Showing posts with label Walker Evans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walker Evans. Show all posts

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Lost Light

I KNOW, time is pressing; it's a few days before Christmas and you're rushing around, adjusting the pressure on the sprouts in the pressure cooker, wrapping pressies, having a fit . . . there's no time to read this!
So listen, just you go and do what you want to do and come back to this when you have time.

Just bring your own bottle next time you lousy freeloader you . . . 


Look, OK, I Know They're GNOMES!


Well, The Season is upon us again, and like last year, where I wished I'd taken more pictures during the year, I can honestly say that this year I haven't.
In fact film stats have been totally pathetic . . . and if you throw in a bare THREE sessions in the darkroom with RC paper (gargh!) then you can see:

'E's been a very naughty boy . .

This being said, I still think I can do what is fast becoming a Christmas Tradition here at Sheephouse Turrets . .

Ye Olde Annual Sheephouse Roundup

Oh yes, from the countless comments I've had - well, at least 7   - this is a popular read.
So without further ado, and because I know you're desperate to finish off that bottle of home-made 90% proof Egg Nog, I shall start where all good years start:

January
Ah, the month of post-Crimbo recovery where the delights of the curling, mayo-soaked Turkey sandwich quickly start to pale.

I started the year with good intentions, and especially with regard to my Large Format photography which has been totally neglected for a couple of years, but alas and lackaday, viewed from writing this in December, my enthusiasm came to naught.
I think part of that might be down to the nagging thought:
"How the hell do you make a photograph as good as this?"

Walker Evans
Portrait Of Hazel Hawthorne Werner c.1930


I was fortunate enough to pick up a first edition Walker Evans book (First And Last) for a small handful of quids, and there was another photograph from this session in there.
Heading towards 90 years old, this portrait of a (by all accounts) maverick, spirited young woman transcends those years and changes and could quite easily have been taken today.
Except it wasn't.
Look closely and you'll see a master at work.
The incredibly narrow depth of field; the stunning catchlights; the sheer non-pose; the blemishes. Damn, it is honest and raw and real . . and made with a Large Format camera.
With my arse firmly kicked, I folded down my front standard, compacted the bellows and retreated . .

Yes, January was an interesting month from the point of view that my lovely DeVere was unwell. Well it wasn't really, not in a life-threatening way, but in the annoying sense, because the bulb holder went! Bing-bang-biff-boff-pow it did and then it lit no more.
Now if you own a 504, maybe you'll not know it yet, but that lovely 24 Volt 250 Watt bulb requires a holder that can take the post-nuclear heat of the bulb chamber. It gets blindingly bright and red hot in there, even with the fan, so, if your bulb holder gets taken out by a rogue Chinese bulb, then here's the solution - what you need is a Gx5.3/Gy6.35 Low Voltage Lamp Holder

The one I got was made by Bender and Wirth, so German. High quality, and with some judicious manouevering, it fits.


I believe from memory mine is the 961 model. I also added some high temperature shrink around the bits where the cable joins the spade ends (I'd had to cannibalise those from the holder that had gone caput).
 
While you are there you might want to have a butchers at your bulbs. Basically, if it is Chinese or PRC, throw it out. It will shatter, and in may case it took out the bulb holder too.
You are safer spending money and either finding some NOS British or USA or European made bulbs or buying new:

Philips Focusline (Made in Europe)

GE Quartzline (Made in USA)

But seeing as production shifts around so much these days you are best checking with the vendor where they are made.
Trust me - you'll be glad you checked.

February
Ah, season of mists and solid coughing fits!
Well this year we were treated to THE BEAST FROM THE EAST!
Fellow blogger and pal, Bruce of the Online Darkroom was trapped in a car on the M80 for 18 hours . .  . without a camera!
I finished off a roll of Tri-X I'd popped into the olde Nikon F with the 24mm Nikkor (possibly my favourite 35mm lens) and popped another roll of Tri-X into the Leica M2/35mm Summaron combination. 
The difference between the two was notable - the Nikon being solid and I was able to shoot exactly what I saw; the Leica was intuitive and on the fly, seat-of-the-pants shooting - very different in a "snap first ask questions later" sort of way.
I mulled both experiences over and decided I preferred the Nikon way. That 100% viewfinder makes all the world of difference.


