Showing posts with label Olympus Trip 35. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Olympus Trip 35. Show all posts

Thursday, May 12, 2016

(D)Evolution Of The Leica Snapshot

Howdy folks - today we're going to approach something that was so much of a scene, so hep it never became popular!
It was out there but it never came back.
So strim yer goatee, dig out your snappy duds, put on some sides . . .
Dig?
And let's get going!

Any of you out there with Theo Kisselbach's "Leica Handbook" will no doubt have had a chortle at the photograph of The Cat (actually not just any old cat, but a German one, looking cool, and it's hard to be cool when there's no bread and the Communists and the Capitalists are talking about dividing your country) taking what became known as a Leica Snapshot.
Wot's a Leica Snapshot then Sheepy?
Well, technically it isn't a Leica Snapshot as Kisselbach describes it as a "walking snapshot", but you'll know what it is . . . camera held at a low, hip level (dig? man that's groovy) vertically or horizontally in your hand, your focus and shutter speed pre-set and your big old (but totally groovin') thumb on the shutter release. 
Then all you do is slide man . . . 
And . . .
Snap!
There y'go, outta sight, you've a groovy masterpiece forever y'dig.
Like you get a note in there between C and C# and that's its own sound y'know. I mean, you can't call it C because it isn't . . . that's like dig.
Dig means Dig.
If it doesn't hang you up, it doesn't make it as a thing.

You must excuse the hip speak baby (and its nothing to do with Fecking Austin Feckin' Powers either) no man, we're in Germany in the early 60's with a Leica M2, neat threads, and some crazy side someone got in the American Zone.
I am of course alluding to one of the greatest albums of all time by two loose wigs - namely Del Close and John Brent.


Try and find a copy, sit back and laugh.
Dig yourself baby, you've got a way to go.
Once you get used to it, insanity can be the most normal thing in the world . . .

And somewhere near approaching insanity is what the walking snapshot has done to me.
Sorry, but I couldn't be bothered to separate the two 'covert' techniques photos, so both are detailed below, but it's the Cat (left hand figure in left hand photo in case your sexing radar is a bit off today) and the bit near the bottom (last paragraph of the text) that we're interested in.
Man . . . modern life.
So here he is, a young Cat, in the park, sliding, digging the scene, impressing his admiring Fräulein Chick with his stone-cold skills, and she too is juiced, impressing him with her similarly boss covert stance - all she needs is some rain-threads and she could be that Walker Evans cat on the New York Subway in the 1930's:

"Look - stop moaning baby, I've set it to 1/500th and f16 dig?"


The book states the following:




So, the "walking snapshot" - it's a hip scene isn't it?
Isn't it?
Well, er . . NO!
Baby, it's as difficult a technique to master as becoming a Shaolin monk.
It's so hard, man, it fried people's minds, it chewed the carpet, it split the juice, it . . .
OK . . .I'll stop now.
Indeed, it is so bloody hard that it has largely fallen out of favour, because it is just simpler to go up to people and shove your camera in their face.
So just what is so difficult about it then?
Well, what Herr Kisselbach doesn't mention is that it entirely depends on three things that have to be absolutely right, namely:

Aim 
Momentum
and  
Timing

 . . . but you've been there man. You're a hep cat, you know the scene, you've sacrificed a roll or two to practice, but you blew your wig, you chewed the rug when you realised that for every shot that worked, you had ten that don't.
 
I've tried this technique a number of times now and whilst it certainly beats lifting the camera to your eye, that little frame of film is entirely at the apex of a vastly complex physical equation involving:

Speed
Time
Momentum
Energy
 . . oh and . . .
Random chance

It's like the whole of chaos theory wrapped up into that one tiny moment of time as you pick your moment, and Click! your finger digs the scene!

Of course you can do things to mitigate the whole thing, like being super-careful, not jabbing at the shutter release, suspending your body motion and poising for a brief moment and being totally aware of everything as it is happening, but it still doesn't seem to work.
In fact, with a bit of scouring around it seems close to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (just don't quote me on it)


But how does this relate to evolution?
Well, simply put, despite being a very small and sereptitious camera, the Leica in all its variations still looks like a camera, and it is big for such operations.
My thinking led me to the thoughts that if I don't mind a fixed focus lens I could use one of the smaller pre-noughties compacts and try it that way. The only problem with that, was that if using say an Olympus MjU, you've got that total bane of shutter lag, so I stripped that back and tried it with my lovely old Olympus Trip.

