Showing posts with label W.Eugene Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label W.Eugene Smith. Show all posts

Monday, April 19, 2021

Übermensch

Morning folks - y'see, there I was with the germ of an idea for a post, and I started, and got a title and everyfink, and then I continued expounding until all I had was a page full of words and myself, tied up in unreadable nonsense.
Goodness it was long and dull, and I got to the point whereby I thought, I really can't get myself out of this corner I've painted myself into.
So what did I do? 
Yep, chopped it all out and started again. 
(It had taken me bloody weeks too).

I like the title though, don't you?

Here's a little snippet from der Wiki:

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

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

It was taken around the back of Duncan Of Jordanstone College Of Art, a couple of years back.
Camera was a Hasselblad 500C/M and a 60mm Distagon, on I think Ilford HP5, developed in Pyrocat-HD.
I don't know what mentor and surrogate father-figure Joseph McKenzie would have made of it, but I wish I'd had the balls and the eyes to present something like it back in the 1980s'.

Why I think it suits the title I have no idea - maybe it's my deep subconscious at work. 
Anyway, in hindsight, I really should have taken the legs home.


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

The splashy stuff and writing are as a result of me resting the lens hood against a window and focusing on the legs - there's something about reflection photos taken this way that adds an air of dreaminess to an already unreal scene. 
Thank goodness it was just a wired safety door and not double-glazed. 
Double glazing ruins most reflection shots.
Hmmm - Übermensch - Beyond Man.

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


Übermensch 2


The above could be a file snapped on a phone, but it isn't.
It's Hard Data - exposed silver halide on a polyester base, printed in a darkroom on resin coated paper. 

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

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

I can hold that strip of negatives in my hand, taking them out carefully and print them. 
When I use film and make prints, by chemical process, I bring light and time into being. 

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

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

I have stopped time

Pulled a piece of the universe away from its fabric.

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

I photograph you at a moment in time and make that part of you, then, into a physical representation of you in a print.
The print is the child of the negative.
The negative is another version of you because you will never be that version of yourself again.
That version of you, captured, exists; but unlike say a reflection in a pool, it has become an object that transcends the momentary.

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

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

I enjoy looking at them in their own right.
I like the way that (at the right angle and with the right light behind them) you can see a ghostly brown-grey positive image. 
I like the fact that they have to be handled carefully, and cherished really, like delicate children.

Hmmm - Übermensch - Beyond Man. 
Hmmm - Jenseits der Zeit - Beyond Time.

Talking of which.
The negative and the print of this exist. 
 

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


They're not data in the cloud, they're physical; beyond binary 1's and 0's, a human has taken materials and not only torn a piece from the fabric of the Universe, but also turned them into something that goes way beyond their mere physicality.
This photograph, whilst obviously old (1942 actually) transcends time. 
It speaks eloquently and across the ages, to all.
Who hasn't, at least once in their lives, felt like this?
Stranger In Town.
Übermensch.


I'll leave the last word to another from my old mate Eugene Smith. 
Possibly the finest photograph ever taken in my eyes.
As full of grace, power, emotion, skill, craft and beauty as anything ever produced by anyone ever.



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


It might have been set-up as he was wont to do at times, however I am not sure of that. 
It speaks in spades, communing emotion way beyond the event and beyond time itself.
I've looked at this image hundreds of times and yet every time my eyes are drawn to the beauty and poise of the Nun, and then to the small bear in her hand, and I am moved. Moved beyond it's reality as a mere photograph.
To tears.
A translator to the life beyond, caught so very briefly in a deeply human and humane moment.
Beautiful.
Almost eternal.

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

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

Beam Us Up Scotty!

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

Saturday, February 07, 2015

The 1960 Space-Age Time Machine

Morning!

Regular readers will know that a while back I bought a rather nifty old Canon 28mm f3.5 LTM lens. I was chuffed with said lovely piece of brass, chrome and glass and said so here.
Well, since then I've been bad . . nay . . not just bad, but neglectful . . you see I've barely used it, and I can't quite figure out why, because it's lovely to use and adds a certain air of early 1960's gentlemanly charm to my Leica M2 - they look the part don't they!