View From The Bus
Leica M2, 35mm f3.5 Summaron, Tri-X, Pyrocat-HD
#73 Bus, Dundee, 2018

Sadly, due to being in a hurry, I developed the Nikon film in some old (but not that old) Rodinal-type developer (R09 for all you fact fans) . . and the whole film was blank, saying to me that the developer was dead. It felt like a bereavement. Never happened before. 'New' Rodinal types have not the slightest bit of longevity of the proper old Agfa stuff . . and that's why I'll never use it again.

March
The Beast was still Beasting, so I took advantage of all that snow (calf-deep in places) and loaded a roll of Delta 400 into the Hasselblad and had a mini-explore of an area right next to me, but which I had been unaware of in the 20 years we've lived here. The path had more than likely existed all that time, but hadn't at all been obvious till the Council decided to add some new steps. Anyway, it takes me down beside a school and thence through what must have been at one time the lost footings and gardens of grand houses, then over a railway bridge and out onto a main arterial route.
I had a great time using the 500C/M - easily one of the finest cameras I have ever used.


The Beast Visits The Harris
(Yeah I Know It's A Bit Squinty - It Was F'in Freezin' Right)
Hasselblad 500C/M, 60mm Distagon, Delta 400, Pyrocat-HD
Harris Academy, Dundee, 2018


The enjoyable experience made me think that I'd really like a better walkabout camera too. I love my Rollei T, but you know what GAS is like, was there something better out there?
I had also become enamoured with the 24mm Nikkor, really enjoying the really wide perspective of photography. I put two and two together and rather than investing in a large and heavy 40mm for the 500C/M, a thought came and hit me over the head like an enthusiastic mugger:
THE HASSELBLAD SWC!
Looking around I discovered that they were getting scarce and expensive, so with the encouragement of my darling wife and the thought that I could (like my Father) be dead in 10 years time, I thought Feck it, and bought one.
It was a 1982 SWC/M with the more desireable Prontor CF shutter, just serviced from the good chaps at Ffordes. A lot of money (borrowed off my son) and a couple of years paying back . . but it really was love at first feel.
This is him - left and right profile:






He's got a few scrapes on the finder, but in reality most of the battle scars are on the film back - which was serviced, just looks a tad rough.
My feelings about the camera were to be cemented when I processed the first film.
It was tough getting my head around the field of view - this is the best of a bad bunch:


Dawn Dog
Hasselblad SWC/M
Dundee, 2018


You really have to get your whole perspective (sic.) around that wide view though - it isn't an easy camera to use initially - the need to get as close to everything as possible really is quite different . . however, that clean, undistorted image is well worth it.
To cut a long story short . . . I love it.

April

Lee Friedlander
Peter Exline, Spokane, Washington 1970


This photograph, made my jaw hit the floor the moment I saw it - it contains almost everything I like in a photograph, weird metaphors, a photographer, sunlight and reflections. On the latter it is utterly subtle but they're there in a "WTF How did he do that?" sort of way. Allied to that the large arrow of light pointing to the guys temple and the striping of his face make you think you're entering some weird world of ritual and symbolism.
And there, Stage Left . . Mr. Lee Friedlander. I'd known his photos (selected ones) for years, but upon reading that he almost exclusively used the Superwide I investigated further and discovered a delight of humour and ideas. Have a look for yourself.

Inspired, I headed out with the SW and tried to see what I could do.


She's So . . . Modern!
Hasselblad SWC/M, Delta 400, Pyrocat-HD
Dundee, 2018


This was my favourite.
I don't know what it is about it.
Her obvious delight at being a stereotype?
His obvious delight at having a young woman flash her gnashers at him?
The gnashers and reflection of window bars being almost as one?
The legend at the top:
"Leanne's Delight Is Our Customers Rewarding Their ???"

Actually, I think it is the way her hair has been rendered by the Biogon.
It's spot-on to my eyes.

At the end of April, after a years' absence, I took to the mountains and came back with just about my favourite landscape photograph of all the landscape photographs I've ever taken.
It was courtesy of the SW.
I also got others I was proud of with the 150mm Sonnar, but this, this is it to me:


Lost Burn, Glen Doll
Hasselblad SWC/M, Delta 400, Pyrocat-HD
Clova, 2018


Rather like Leanne's hair, the Biogon has rendered the grass and light in such a way as to be almost ethereal to my eyes.
It was chucking with rain at this point, and the light was terrible - sheltering under trees, guarding the camera from giant drops that were gathering and, er, dropping from the canopy above wasn't easy.
I was lucky to have bought home any bacon at all.