It was almost  a good camera for it - being that bit smaller. But it is still very much obviously a camera . . and not only that it has that stupid red flag that comes up every bloody time you have an interesting picture coming up, so you might be well-prepped and itching to go but at the last moment the camera decides "Nope - you're not wasting film on that!" and the shutter refuses to fire.
So I gave that up as a bad-show, and then happenstance and a kind gift from Bruce Robbins of Online Darkroom fame moved things along.
The gift?
A lovely Olympus XA2 in really lovely condition
In much the same way that the original Olympus XA was an evolutionary move on from the Trip, so, the humble XA2 was a move on from the XA, in that, there's simply nothing to complicate things.
It's simple.
Zone focus - you get a choice of three, close heads, heads and torsos, and mountains.
Automatic - set the EI/ASA and the camera does the rest for you, both aperture and shutter speed.
And it doesn't have anything that stops you from taking a photograph apart from a light in the viewfinder which tells you if things are getting iffy.
And then there's the main thing:  down low at hip height, held in your hand, it could look like a phone and no one pays a blind bit of notice of them do they?
Sounds ideal doesn't it!
Here's the tech specs:

    Lens D.Zuiko 35mm 1:3.5-22 (4 elements in 3 groups)
    Focal range 1.3m to infinity in 3 zones
    Shutter speeds 2s-1/750th aperture-priority automatic

Ally this with a super quite, super sensitive shutter (with NO shutter lag) and a wonderful wheel advance that is easily and discreetly moved by a few flicks of your thumb and you have a camera which is the ultimate in stealth!
I loaded it up and set off to work, winding and snapping like a good 'un. I couldn't even hear the shutter as I was moving, it being a focal plane/between lens elements job. Marvey!
It was a revelation to use - no one noticed, and I thought I had some stonking frames on my film.
And in came the wonder of film too, because unlike everything (or seemingly everything in life at the moment) this wasn't instantaneous gratification, nope, I had to wait . . to finish that long 36 exposure film and then the processing, and even then there was still no guarantee I had got anything at all worth using . .
But you know me - I can be obverse . . I love that aspect of photography where you see something good, take a photograph but just don't know whether it will be any good or not!
I suppose it is a form of oo! yah!, lay off with the split cane will you . . . masochism.
So where did all that waiting get us?
Shitesville, that's where!



Oops



Ditto



Bad Timing



Ditto



There's Something Perversely Pleasing About This One



Ditto - That's A Dog At The Left BTW



Pretty Boring  - But It Shows What Can Be Done With Care



Pick Up Thy Camera (To Eye-Level) And Snap



A Pretty Damn Good Little Lens Though - Shame About The Photographer


Y'see, the XA2's lens is fine, really fine, but you can't really tweak anything at all, the camera decides everything for you once you've set the focus and wound on, I mean you might well be able to get 1/750th at f3.5, but what use is that when you are trying to get a fair amount within the zone of focus? Sadly, for anything other than bright sunshine (this is Scotland - c'mon!) the XA2 and the "walking snapshot" don't really cog.
It's sad actually, because if you could just set it in stone and shoot, you'd have a very capable little machine, however if you live in sunnier climes, you might well find the XA2 to be a very capable little machine indeed.

So, I chewed some carpet, spat my spaghetti at the wall, dug what that crazy Gibson cat said and retired to my secret pad, to see if I could get the thing.
After much ruminating, goatee scratching, and bashing my brains against the lampstand, the lampstand came on, and I dug. I really did. 
It was crazy daddio, but first I needed to tweak the knobs.

If you've read FB for long enough (and if you haven't why not, it's a whole scene playing out in front of your eyes - a lot of people get it, some people even dig it) you'll realise there's nothing I like more than a bit of a tweak.
Pretty much the ultimate tweak for this sort of thing is a box-speed 400 ASA film, and a camera set at 1/125th of a second and f16. 
You've got to zone-focus baby, because, the zone is where it's at. 
Develop your masterpiece in some really aggressive developer (just in case) and let the film's latitude deal with any bad decisions and poor exposure. 
Oh and pray
Pray to Bird, or Monk, or Trane or Miles. 
Those cats are watching you. 
You'd better do them justice.

So I put the XA2 away, packed the crazy 1960 M2, but this time with the late '50's Canon 28mm f3.5 attached.
Sigh . . . here we go again . . .


Wides are cool. They dig the scene better than anything else, but you have to move those cats in close, closer than talc or else everything is too far out.
I dug what Ralph had said. 
I even dug where Sheephouse had excavated his technique and shoved it on a plate of loose beans in front of the modern world. 
Education man. 
Yeah, crazy.
Education. 
Helping others - that's a crazy scene.
So before setting out, I decided on mixing a bit of Ralph Gibson Experiment (Tri-X - 400 ASA, 1/125th of a second, f16 in sunny conditions, developed in Rodinal) with a bit of Zone focus magic. 
And what did I have
I had a thing.
A crazy, complex, small, simple and quiet Leica Snapshot Machine
The rain came out to play and so did I.


That's the edge of my threads . . . and Ali's nose



Ok - This Was A 'Proper' Photograph - But Dig That Krazy Kanon Glow!


This Chick Looked Fierce, But She Had A Collection Of Cakes In A Bag, So She Must Have Been Alright.


A Scene Going Down - We Vamoosed

She Was Concentrating On Pushing So Much, She Nearly Ran Me Down


They Were Concentrating On Their Destination Of Starbucks, They Nearly Ran Me Down.


