship, where creativity was encouraged. My only slight criticism, was that technicality wasn't emphasised. But that is just me. I like a bit of technical . .that's why I am writing this.
Back to DOJ though, Gerry Badger and Albert Watson went there too . . but as I say, those were the days when they had a photography department. These days it is called Time Based Art and Digital Film - click the link and it will take you there. Notice no mention made of photography! 
Hmmm . . . och well, all this criticism . . bang goes any chance of becoming a part-time lecturer in monochrome photography and traditional darkroom practice . . but onwards.
Anyway, to me this photograph works, however, it also shows me that the framelines on the Koni are possibly misaligned as I cropped it a lot closer than this.
On a positive note - look at the detail!

*



7


Photo 7:
Then it was round the back of the College and down the side, meanwhile these two dogs were barking at me, so I thought . . wait a minute, you can't do that, so I took their picture and stopped them barking.
That's true actually - the Koni stilled them into a stasis which was only broken when I moved away . . oh, the power of that camera, but then again, maybe they thought it was a large black piece of square meat . . .

*



8


Photo 8:
From there it was onto the Perth Road opposite Drouthys and head back to base.
Next up is Williams' Newsagent. This is an old-style traditional newsagent (fags, sweets and papers . . none of yer modern fripperies).
I wanted a to try a close-up of the shutters and so on, just to check the focus on the camera and the ability of the Super-Omegon lens.
No problems there . . just a slightly 'off' vertical which again is no good to me. I can correct in the darkroom should I wish to print such a dull photograph!

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9


Photo 9:
Further along and as I approached this guy from the other direction I was so taken by his air of melancholy that I was desperate to just approach him and ask if I could take a picture of his sad face, but I didn't (coward) and moved past to stand and browse a shop window beyond him. From there it was terribly easy to guess focus, and point the Koni in his direction and snap. Hence the squintness. He still looks pretty sad, and I've never seen a single customer in his newly-opened mini-mart.

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10


Photo 10:
And the last in line as it were. The couple approaching looked to me like something out of a Gary Winogrand picture, but, lacking his balls and talent I opted to make a photograph of them by holding the Koni at waist level and pretending to check it. Of course I guessed focus too. At the very last second the baldy guy staggered into my path out of Mennies.
It was literally as I was operating the shutter. Yes it is squint, yes it is shite, but it is amazing that you can use a camera the size of one and a half housebricks in the street like this!

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There y'go - I've cropped it just to get an idea of what it would look like . . it has gone from squinty snap to instant threat (I think).
Anyway, surprised it was all over so quickly and operating the push/pull film advance mechanism on the Koni, I strode off, determined that I would process these the way Mr.Gibson would!
20 minutes later, film loaded in Paterson tank, all accoutrements beside me at the kitchen sink, I cousulted my notes:


10cc of Rodinal for every film used.
Dilution of 1 + 25.
Temperature 68° Farenheit.
Agitation for 10 seconds every one-and-a-half minutes
Total development time 11 minutes.

Ok, so seeing as I was using a large Paterson tank my ratios of developer to water were 19.23ml Rodinal + 480ml water. Everything else was the same as above. Agitation (the most under appreciated part of film developing) was a gentle 10 seconds (roughly 4 inversions) at 1 minute 30 second intervals, so Zero seconds, then 1 minute 30 seconds/3 minutes/4 minutes 30 seconds/ 6 /7:30 / 9 / 10:30, and then chuck the developer at 11 minutes.
I will also preface this with the fact that I always use a water bath pre-development. A lot of people don't, but I find it lends itself to more even developing, so that was 3 or 4 changes of water at 68° Farenheit with gentle agitation.
All was safely gathered in, processing went fine, drying went fine, and a contact was made and assessed.
One of the frames was without a doubt the clear winner, so I printed it.
I thought I would go the whole hog and 'do a Gibson', so I printed it at Grade 5!





I've Been Fired



I used Kentmere Fine Print VC Fibre paper, developer was my usual Kodak Polymax. It is actually a superb paper and even for the likes of a Grade 5 print, exposure times are very fast. The lens was the 100mm Vivitar VHE at f16, which is a great lens - amazing to think that a month ago it was sitting unloved in its box, growing fungus.
What can't be ascertained from the scan is the print's luminosity. That is something that is quite hard to define and achieve, but is definitely a by-product of negative density. You don't read that much, but the more I have printed the more I realise it to be so. It is a conclusion I originally saw expounded by the American photographer Steve Mulligan, and I agree with him.
This was the densest negative on the roll.
It is very much me.!
And just to show you how well the combination of film and developer work, here's a sectional enlargement. The above print is an 8x10". 
The section below means the print would stretch beyond the 24-odd inches of the DeVere's baseboard. That's a big print.



Sharpened slightly just to empahasise the grain,
which isn't nearly as huge as I was expecting.
The detail is surprising isn't it, especially when you consider I wasn't  using a tripod.


Were you under the impression that a strong solution of Rodinal was grainy? That is the received wisdom isn't it . . . 
Can I stretch to a Part 3 where I have used 35mm TMX 400?
It's possible actually, because I did so last weekend!
So where has this got me? Was it all pointless?
Well, no.
I might not have achieved the Ăœber-Density of a Ralph Gibson negative, but I have achieved a tonality, in the finished print, which I am delighted with.
I have also been surprised, so much so that I intend to use up the Rodinal I have left - I am particularly looking forward to trying it with some TMX 100 5x4 film. I'll also use it in the future at varying dilutions like I used to. I know the agreed sensible route is to stick to one film and developer combo, but you know what, life's too short. It is fun swapping things around - it makes an interesting hobby even more interesting.
And that's it, as they say at the end of all the best cartoons "Tha-tha-tha-that's all folks!"
I hope you've enjoyed this - if you've got any queries feel free to use the comments box and I'll answer to the best of my ability.
As usual, take care, God bless and thanks for reading.
Oh and if you've read this far, you'll maybe not realise that there is a PART THREE - no one seems to have read it - you can find it HERE

Thanks Ralph!