May
Ah, well there I was, on the cusp of some DIY. our sitting room hadn't been decorated in 18 years - it was tired, and at that point in time I thought to myself "Y'know, the paper and woodwork is a mess. Why not strip it all back and start again."
N'er a truer word is said in jest, and little did I know then that what I was about to start on, would be the hardest physical job I have ever done . . . and I've done a few. But this, this was something else.
I blithely peeled back a corner of peeling lining paper and got my scraper out . . .
November 

and 6 months later I finished . . .
I won't bore you about trying to Escape From Alcatraz With A Teaspoon, but that is what it was like.
I won't bore you with trying to clean up half-done scraping jobs filled with polyfilla, lining papered over and then varnished on top of that; nor will I rant about the clouds of fine dust that burst from a woodwork undercoat/ground made from a thick mix of Linseed Oil, Lead Oxide and fine Plasterer's Sand; a ground that was in truth harder than concrete
Underwear hanging around your knees saturated with sweat? 
8 pints of water drunk in one afternoon to deal with dehydration? 
Carbide scraper blades blunted in a couple of hours? 
Chaos, mess and more chaos? 
Drops of wallpaper 1 metre wide and 3.3 metres long?
It was all of that and more . . nearly 60 square feet of sheer exhaustion. 
What a job.

This is a small snapshot of the wallwork . . . add into this the paintwork which encompassed 4 doorways, one 9 foot tall window and allied skirting . . . och you get my drift!



Clear Striations - Antique Wallpapers Welded Together

Cultural Vandalism - I Am Not Proud Of Myself For This
But It Had To Be Done

Like Thick Lino.
After I'd Removed The Top Layers, I was Left with a 3mm Thick
Layer Of Soldified Concrete.
Steam And Chemical Stripping Didn't Work . . AT ALL.

Progress?

Possibly

At the end of May, fed up of scraping I got up super-early and headed out with the SW, only to be beaten by tide timings, so Dundee city centre it was!
This was my favourite from that session - to my mind it looks like something from 'proper' Soviet times:


Comrade Dennis
Hasselblad SWC/M, HP5, Pyrocat-HD
Tay Bridge, 2018

I liked the look of HP5 in PHD so much, that for 2019 most of my faster film will be it. Plus it's the cheapest good quality named fast film you can get at the moment.

I had one more visit to the city centre with my camera before the end of the month


Cultural Upgrade
Hasselblad SWC/M, HP5, Pyrocat-HD
Dundee, 2018

The above is a scan from a 6x6cm contact print, so not a proper print (no time).
I was astonished by this Cultural Upgrade, solicited by Dundee City Council in a wee lost lane, called Mary Ann Lane (it's next to the Bus Station of you're interested).
The hummingbird is ok - nice colours, but the debris left behind (this was typical of the whole lane which too had been 'treated' to some lovely street art) was something else - I would say the Tesco Savers Lager tins outnumbered the spray tins by about 10 to 1!
Nice work if you can get it.
Oh to be an artist . . sigh . . .


St. Paul's Court Portal
Hasselblad SWC/M, HP5, Pyrocat-HD
Dundee, 2018


I wrote about this delightful place in FB at the time, so I'll say no more except pack the disinfectant gel and remember to wipe your feet after you've visited (it's right opposite Gelatly Street in Dundee if you're a visitor - cross the Seagate; see that pend? pass the bins and turn left).
I am super-chuffed with this print. It is on Ilford MGRC and was printed on Grade 3; I must make the time to make a proper archival one on Galerie.
The thing I love about it, is the combo of HP5 and Pyrocat-HD and how they have interacted with the Biogon. Have a decko at the detailing of that door-grill. Most lenses I've used (including decent LF ones) would get nowhere near that balance of detail and tonality.
Like I said . . super-chuffed!

June
The consequence of all that blood sweat and tears was that, in the finest Summer people could recall for years, I spent most weekends indoors working like a blue-arsed fly.
Photography?
That was for mortals! 
Printing?
That was for moles! 
Hah, what need had I of that when all I thought and talked about was scraping fecking walls and woodwork.

Well actually, that's not all true.
St Andrews Bottie gardens provided a day out for some not very good photos on really ancient (around 5 years expired) TMX 100. Sadly all fairly underexposed because I'd set the wrong EI on the light meter AND underdeveloped them . . where's that kipper???