Tip Top - the 1960 Space-Age Time Machine.
(OK, so the Canon is a Type IV, mid-1950's model, but it didn't have the same ring to it)


I think my problem is, that up till now, I hadn't actually printed anything properly that I had photographed with it.
Notice I say printed, because although I had scanned some of the negatives made with it and had done a few initial crumby work prints on RC paper, I hadn't actually spent a huge amount of time in the darkroom with real quality photographic materials.
Well more fool me, because as such, I was entirely unaware of how fantastic the little Canon was for (how shall we say) . . ahem . . 'vintage tones'.
There, bugger it, that's all the remaining nice ones in the world snapped up by digi-twitchers in search of the unattainable. 
Oh yeah I can hear it now, "It's a bargain in current terms  . . . blah blah blah . . . impeccable build quality . . . blah bloody blah"
And you know what, for all that the world has progressed; for all that digital photography is the be-all and end-all; for all that all but a hard-core of junkie film users even pay attention to such things, I still think there's a hankering for The Golden Age.
You know, Eugene, HCB, Ansel, Wynn, Minor, Paul, Walker etc etc etc.
Their photographs have 'that look'.
"What's that Sheephouse?" I hear you cry .. "What look might that be man, and how does one attain it?'
Well, it's the look of liquid silver.
Of greys that shimmer with depth and airiness.
Photographs of timing and composition and skill made by people that relied on their innate human creativity and not the splurge of a billion frames a second in the cause of hoping to 'capture' something . . anything . .  worthwhile.
It's THE LOOK man, and if you need an arse like me to explain it to you, then you jolly well need your eyes tested!

In short (or long) it is nothing short of why I wanted to photograph in the first place and why I don't think I have ever really achieved my goal and go on searching. (There, how's that! I've hobbled any photographic achievements I have ever achieved). But it's true.
It's also a look I don't really see at all these days and I think the reason for this (apart from the obvious one of completely different materials from then to now) is down to a certain hiccough in the world of glass: coating.
An uncoated lens as you'll no doubt know delivers flare and often low contrast (caused by the flare).
A single coated lens will deliver more contrast, and slightly less flare.
A multi-coated lens has precious little flare, but tons of contrast. True, the little Canon is I believe multi-coated, but it's 'soft' (not physically, but visually) - there's no way you'd get the same look from a modern lens . . 
And then there's coating and coating - stuff that is so soft you could just stare at it and it marks, stuff that is so hard you can smash it against a brick wall, but all of it made with the thought in mind that contrast is better than flare.
(There's a stupid caveat to this too - I recently had the chance to handle and see the results from a couple of Lomo panoramic cameras . . and you know what . . they didn't have the look, even for their so-called 'lo-fi' cache . . . and actually, thinking about it, pinhole camera results don't have the look either  . . at least they don't to my eye. I experimented in pinhole years back and found it to be a faff for something that I just thought was so-so. If you want dreamy and out-of-focus, you'll have to go LF and back to the earliest of barrel lenses (or the misuse of close-up lenses) in my humble opinion . . . anyway . . that's another story!)

So what is the dashed lens bringing to the party, given that a pinhole has no glass??
It's impossible to quantify for me - maybe if I were to read Arthur Cox's Photographic Optics, I'd understand completely, but for now, let me say that the lens acts as a (oh goodness . . . here he goes again) sort of surrogate portal to a different reality.

Now if you could just hold on a min whilst I get the sleeves of this straight-jacket sorted, I'll try and explain myself. Think about it, it does. You're shoving a three-dimensional world, down a narrow piece of metal and glass, to work its magic on a piece of sensitized material and then you are chemically altering said material, and then you are bringing what was once three dimensions into the 2D spotlight of a piece of sensitized paper. In other words, you've stopped time, and transformed 'reality'!
Hah, bet you never thought of photography like that and to me, it is all the more incredible for it.
Your print is an alteration of reality. Yes it is reality (mostly) and yet it is far removed from it.
Of course I could just be wittering a load of old shoite, but if it gets you thinking differently, then I am happy.