But it never came off.
Sady The Uncertainty Principle caught me up in its complexity - you see what I mean, Shitesville City and all it's satellite towns too!
For all my care and even with a fixed fixed shutter speed and a bit more poise, I still found it utterly impossible to take what I would call a decent photograph.

This being said, I kind of like some of these in a crazy way.

There's a perverse sense that someday . . . maybe someday . . . something will turn out right and I'll get there.
But till then . . .
If you fancy having a go, by all means do . . . 

Just don't come blowing my horn when you're 2 rolls down and cracking your nut.

Friday, October 12, 2012

A Brief Word About Lenses

Greetings Shipmates!
Well, what a week it has been. We been helping Mr.Sheephouse out, and we're plain knackered. It was shifting boxes here, shifting boxes there; sorting out this, sorting out that; a scritchin' and a scatchin' with a quill; use of the magnifier.
We even purloined a light.
Not just any light either but The Stevenson on the Mull O'Galloway.
Oh yes, up there at night, pieces of glass held up against its God-like brightness, checking for imperfections and blemishes.
What a week for it.
We settled in at the Stevenson though, even though we weren't supposed to be there. You can't beat a lighthouse in good weather and this is a beauty.
Clear views to the Lakes and the Isle 'O'Man and Ireland. Puffins and gulls. Wide vistas and clean air.
It also has the best collection  of snails I have ever seen (on a south facing wall) - there be hunners o' them - big too. We likes a snail or six, quick fried with garlic an' butter.
Mog hates them though, so he had to make do with a few tins o'Kattomeat from a local emporium.
Oh yes, what a week.
And then when everything was checked it was back on the Goode Shippe FB and off on the seas of ether.
We's got a long haul ahead of us this week though, he's threatening to lock us in his darkroom again so we might be out of signalling distance for some while.
Still, at least we've got a couple o'hunnerweight o'snails to keep us company.


***

I will warn you in advance - there are a lot of photographs in this weeks FB.
It is strange really and doesn't seem to make any sense at all, but quite a number of years ago, a weird phenomena overtook the world of photography, and it doesn't actually seem to be getting any less. If anything it is on the increase. And I find it hard to get myself into the mindset-cave where it is residing like some big cave-dwelling thing, waiting to devour passers-by.
Surely, photography, any form of photography, is all about the image.
I would hope that any of you reading this that aren't even of a photographic bent would realise this. Snaps of Aunty Tony and Uncle Sally, Nobby the Cat, your children, neighbours, friends, that tree that looms over your garden, a house, a bowl of pasta . . . get my drift . . . a photograph needs subject matter, and more to the point, the subject matter needs to be the reason for the photograph.
I've been doing a lot of legwork in the ether in the past few weeks, checking out lenses and their out of focus characteristics, and also the way they handle contrast and skin tones and detail, and having done all this, I have come to the conclusion that photography, which was once a means to an end, seems to have become an end to a means.
I'm going to be contentious here, but at the risk of getting my baseball cap knocked off my head by the youth with the cudgel, I'll say it anways:
Photography, looks like it has become almost exclusively a 'lads' hobby.
There . .
OUCH!
Let me try and explain how I came to this conclusion at the risk of alienating any female readers.
In much the same way when I was young, male teenagers of 14 and 15 and 16 yearned for a Yamaha 125, or a Kracker (Kawasaki) or a Suzuki moped, now, men (and some women, but mostly men) of a certain age, seem to have have become obsessed with cameras and lenses.
And it is a strange obsession, because it doesn't actually seem to have anything to do with what you can do with a camera. No, it is more of a 'let's-have-it-up-on-the-ramps-and lets-check-this-beauty-from-underneath' type of attitude.
I fully understand that the fascination with the beauty of cameras has been there from the start, and I have that fascination too, however it seems to have turned a corner and now what we are getting is the wholesale grading of every lens ever made with buyers in search of some magical extra something that will make them a better photographer.
So what you have is
Either
everything shot wide open,
Or
everything shot with a regard as to how sharp a picture is.
If it isn't sharp or if it isn't pleasantly smooth, then the lens seems to get disparaged.
Subject matter has nothing to do with it.
Common problems like closeness of subject matter and it's inherent lack of depth of focus, and landscapes and apparent depth of field, are discarded. Hardly anyone mentions the use of tripods or monopods in aiding a steady camera, or mentions the influence a mirror will have in its movements. There is no talk of how a lighter-bodied camera can actually make things worse. Photographic technique and craft? Forget it.
If a lens isn't sharp at maximum aperture, if it doesn't have bokeh smoother than James Bond, then it is almost totally disregarded and the madness and hunger drives them ever onwards.
I think I could understand this if interesting photographs were being made, but they aren't.
Not by a hole a million miles wide they aren't.
Lenses, and the whole point for their existence, photographs seem to have become a diversion from the main meat and potatoes.
We have entered the world of the Cool Wall, but with small bits of glass and brass and aluminium and lubricants.
On the Top Gear Cool Wall, millionaire's toys are paraded around with an audience hungry for petrol fumes and 'fun' and a total disregard for anything nearing practicality.
I used to love Top Gear, but I stopped watching it years ago because it became a semi-pathetic parade of middle-aged men strutting around with their flies open.
Everything became about the fastest, loudest, smoothest, most expensive, most exclusive.
'Petrol Heads' the world over fired up by this boy's-own attitude became intent on using up as much of the finite resource that is oil as possible, with scant regard for the planet's future (don't worry . . I'm not going to soapbox)
Do you know what I mean?
And this Bigger, Stronger, Faster, More attitude has now saturated my rather quaint world.
My Morris Minor Convertible has been nicked and pimped.
I spotted it the other day, harassing some Grannies.
Gone are it's wooden panels and old world charm, it is now sporting Twin-Carburettors, a jacked suspension and a 22 inch Sub-Woofer.
Instead of transporting its occupants on a pleasant Sunday drive for a spot of fishing, it now cruises to the nearest Drive-Thru for the consumption of mechanised meat.
(And whilst I am on the subject, if you eat meat, you'd better get used to becoming a vegetarian .  .there's no way we can sustain current meat production for the populations the world has. Remember the hydroponics plants so beloved of Science Fiction films? They're coming my friends. It's the only way to deal with the coming Hungers.)
Anyway, stop looking at your burger . . it's back on with the lecture!
When I started taking photographs I started because it was part of my college course and because my inherent curiosity about the world seemed to click ('scuse the pun) with making a photograph. I became fascinated with what things looked like in Black And White. I also became fascinated with maybe trying to single out things in this crazy world that looked a little different to my eyes. In a few words, I found a creative pursuit that would enable me to express myself in fuller terms than just playing the guitar.
My pursuit was borne of creativity and is still fired by it, and will continue to be so till I stop.
Yes I love cameras, for what they can do, but they are a means to an end and not the other way round.
Anyway, in the interests of the subject matter of this FB, I have compiled my own tongue in cheek