Underexposed, Underdeveloped Hothouse
Hasselblad SWC/M, Anciente TMX 100, Pyrocat-HD
St. Andrews Botanical Gardens



We did manage to get some R&R (not rock n'roll, though there was plenty of that played whilst scraping) and a couple of days out, plus a really lovely stay in Edinburgh

I used the Rollei T as a walkabout in Edinburgh and it was very fine. I even had a dreamy-eyed old Dutchman come up to me in a cafe, point at it and say:
"Aaah, Rolleiflex!".
He used to have one . . and by the look of it, he was going home to buy another one.

I've not had a chance to properly print any of these, so they're scans off of the contacts.



Waiting For My Friends
Rolleiflex T, Delta 400, Pyrocat-HD
Moffat, 2018


Weird Afternoon
Rolleiflex T, Delta 400, Pyrocat-HD
Edinburgh, 2018



July
My favourite month, and did I see much of it?
Did I feck!
Feeling like a Morlock, I worked hard at paid work during the week and at the weekends came home and threw myself against the massed canons of ancient decor:

 Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.

Your valiant scribe eschewed all thoughts of a nice cold beer with the missus in the garden and donned a heavy duty face mask and industrial gloves instead.
Relaxation?
Pah, that's fer wimps!

August
Covered in clouds of Lead Oxide dust, flakes of old paint and a white residue of sanded filler, I soldiered on.
Man it was HOT.

September
For a period of two weeks I was banished from my ladder . . . 
I had to do something . . 
Anything that didn't involve swearing and tears.. 
Now what was it?
Ah, the annual break . . so Brussels it was!

If you've never been, GO
It is quaint and posh, downtrodden and chic; a city of character, great food, astonishing beer and really interesting things to see and do. 
This was our second visit, and honestly, I'd go back again. 
It felt like a home from home.
I took a Nikon F3 (for its metering capabilities) and a 28mm f2.8 Nikkor (late version . . another bargain actually) - film was Tri-X. 
I loved using the F3 with a proper Ai-S lens . . . 

Why on earth was the digital camera ever invented???



Three Girls Waiting For Their Friend
Nikon F3, 28mm f2.8 Ai-s, Tri-X, Pyrocat-HD
Adam Museum Of Design, Brussels, 2018

Dirk Frimout - The Belgian Spaceman
Nikon F3, 28mm f2.8 Ai-s, Tri-X, Pyrocat-HD
Brussels Planetarium, 2018

Portal To The Underworld
Nikon F3, 28mm f2.8 Ai-s, Tri-X, Pyrocat-HD
Basilica Of The Sacred Heart
Brussels, 2018

A Quiet Moment
Nikon F3, 28mm f2.8 Ai-s, Tri-X, Pyrocat-HD
Petite Sablon
Brussels, 2018

Impossible To Get A Boring Photograph
Nikon F3, 28mm f2.8 Ai-s, Tri-X, Pyrocat-HD
Atomium
Brussels, 2018

Les Pionniers Belges Au Congo
Thomas Vinçotte (1921)
Nikon F3, 28mm f2.8 Ai-s, Tri-X, Pyrocat-HD
Cinquantenaire Park
Brussels, 2018


October
The push was on! Not only was I working on the deco at weekends, but also evenings!
I chatted many times with Bruce about getting out and taking photographs . . he even cleaned out his darkroom (!) but still I had no time for anything other than The Grand Finish.
It was at this point that hope disappeared.
Faced with the underside of a horizontal doorframe lintel, where I'd missed scraping the nightmareish ground, I broke down and had a good cry.
Then I had a good swear.
Then I scraped it, manned up and strode forth refusng to trim my beard till it was all done! 

November 
Weird though - it got to the point in November where I seriously began to doubt my own sanity.
Everything I turned my hand to needed tweaking or sorting or putting right - I was spending 10 hour days working at the weekends with 15 minute lunch breaks. 
I lost weight, lost tools, and lost my mind.
It wasn't just crazy, it was super-crazy-with-knobs-on . . .
Despite this and the odds being against me, eventually,  I got there.



Yes I Know It Is Out Of Focus OK!
That's What Happens When You Don't Concentrate

The above is an example of why you should treat a SWC/M like a Large Format camera and perform a check of everything before you operate the shutter:


Composition ✔️
Lighting ✔️
Exposure ✔️
Focus ❌
Also, it is a tiny scan from a contact print, so stick that in yer pipe and smoke it.