Ah, that's better, the tea is starting to kick in and whilst I've spilled half of it down the front of my nice new jacket, I can feel its calming properties . . . so, where were we? Ah yes, coating and contrast!
I think therein lies the problem.
The world simply isn't a contrasty place. It can be, but on the whole, no, it isn't, not really.
Same with your eyes.
Can you honestly say you see everything in razor-sharp, super-contrasty HD? Nope, me neither. Infact, centrally whilst everything is fine, peripherally, the world is a blur.
Stare at something backlit, and I have a low-contrast, flare-ridden mess with blur and my eyelashes take on sunstars!
Totally imperfect and that to me is what is lacking in most photography - that air that the world is imperfect and that light is transitory and always changing. I'm sorry, but the hyper-sharp, hyper-toned, hyper-coloured "reality" that gets toted as photography these days looks to me as fake as a plastic surgery disaster. 
It has nothing to do with how humans see the world and everything to do with the damned idealism with which we are encouraged to view everything in life. I mean, what happened to human frailty and mistakes?
You know, I almost hate "perfection", but I really LOVE real perfection.
To wit, I recently ate a Spanish vanilla cheescake at a tapas restaurant that was so good I started crying - it was perfection - you can ask Ali. Honestly - it sounds daft but it is true and gives you an idea of the sort of person you're letting inside your head with all these thoughts.
I'm thinking about it now, and I'm also thinking this picture by Mr. Edward Weston from 'The Family Of Man' exhibition and book, this too is perfection:





If there is one picture in the world that has made me want to sell everything and purchase a 10x8 camera, it is this. When I first encountered it in an original copy of 'The Family Of Man' book, I was gobsmacked - the composition and the tones, the artful 'looseness', the light and simply everything about it states "Master Craftsman At Work". It looks casual but is anything but; there's contrast, yes, but it's not too contrasty. You don't get the full measure from the screen, but there's suitable detail in the shadowed trouser area, from correct exposure, and there's also flare, but skillful processing and printing have rendered that a pleasing part of the whole - it's pure craftsmanship - the contrast is provided by the light and the processing, not the lens.
I wish I could make something as powerful

This by Mr. W.Eugene Smith, this is perfection too:


NYC Harbour. July 1956. Nun waiting for survivors of SS Andrea Doria

To me this is up there as one of the finest 35mm photographs ever made.
Look at is closely - it isn't sharp at all, anywhere, and yet, Oh Goodness - WHO CARES?!
It speaks to the soul in a way that is hard to define - pure genius.

Imperfections besiege us as photographers, and that is part of the fun to my mind. As I've said many times before, developing a film is like paraphrasing Forrest Gump 'you don't know whatcha gonna git', because your technique can be down pat and perfect, but for all that, there is still room for mistakes and wonder, for happenstance and joy. For surprise. For humanity and glitches and weirdness (like the reflections that I wasn't aware of in the third print below).

And so, sorry to say, it is on to me and my stuff, after all that's the whole point of these exercises isn't it . . me, me, ME!
These were grab shots off of two different films made whilst away in Edinburgh for a bit. Film was TMX 400, developed in 1:25 Rodinal. I reckon I was shooting at about 1/125th at f11 or f8 with the tiny Canon 28mm and the M2 combo.
Strange to say, I think they almost look made up, set up and contrived and yet these were as they happened and totally disassociated from each other. The only parameters being time and walking around in different places.
See what you think.


?


??


!

I might be marking my card here and putting myself up for criticism, but to my eye, they sort of have that look. Again, you are hard pushed to get it off the screen, but in real life handling the prints, the highs sparkle a bit, the mids are creamy and dreamy and the blacks contrasty, but not overtly so. I am happy with them, which I suppose is the main thing.
They were printed on some ancient 10x8" Adox Vario Classic - a variable contrast, museum weight paper that hasn't been made for a few years now - and developed in Fotospeed print developer and then toned in Selenium for archival purposes. It's a nice combo, and I've filed them away as a sequence in some archival print sleeves. I am a happy bunny.