Cool Wall




Sub Zero
Leitz Summicrons and Summiluxes and Noctiluxes
Cooke Portrait lenses
Aero-Ektars
Anything of historical note with an aperture wider than f1.8
Large format lenses from the golden age of Pictorialism
Zeiss Planars and variations thereof
Zeiss Sonnars and variations thereof
Dokter Optik
There's bound to be a few more, but this isn't meant to be a definitive list

Cool
Plastic lenses from plastic cameras
Lens Babys
Nikon/Pentax/Canon/Olympus prime lenses with a highly regarded reputation (Like the Pentax SMC 50mm f1.4)
Ancient prime lenses from the 1950's and '60's
High End Mainstream Manufacturer lenses (the likes of the ED Nikkors)
Lomo
Diana
Kodak Ektar
Anything else other than the pinnacles, with Leitz or Zeiss engraved on it
Some Russian lenses
Nikon and Canon Rangefinder lenses
Certain Schneider, Rodenstock and  Fujinon Large Format lenses
Nikon large format lenses
Hasselblad

Uncool
Zoom  lenses
Praktika
Minolta
Olympus
Canon FD
Most 'ordinary' Rodenstock and Schneider and Fujinon large format lenses
Ordinary mainstream lenses from the likes of Nikon and Pentax and Canon
Rollei MF SLR lenses

Seriously Uncool
Anything by Vivitar, Tamron and other third party manufacturers making lenses for a less well-off mainstream camera buyer
Cheap Bundled mainstream Zoom Lenses
Lenses from people like Soligor - basically manufacturers now long extinct, who were possibly questionable at the time anyway
Zenit

***

You'll probably disagree with the list, but then it is just knocked up with only a tiny amount of thought at a ridiculously early hour of the morning whilst recovering from too much wine, so feel free!
This situation has led me to become convinced that what we now have is a:

Whoargh  
Look at the lens on that! 
Cwoooor
Check out them f-stops 
Cwooooooorrrrr 
Gauss?
Gauss! 
CWOOOAR 
Tessar?
Whooooohhh
Got Symmetrical Dialyte?
Drool


situation.
So, is there any point in this activity at all?
To be honest, I think the answer to that is no, and yet everyone seems to do it!
I'll just ask one question (and the ghosts of Eugene and Ansel and Henri and Wynn and Edward and Clarence are right behind me on this):

Are you going to make a photograph with that lens or are you just going to snap away at random objects and then see how sharp/smooth your new acquisition is? 