Anyway, eventually, the carpet was laid and furniture assembled. 
My beard, which had been tripping me up, was trimmed and a bottle of champagne cracked in celebration.

December
Yep - that's now.
I'd planned on getting to the hills before the snow arrives in earnest, but it was not to be. The remnants of storm Diedre (?why did they have to start naming storms? I have no idea and will chalk it down to some touchy-feely brain-storming session at the Met Office) was bringing in freezing rain and snow, so I chickened out.
Still, the streak of grim determination cultivated over the Summer got me out and about - there was no way I wasn't going somewhere to photograph something - this was the first 120 film I was going to use since June  . . .
And I did it!
I'll detail the trip in the post-Festive FB . . it was quiet and relatively quick . . but FUN and made me think about a lot of things photographically and also how I am going to move FB forward . . but more on that next year.
Just for now here's a sample.



A Quiet Path To A New Year
Hasselblad SWC/M, Ilford Delta 400, Pyrocat-HD
Wormit To Balmerino, 2018


But until then folks enjoy The Festives.

And that as they say is that.
Thank you all so much for reading this drivel over the year - I hope some of it makes sense. 

Good luck for Next Year.
Make time for photographs that count.



Now if one of you could help me with these compression stockings . . . that should disguise me nicely.






















Friday, January 04, 2013

Rum, Sodomy & The Lash

             


" 'Said Captain.
I said Wot?
' Said Captain.
I said Wot?
' Said Captain.
I said Wot?
' Said Captain.
I said Wot You Want?"


***



Sometimes you have to suffer for your art, and, there's no way round this, darkroom work is one of those times. It does really seem ridiculous to me that these days, the key thing that defines you as a photographer (your images) is usually parcelled out to software and a machine. It is sort of like a music box. All of the right notes in all the right places, clearly defined, nothing left to chance, with each little tine being pinged at the correct time. Yes it is music. But it isn't music.
A musician (well a decent musician) can coax an unwilling lump of wood or metal into warm, organic life with a depth of feeling you wouldn't believe possible. A simple vibrato on a note can bring a full grown male human to a quivering blubbing lump. I think this is because music is such an intrinsic part of being human that we have an art form that can cut through all the insanity of modern life to the quick of what it is to be human.
I own a number of albums where the essence of organic musicianship has been distilled into something which is so heartfelt and deeply meaningful, that they seem to transcend the medium and become something other.
I am sure you've got a few like that too, but they are sort of rare aren't they?
Two I can point to with a definitive "That one" are by the Canadian artist Bruce Cockburn.
He's a funny sort is old Bruce. I must admit that although he has been going since the late 1960's/early 1970's there's been a certain patchiness; a patchiness which seems to have increased with time, but then again maybe he just changed . . .
So, I'll forgive him that, but will go back to 'High Winds, White Sky' and 'Sunwheel Dance' (his second and third albums respectively) and state that in them he has created two complete worlds.
Even (and especially) the covers work with the music to create a whole.
Obviously recommending music is a difficult thing . . one man's meat and all that, but if you have a penchant for British folk of the 1970's and like the thought of being tucked away in a cold Canadian Winter, then either of these albums does the trick completely.




The Cover to High Winds was taken at a place in Toronto called Ward Island. The photographer was George Pastic and somehow, the cover and the songs on the album fit like a hand in a glove. It even extends down to the whimsy of the enclosed booklet - Bruce on a bicycle; Bruce being mysterious in a river; hand-written lyrics - it's as near a total artistic statement as albums get.
And that is an important thing, because it is a statement of intent; a complete world, and you, buying the album (and thereby contributing to the artists's well-being) are being invited to purchase a seat to that world. For the asking price and a possible lifetime of pleasure, it was (and still is) a small price to pay.











The booklet was small and very beautiful.
It sets out with a purpose and achieves it.


Though not quite the same as a statement of intent, 'Sunwheel Dance' from 1970 (recorded in Toronto like its predecessor) has, if you let it get into you, such a feel of a lonely, homely cabin in the middle of nowhere, that you would never want to leave.