Here's another print from the same films, this time made in (if I remember rightly) St Andrews - can't remember what the occasion was though . . . 


Hungry?

Again, this is filed away archivally - I am chuffed, and do you see what I mean about the look from the lens? I am delighted with it and how it has interacted with Kodak TMX 400 (a bloody fine film) and with 1:25 Rodinal. This is a seriously good combo - grain is remarkably well controlled and (with some judicious gentle agitation) very unobtrusive to my eyes.
What I like about this photograph and print is the silveriness of everything and also that the machine by the door of the 'van, looks like an abandoned robot from the 1960's. It was probably made at 1/125th at around f16 (the exposure you fool . . not the robot). Detail is great too so I am asking myself why am I not using this lens more?
Well, I suppose the 90mm Elmar supplanted it (having been bought in haste at a bargain price) and I have really enjoyed using that, but for now and maybe into the Summer, I am heading out with the Canon. It's a testimony to the quality of Japanese engineering.
Happy days!

And that's it, so till next time, take care and get yourself out and take some photographs, and if you can, if you truly truly can . . please make some prints on real 'wet' photographic paper
You might well get a surprise.

Friday, August 17, 2012

War Pigs (One Picture Is Worth A Thousand Megabytes)

Morning Shipmates - this week has flown by and I was only aware of its passing by the movements of Mog's shadow as he snoozed on the deck, like a big fluffy cat-shaped sundial.
He's fair knackered and glad to be back in that happy ship's cat land where every scrap is a feast and every ship's mouse is now a friend.
Mr.Sheephouse vanished for a large portion of the week, only to appear again on Wednesday speedily propelling his rowboat in our direction like there was no tomorrow.
He climbed aboard in a fluster of cape and swearing, wig threatening to take off, muttering something about deadlines and committment and has posted the below for your delectation.
Personally I think he couldn't be arsed and is making up excuses . . .
But such is the life of a gentleman photographer.
Anyway, enough o' this bilge, the tide's on the turn, so hoist the main sail . . off we go


***


You know, having just watched the closing ceremony of the Olympics, I was taken by how many athletes were filming the whole thing, and I found myself questioning the relevance of photographs.
Is there any point in a single image when everything is captured for digital replay 24/7?
Is it possible to sum up such a momentous occasion with maybe one or two simple photographs?
There were virtually no cameras - it was all either the ubiquitous communication soap bar (iPhone) or a video camera. It's funny, the more I think about it, camera manufacturers seem to be painting themselves into narrower and narrower corners. What's the point in a compact camera these days?
Anyway, as we sat there enjoying the moment with a few glasses of wine, an image popped into my head and lodged there. 
It is a quiet image, but somehow it sums up another similarly momentous occasion, namely the Second World War.
It was made by one of my favourite photographers - Mr.W.Eugene Smith.




Calling For Help - Okinawa 1945

Eugene's images of the closing days of World War II in the Pacific are stunning in their power and relative calm. There are many I could have chosen, but this is the one that popped into my head and inspired this FB, so it is the one I shall use.
To my mind, it seemed to encompass everything one could be feeling being stuck in a crater under heavy fire.
It is known that Eugene did 'set up' photographs and that is quite possibly the case with this, but that doesn't lessen the power. Look at the camera angle. He is above them slightly. He would be more exposed to the incoming fire, but then he could well have been. 
The more I read about Mr.Smith the more I realise that he cared little for his own safety. 
It could well be a snatched shot from a small disctance with a mild telephoto, or a wide angle close-up with him propped against the side of the crater. However he did it, it works.
Would these fleeting looks even have been acknowledged if they had been filmed?
No.
He has used his eye and his skill to single out one small slice of time and render it to permanence.
Genius.


***


When I started thinking about wartime photography, a number of other images also came into my head - each succinct and to a point. Moments in time that could have been nearly meaningless if they had been film footage, but which have stood the test of time in their power.
You see, that is the difference between a photographer and a film maker.
The photographer uses his talents to highlight those moments in life which pass all too fleetingly, and hammer them home (if he or she is good enough) into iconic images.
Hopefully they are of a quality that the more you look and think about them, the more they sum up things in ways that the daily parade of sorrow that passes over our TV screens never could.