It is almost getting to the point where one questions a photograph anyway these days.
This is an enormously complicated subject and way beyond FB, because I could ramble on for far longer than anyone could be bothered with, but the photographic world seems to be morphing (a terrible word) between having a tool that one uses to interpret your take on the world and a gleaming chunk of metal that you polish on your driveway every week.
Faster.
Sharper.
Smoother.
More Expensive . . .
Does this make any sense to you? I sort of know what I am trying to say, but I am finding it hard to express myself (unusually).
Anyway, I have actually been there and done it, but only in a modest manner.
I've printed and checked and enlarged, and I will now bring out my soapbox and say that really it doesn't seem to matter very much at all.
What matters most is your subject and the way you have observed it.
That my friends is the whole point of picking up a camera in the first place.
It is your recorder of the world you are travelling through.
Anyway, enough of my personal opinions - you lot must get sick to the high teeth of them . . but as I have said before this Blog is my little domain and I can do what I like.
Just to show how very little difference things make (to me) I have included some images made with prime lenses from several different manufacturers.
It isn't an exhaustive list, just what I have to hand.
The only slight difference between any of them is film - it is a mix of Rollei RPX 100, Kodak Tri-X and TMAX 400 and Ilford Delta 400, and camera - SLR and Rangefinder, and camera-shake.
See if you can see a difference that is worth spending hours mulling over, other than the fact that the subject matter might or might not be interesting.
I apologise for the alignment - I couldn't be arsed finding out how to do it properly, plus I ran out of time . . . also the horizontal banding on some of them is from my ***ing scanner . . .
Here goes:





The above were made using a Pre-Ai 50mm f1.4 Nikkor on a Nikon F2.
Possibly my favourite lens - totally sharp wide open and detailed stopped down.







These were from the highly regarded SMC-M Pentax 50mm f1.4, used on a Pentax MX . .
Notice much difference?
The OOFA on this lens was always particularly nice.







And again - the above were from a 1980's Russian 50mm f2 Jupiter 8 used on a 1950's Leica.
Whacker-whacker-whacker . . can you tell what it is yet?
Character is what you get with this lens  - it is soft but does that make a difference?







The three above are from a pantheon of photographic achievement - quite remarkable seeing as it is nearly 80 years old . . a 1934 50mm f3.5 leitz Elmar (uncoated).
A very well made lens with great qualities.
Better in the 3 to 30 feet category and beautiful OOFA.







I'll even add some different focal lengths into the mix.
This is the sharpest lens I own - a Pre-Ai 55mm f3.5 self-compensating Micro-Nikkor - it is astonishing. So astonishing that they adapted it for film camera use when making the original Star Wars films.
It isn't nearly as good at infinity though - but you can't touch it for extreme close to near distance.







Ok, we'll take it down a shade now - the above were made with the humble 40mm f2.8 D.Zuiko on an Olympus Trip.
Nothing too tardy here I can tell you - very sharp all round with nice qualities.






Something a bit wider now - the three above were made with a Pre-Ai 35mm f2 Nikkor.
Sheer quality and great OOFA and sharpness - also a favourite lens.
It has great 'pictorial' qualities.




                                                     


And finally, some bottom feeding. The lens above is a Nikkor again, however this time the widest I own - a 28mm f2.8 (non-zoom) Nikkor on the lowly AFS600 compact which I purchased for the grand sum of £5.
The lens is actually very sharp indeed and with minimal shutter lag, if you want an all electronic film camera for general purpose picture making then this would be a good choice . .  .if you can find one!
The rewind motor is as noisy as hell though.

***



So there you go.
Be honest, can you notice any discernible difference other than subject matter and focal length?
Of course lenses are different and the variations are enormous, and owning a nice lens, is a nice thing, but it really isn't the be-all and end-all as far as I can see.
Maybe I am being naiive and stupid, but to me, the important thing is to make photographs.
I had fun making these photographs and printing them - they are my take on things.
They haven't been over-analysed, or mulled over (very much) - they are all to a man, photographs, not lens tests.
So try and get on with things.
In the words of Bobby McFerrin:
Don't Worry, Be Happy
and in the words of Tommy McFerrett:
Nae Worries, Any Lenses, Happy Bunny
Life is short, good light is shorter.
Stop reading about differences, spend the time on learning photographic craft skills - they will always see you right, and get out and make some photographs you can be proud of!
There'll be no FB next week for the simple reason that I need to organise my negatives and get some printing done (yes . . even at my usual ungodly hour of the morning). It might not seem like a lot of work, but each FB is hand-crafted, lovingly carved from words and given a final buff-up before being presented to you . . in other words they take up a huge amount of creative time, and I have let my filing slide!
Also I need to freshen my brain up. Winter's coming up fast - if I want to entertain you I need to take some time out and think about what to write. And also, I am just not sure how long FB can go on. Yes it has sharpened my writing, and yes it has been fun . . but I am not sure how much more I have to say . . . so we shall see. I know I have some regular readers out there . . and a big thank you for that - it is appreciated. So we shall see. I will be back though, even if it is briefly (I've got some planned that'll have you wringing your withers . . .), so worryeth not!
Anyway, as usual, take care, God bless, thanks for reading . . over and out.