             




The cover photograph is by Bart Schoales and is as near dammit a perfect introduction to the themes of the album (light and spirituality).
The final track brings in outsiders to the cabin, visitors if you like (though the band has been present throughout the album, they have done what really good bands do, become transparent) and their singing in harmony is a thing of great wonder. It makes you feel so completely homely and comforted that you transcend the music. Your soul takes wings and moves and is moved in no uncertain ways. Well mine does anyway.
You see, certain pieces of art can transcend their weighty dimensional anchors and move you to places where spirit and feeling and consciousness combine.
You can get that with photographs too - there are images that bear multiple viewings, whereby the photographer has transcended all the dimensional realities of a piece of the world carefully chopped down to fit into a rectangular or square view of the world, and somehow managed to imbue the essence of their art into what you are viewing.
I could choose many actually, but two random examples are as follows:



Wynn Bullock - Tide Pool 1957





Walker Evans - Alabama Tenant Farmer's Wife


As you can see, they are utterly different, and yet I never tire of looking at either of them, simply because they speak to me.
So . . . remember at the top of the page before I started digressing, I was talking about darkroom work and how it was important?
Right, here we go.
It isn't just important, it is vital.
And why do I say that? Well, despite what the populists would have you believe, photography is a craft rather than an art.
It can be an art, definitely, but when you look back at its history and the great men and women who have made it their own, you are struck by one thing. Most of these people were craftsmen. 
They nearly all developed their own film.
They nearly all printed their own prints.
Most got their hands dirty (and stained, and suffered metol-fingernail) letting selenium and hypo and acetic acid and pyrogallol and metol and hydroquinone seep into their souls.
They laboured in dark places for our education of what it is to be human and in doing so managed to be able to transform the seemingly mundane into the everyday extraordinary.
That is craft.
They captured our intensely incredible, three dimensional world and rendered it into two dimensions.
And what dimensions.
They can take your soul and inspire.
They can make you weep and laugh and rage and crave change.
And they can change too, providing a voice, a proof of a world transformed or laid bare for all to see.
The seemingly humble photographic print is a powerful thing. it can change the world. It can change your life. It can be an exquisite object of love and labour. Tactile and beautiful; signed or unsigned, it is the distillation of photography, and as such should be treasured and revered, because you see print-making walks hand in hand with photography. 
It is as human an activity as making music.
Joseph McKenzie once said to me he thought I was lucky being a musician (which I sort of was) because of the immediacy of being able to create music. Were I able to speak to him now, I would say he was far luckier being a great photographer, because he was able to produce lasting works of extreme beauty and truth.
And that is why friends, I urge you. If you are at all interested in photography, you simply have to try and make photographic prints. It doesn't have to be a complex setup. I loaded film into daylight tanks in cupbards for years; I have contact printed 35mm negatives onto 6x4" resin coated paper. I have worked at the very most basic level of exposing paper with a torch and processing the paper in the dark because I couldn't afford a safelight, and what moved me to this madness? The love of the print.
I still operate on the same 'guerilla' basis; yes I now have a darkroom, but it is very rough and ready (and without any running water or sinks) however I can happily produce works of art that are entirely of my own creation, from making the photograph to developing to printing to archiving to writing notes on the back.
If you really want to achieve the beauty of the print, something that you are entirely in control of, then it can be done. It just requires a bit of thought.
I am not going to teach you how to make a print (there are many great texts online or on bookshop shelves that will do the trick), all I am going to say is that if you farm all your photographic effort out to the same software that everyone else uses and then let a machine spray ink onto paper and then say you have a print, then you are only half a photographer. There. That's me damned for ever!
Is it any wonder that most serious galleries these days still tend to poo-poo the inkjet?
I think they feel the same as me.
Yes it is an image, but no, it isn't a photograph **.
The following pictures, whilst poor scans are of prints.
The prints are properly processed and archivally stored.
They will outlast me, and you.
They are my wee attempts at rendering the world I see into something that hopefully moves the viewer in the same way I was moved when I made the images.
 They are entirely my own work from beginning to end.





Woods.
 Reverse of print with printing details

Woods.
Full frame negative.
Grade 2 Ilford Galerie
Kodak Polymax Developer
Archivally Fixed in 'Plain' Fix
Archivally washed
Untoned



A pleasant surprise
 flip the sleeve over and another print!


Silverprint Archival polyester sleeve.
These are great for long term storage.

I store my best prints in Silverprint Archival sleeves and then in Timecare Archival boxes. 
Yes it is expensive, but why not take the best care of what is, after all, a highly crafted product.
One day I might try and put on an exhibition - you never know.
Thanks for reading and God bless.


** I have no choice with regard to colour - it seems to have gone too far, but the monochrome print (my own concern) is as vital now as it ever was.