***


The next photograph is by Larry Burrows who lost his life in the Vietnam War.
An English photographer, his influence is actually far greater than many people realise.
He is best known for his colour images of the conflict, which often resemble those enormous set-piece battle paintings found in many museums and art galleries, it is well worth searching out his images - they are bloody and sorrowful and epic and strangely compelling.
My chosen image comes from his essay for LIFE magazine:
'One Ride With Yankee Papa 13' 
It manages to say in a few pages what a team of film crews never could with thousands of feet of film or thousands of Terabytes of storage.
It tells the story of  Lance Cpl. James C. Farley and a mission into enemy territory. 
It starts out with a briefing, continues with Farley having happy times on some downtime a couple of days before and then proceeds rapidly into the thick and bloody hopelessness of battle.
It ends with the picture of Farley below.
You simply could never film it.




In a supply shack, hands covering his face, an exhausted, worn James Farley gives way to grief.




You can see the complete sequence here:
Again another extraordinary LIFE photo essay.


***


Another incredible photographer who can say more with one image than you could in a lifetime is Don McCullin, a man blessed with the luck of nine cats. Really. Saved from shrapnel by his Nikon (honest) he has endured probably more conflicts than any other war photographer and still remains alive.
These days his beautifully powerful and quiet landscapes are a complete anathema to the images he is best known for.
The photograph below just says it all.
All the grief and pain.
All the sorrow.
It won him many accolades and ensured he was shipped all over the world to cover conflict.
I personally find the woman's expression just wrenching.




Grieving woman with young boy, Cyprus




It was made during the Cypriot war of 1964.
These days it is hard to imagine now how such a beautiful country, where people go for peace and quiet and relaxation, could have been such a place of pain and death.
It is an awe-inspiring photograph for its sheer humanity in the face of inhumanity.
Just look at that boy and the old lady on the left and especially the woman with child behind.
This is the true story of war.
There is an excellent article on Mr.McCullin here:


***


My final image this week was made by the incredible photographer Lee Miller, who worked (amongst other things in a life of great photography) in that almost unknown field of women war photographers.
Of all the images here, it is the most serene and surreal and yet also I feel the saddest.
It was made at the liberation of Dachau.
Yes, the man was an SS guard at Dachau.
We have no idea whether he was kind or cruel.
He was someone's son though.
Maybe someone's lover.
Someone's Father.
Just following orders?
Or too terrified of the consequences of disobeying?




Dead SS Guard in Canal, Dachau, Germany




The sadness of wasted lives and the futility of war literally seeps out of this photograph.
It seems to matter not whether he was a vehement follower, or a hapless soul caught up in something beyond himself.
He is a dead human being. 
But the brutality of his death, and indeed the horror found at the liberation of Dachau seem to have been transformed by the water. 
All there is, is the world. 
Our shadow plays, though shocking and bloody, terrifying and inhumane are just scree on the glacier of time.
To my mind, this photograph shows that man can transcend war and man can be transformed if he were of a mind to be.
But man never will.
It has taken a woman's touch to show us this in a photograph.
Lee Miller was a remarkable photographer. 
You can find many of her wartime images at her archive:


***

And th-th-th-that's all folks.
I hope is hasn't brought your weekend down too much.
Making statements like this is a dying art. 
You'll soon be connected to your news feed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no moments free to sit and quietly contemplate a single moment of time, singled out, treated with respect and placed in front of you so that you can reflect and think.
After the (trying and dull [I'm sure they were]) word-fest-FBs of recent weeks, I am going to leave this one here.
It is relatively word-free and hopefully the power of these images that need no description will wend their awful way into your consciousness.
Don't you think it is sad to think that there are men and women and children; troops and civilians; refugees, innocents and the bloody-handed, undergoing these same feelings of grief and terror and pain and sorrow as I write this.
Stay dry mateys.
If you indeed are lucky enough, thank God you live in a country where the play of the greed of mankind has hopefully burnt itself out.
As usual, God bless and thanks for reading.