Friday, September 07, 2012

Photographing Nothing

Greetings m'Dearios. Well this week we seem to have been a sailin' round in a big circle. 
We set off on Monday with all sorts of waves and well-wishes and we found ourselves back on Friday in the same port with all sorts of puzzled looks and warding.
For 'tis bad luck to return to the port you set off from in the same week.
I have an idea how it happened, and I will blame it on Mog.
That cat.
He'll sleep anywhere, and given we'd been re-caulking a part of the foredeck this week, he managed to get tar on his fur, but, before we had him trimmed, he had a snooze in my cabin, and left some nice tarry marks on me charts.
'Twasn't good though.
I made it onto the dock and was immediately beset by Cap'n Mash.
After our usual sailorly greetings, he took me aside and the following conversation ensued:

'T'isn't right cap'n'

'You're right there Mash.'

He'd found out about Mog

'In my day ship's cats were considered ill-luck when they got tarred.'

'My day too cap'n - we're the same age remember.'

'Oh. Ar. Aye, so we are.'

'You're forgetting yerself there cap'n'

He looked a bit offended.
Anyways after much beard strokin', he said:

'So where are you going to nail it?'

I've risked offending many people before, and I wasn't going to let Mash tell me what to do, so I looked him in the eye and said:

'You've overstepped yersel' there cap'n.'

He took this like a slap with a bowsprit.

'But it is cap'n. Bad luck is what it is. If you don't then I will. That cat'll bring it all down upon us again.'

'Bring what down cap'n?' I asked
He looked at me in a weird way and said in a small voice:

'The Fear, cap'n, The Fear.'

This was mighty strange, but I asked him anyway.

'What fear be that Mash?'

He rubbed at his jowls and took out his cloute and wiped his forehead and looked me straight in the eye and said:

'It.'

This was getting stranger by the minute.

'It what Mash?'

'It!'

Mr.Sheephouse had appeared on deck at this time and was observing us - no doubt he wrote it up in his journals. He was holding Mog in a friendly manner and supportive of the cat's behind, just the proper way you hold a cat.
Mog was watching too.
I didn't know what to say, so I let Mash qualify his statement. He was looking swole now, his face had lost that steely look like he was going to stop me and he had more the appearence of a big babby.

'Haven't ye noticed cap'n? 
No matter where ye go, from the Southern shoals to the Northern rocks. 
From warm water to cold. 
From the lands of the sultry-eyed ladies to the lands of the blubber-eaters.
The sea, cap'n. 
The sea! 
That's The Fear cap'n.
The sea! 
It all be the same!'

We headed out on the next tide and I am happy to report that our charts are now fine.
Mog is sitting watching me write this up. He has a dish o'cream and his favourite catnip mouse.
It takes a lot to change a sailor's mind once he's set on course, but a ship's cat is a capn's best friend.
I've raised Mog since I found him half-drowned in a burlap bag as a kit.
There was no chance of me nailin' him to a mast.
No chance at all.


***



Definition of nothing
[pronoun]
·   not anything; no single thing:
    I said nothing
    there’s nothing you can do
    they found nothing wrong
·   something of no importance or concern:
    ‘What are you laughing at?’ ‘Oh, nothing, sir’
     they are nothing to him
[as noun]:
     no longer could we be treated as nothings
·    (in calculations)
     no amount;
     nought.
[adjective]
[attributive] informal
·     having no prospect of progress; of no value:
      he had a series of nothing jobs
[adverb]
·     not at all:
      a man who cared nothing for her
      he looks nothing like the others
[postpositive]
·     North American informal used to contradict something emphatically:
      ‘This is a surprise.’ ‘Surprise nothing.’



***



You know, looking back over contact prints and boxes of prints I have, I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of money and time and effort on photographing nothing at all.
One generally supposes that a picture needs to have a subject, but as I shall show dear reader my subjects often consist of nothing other than a piece of wall, or fence, or moor, or tree. Nothing you could really call 'subject matter', nothing even that you could really call a snap. So why do I continue on this fool's errand when the world and his brother wants pictures of something?
When I was much much younger and still finding my feet on a fingerboard, my Mother would urge me, even cajole me, to play something with "a tune to it."
At the time, John William's Cavatina was the piece of classical guitar music that everyone wanted to hear, but I simply couldn't play it. I could have made a half-hearted, fumble fingered go at it, but I couldn't just sit down in a room with Mum and Dad, Trevor and Olive, and Arthur and Evelyn and Dolly and Tom and Doug and play it. I could do a passable attempt at the opening bit of the Concerto Aranjuez, or a Chinese-whispers version of Smokestack Lightning, but Cavatina?
No way hose-pipe.
Not a chance.
And I wonder now why I didn't even try to appease them. It would have been simpler, would have won me all sorts of appreciation, maybe even an extra piece of God's own pudding (in case you're wondering, an Apple pie, with shortcrust pastry and a hint of the exotic with cloves added for spice) and custard . . . but I didn't. I prefered instead to mumble and do the hard rasquedo-ey bit from Concerto and that was it. 
I sort of realise now why I was like that - basically, I am stupid.
It manifests itself in many ways, but generally, at the hint of being able to do something that might in the long-run lead onto something, I stand in the corner and just say 'No'.
It has been the same with every single creative endevour I have ever been involved with, and to be honest I find it immensely irritating.
So how does this contrary motion manifest itself photographically?
Well, I must admit that when (and if) in a situation where all comers are photographing the view or whatever interesting is happening, I tend to find myself off in a different direction, or around the corner, or just plain photographing the people doing the photographing. When in landscapes of incredible beauty, I tend not to go for the grand view (though goodness knows I have) but more for the things in that landscape that I find attractive . . . and that is . . . usually . . . what you could call . . . er . . . nothing.
So why bother?
Well I find this a difficult one to quantify.
Apparently John Szarkowski wrote in a forward to one of Ansel Adams’ books, a quote from Fred Astaire in the film Funny Face. Astaire was playing a fashion photographer. Audrey Hepburn’s character asked him, “Why do you photograph beautiful women?” and he said, “Madam, you’d be amazed at how small the demand is for pictures of trees.”
I think that is an interesting quote, because in Mr.Adams' case, pictures of trees and the grand vista were what he made his name with, however my favourite Adams photographs are the ones where people are involved and where the non-obvious is the subject matter.
There is one of walls and buildings from Mexico (where the light is just extraordinary and a dog just pops into the frame and Mr.Adams makes the photograph) that I love very much for the fact that other than the dog appearing at the appropriate moment, there is nothing going on.
But there is also another, a portrait he made on his Zeiss Contax, of Georgia O'Keefe and Orville Cox at the Canyon de Shelly national monument.
I think he out-decisived HCB on this.
From my own point of view, it is full of nothing, and yet it doubtless has something.




Georgia O'Keeffe and Orville Cox, Canyon de Chelly National Monument
©Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust


One wonders what was said, or maybe even un-said. There can be so much read into this seemingly simple photograph, but ultimately it is a photograph of nothing where something is happening.
For my own bizarre ends, you name it I have photographed it, from cigarette stubbers to barren, rock-strewn hillsides, to pictures of mist (taken from inside the mist) to piles of earth and posters and bits of light on walls.
There is never any intended subtext of duality.
They are just plain photographs.
So why do I do it? Is there some sort of attractiveness in my subject matter. Something that might halt a viewer in their tracks and make them say (Hmmmmm . .. I see!) . . Well no not really. A large number of my photographs aren't just as dull as dishwater, they're horrendously boring too. But the thing is, I quite like them. I made them, and even if they are dull to you and you and you, to me they are fine. Not great. Just fine.
I don't make photographs of sports events or society photographs - those tend to be pictures of something. Mine are more like random observations from a chaotic world (isn't that a great book title . . so great I am going to copyright it now):
Random Observations From A Chaotic World ©  Phil Rogers 06/09/2012
There, that's better.
What I think I am trying to say (and regular FB readers will appreciate the fact that every week they're delving into the thought process of a Stromatalite) is that photographic subject matter is obviously entirely a personal choice, but (and here's the kicker) like my refusal to play Cavatina, it doesn't actually have to be of anything at all.
It's a weird way to approach a hobby, but it is my way and unless I change dramatically, I can't really see anything beyond my random collection of images of unremarkable buildings, trees in the middle of nowhere, ephemera and detritus, random mist, forgotten parcels of land and the occasional person passing through the edges of my viewfinder.
A photograph is a photograph is a photograph; be it masterful archival print handled by be-gloved curators in a museum, or a snap permanently pasted in a plastic sleeved album handed round at parties and family get-togethers. From the £20,000 investment on a gallery wall to the plastic-papered object you collect from Tescos, to the thirty billion random examples littering the ether. All photographs. All of them of subject matter that might be something, could possibly even be something, but mostly is nothing.
Hmmmm (rubs beard and re-reads again) this has all gone a bit . . shite. I've got away from what I was trying to say and wandered off again. 
That dear reader is part of how this comes together most weeks. powered by massive mugs of tea my brain slowly grinds into motion, but it doesn't necessarily grind in the direction it was grinding the day before. But please be ensured that, like a fleshy orbital sander, it will eventually get to some obscure point.
Yes, what was I saying.
Why do I do it?
I think it all stems from something Gary Winogrand said when asked why he photographed so much, and his answer was (to paraphrase him) that he photographed to see what the world was like photographed.
There is (strangely) something to this seemingly obtuse, mad and random statement.

Strap on a helmet - he's headed off in a different direction again . .this is the Winogrand by-pass:

Gary snapped away like a good'un; like there was no tomorrow.
On the surface, seemingly endless random shots of people and situations.
Photographs of, really, nothing.
Tiny slices of time, chaotic and juxtaposed. Fleeting moments that would at their time of occurrence have absolutely no meaning at all to their perpetrators. An arm lifted here, a conversation there. A laugh. A burden. A fall. A bag. A coffee. The movements of the world. Bits of time that you would never analyse.
But with crafted observation, transformed into art.
When you view his images there is something that hits you straight in the nose.
He was a humanist.
There is great feeling and warmth deeply inherent in his photographs.
There is pathos and a very refined sense of humour.
They're not gritty in the way a lot of photography of the 60's and 70's was.
They're honest and human, no set-ups, just lightning fast reactions to unfolding situations; anticipation to the Nth degree.
But ultimately photographs of nothing made into something.
Here's a couple of examples - they're mad and funny and strange all at the same time.
The first image is almost like something from a surrealist painting don't you think?




Democratic Convention, LA, 1960
© Winogrand Estate




It's bizarre to think that in photographing nothing: three people, at random, up close (with the incredible fact that none of them seem to be aware of the camera) Mr.Winogrand has, like Mr.Adams, made a photograph into which so much can be read.
My next example from him is probably one of my favourite photographs these days.





Untitled 1977
© Winogrand Estate




Again, a picture of nothing.
A boy and a sheep (?) in what looks like a stock shed, and yet, one wonders what is going on.
My own thoughts are (every time I look at it):

Who is looking after who?
Is that some strange alien and the boy is disgruntled because he is hogging the limelight?
Have they had a fight?

Again in photographing the mundane Mr.Winogrand has provided us with an image which raises more questions than it answers and with the added bonus that we smile and chuckle and then this great photograph is now our new best friend.
I call it genius.
Sadly Gary passed away in the 1980's leaving an archive of tens of thousands of unprocessed rolls of film. One wonders what other gems are in there.


Ok, we've taken a left and now we're back on Sheephouse Drive


At this point in time, I have decided to shamelessly shoehorn some of my own photographic nothings into the proceedings . . . and why not . . . FB is my little kingdom and I can do what I like.
Of course these images are in rather grand company, but I like to think that if either Mr.Winogrand, or Mr.Adams were still alive and came round, we could sit and have some tea and good old chin-wag, so I am sure they won't mind my paltry efforts.
The photos I have included below are essentially images of nothing.
They're random snaps (well the first two are) from random moments of time.
There's nothing going on and there's nothing happening.
The first two were made on holiday with my trusty little Olympus Trip 35:





Mersey Ferry, 2012
                         
      


Yes, that flag is on the Mersey Ferry - I dunno, it just seemed like a nice little bit of Britishness that I rather like - but essentially it is a snap of nothing. I was just wandering around the deck blazing through a roll of film and pretending to look:
a.) Arty
and
b.) Important
Nobody was fooled - my family remained in the cafe area and looked unimpressed.


Two days before we had been a-wanderin' in the rain around the beautiful and lively City of Liverpool, when I spied the next subject.
The man was drunk or homeless or just plain desperate, but his back and the way he moved caught my eye and I had to briefly follow him and make this picture.
I felt (and still feel) sorry for him actually.
He exuded an air of complete lonliness.
It was him versus the world and the world was winning, and it was raining.
I should have bought him a coffee in hindsight, but such was his air that he would probably have told me to shove it.





Man In The Rain, Liverpool, 2012




The third is the most mundane, but it shows how, sometimes, unplanned and strange things can happen.
It was a lengthy set-up involving a 5x4 view camera and a large tripod.
Nominally it is a picture of nothing, that somehow seems to have become a picture of something.
Something weird.
Just why I decided to photograph this clump of trees is totally beyond me.
It took about 20 minutes to set the camera up, a few minutes to sort out the meter readings and make the exposure, a few minutes take-down time; and then of course there's the lugging time, the getting back to the car time; the processing time (one sheet of film at a time) and then the printing time.
A large chunk of my life has been wasted on making an image of absolutely no consequence or worth to anyone . . at least that is what I thought.
However, somehow, light and rocks and leaves and their positioning in the landscape have led me to capture an image of a dead man's face. You can see it quite clearly, near the bole of the left hand trees. He looks like he has been trussed rather in the method of Bronze Age sacrifices, and, putting arms and legs onto everything as usual, I feel that maybe some of the spirit of this quiet clump of forgotten land has manifested itself in a natural apparition.
We are programmed for faces. Just look around you and they are everywhere in the natural world. Strangely, I just seem to have found one in a pile of rocks and leaves, in a public cemetery, early on a May morning.





The Drowned Man, 2010




I could have illustrated this FB with loads more images of total inconsequence, but I have spared you dear reader.
They are dull.
Maybe when we get to know each other better I'll reel them out and await your judgement.
In the meantime, don't fuss over your photographs, just go and take a walk and take a picture of something that you find interesting to look at.
For the sheer hell of it, why not follow Mr.Winogrand and just photograph to see what the world looks like photographed.
It might well be nothing in the eyes of the world, but it will be your something.
God bless, thanks for reading and (as usual) stay dry.