Friday, April 13, 2012

The Permanence Of Photographs (In A Chaotic World)

Greetings Ship Mates! It is time to hoist your Weekend Flag and keelhaul your Dandos, because the Goode Shippe FB is back to sail the seas of fate and chance! Yes, in these uncertain times, when all is fluxed, it is reassuring to know that if you can afford a tea bag and a crust, and can press an 'on' button before the sun crests the mizzen mast, then your weekend is sorted!
This weekends little ditty is a bit of an FB exclusive, but you'll need to read to the end to understand that.

I guess I must have known the world was entering a state of chaos as far back as the mid-1980's when someone broke the Quantel computer our college had managed to gain access to for a period of months. The Quantel was a big thing. For a start the BBC used it for weather forecast TV animations and it was the bees knees - no really it was! This was the coming revolution which no one really guessed would take off in the way it did. Back in those days all the text and other things we used for graphics roughs and presentations was done by hand (or Letraset if you could afford it) - none of this modern instant stuff - oh no, it was pure hard graft!
On the new wunderkind, being able to 'airbrush' clouds onto one of the stock pictures loaded into the machine (of say, a Spitfire) was really something - it was . . er  . .great! (Even though the end result looked  . .er . . to put it politely . . . not exactly brilliant*).  But what were we to do?  It was said that they wanted to build this new direction so that students could be up and running into the new golden dawn!
As I remember it, someone with a natural curiosity dismantled the 'light pen' (that you used like a real pen) of this new acquisition, to see how it worked. The machine thought uh-oh . . INTRUDER and entered said state of chaos and refused to work.
They had to get some guy up from somewhere down South to fix it, but it was never quite the same again.
This is the Quantel:

(This is I believe a Mk II and I am pretty sure we were using a Mk II. If  you measure proportionately and estimate that pen as about 6" long then the drawing board could be anywhere between 24" and 30" long. Big stuff eh! Our Quantel even had its own rack!)


The thing I am trying to say from this is that at the same time that people were being schmoozed upstairs in Graphics about this fabulous future, downstairs, in the bowels of Photography, budgets were being cut and there was apparently 'no money' for new gear or materials.
It was a disgrace.
My lecturer at the time was feeling increasingly sidelined and a couple of years later he was shunted into early retirement. The future was set, digital imaging had come to stay and a world of technological avarice had landed. Obviously things were never going to be the same again.
When real money could have been spent on some much needed new cameras (we were using ancient and battle-weary equipment) that would have done the job in aiding creativity, it wasn't. Instead it was spent on the new thang - a proto computer graphics suite!
This was so advanced and cost so much (and became so incredibly dated, so incredibly quickly) that the fact that large amounts of money were thrown at it and not at something of permanence still gets my goat.
Chaos had come to town and nothing would ever make sense again.
It was obvious which way the cookie was crumbling, and something as deeply old fashioned as traditional monochrome photography was seen as being archaic.
And as for the monster? No work of any use was ever produced by the big, fan-cooled box of tricks, but it did look good when you had visiting lecturers disappearing into the room to sip coffee and say 'Gosh . . they must be important . . . they've got a Quantel!'.
What's that smell? yep, you guessed it . . . pure, Grade 1 BS.
FFWD 25 years and where is that behemoth of computing now? Well the roots of it are still around in Quantel systems which are widely used (and highly regarded and British) in broadcasting worldwide, but the actual Pandora's Box itself that caused such upheavel?  I'd bet on it no longer existing.
And yet look, the permanence of photographs and the permanence of technology:
Below is a print which I own. It was given to me as a goodwill gift for my future by Mr.Joseph McKenzie, said lecturer mentioned above. He is a great photographer and was an inspiring lecturer. Were it not for him, I would not be writing this - it really is as simple as that.





Crofter, Comrie, 1964























(This is the first time this image will have been seen by a lot of people (well probably anyone actually) and I hope Joe doesn't mind me putting it in FB, but his work needs to be seen and he has to be acknowledged and appreciated in his own lifetime!)**

The photograph was made at Comrie (near Crieff) in 1964 (the negative pre-dating the Quantel by some 20 years and no doubt still safely stored and archived); the print I believe to be of a similar vintage.
It is a stunning photograph and also a stunning print. The scan is actually pretty hopeless as there were hotspots on it - you need to see the original!
I can actually see a lot of similarities between Joe's work from the 1960s (his Gorbals essays *** especially come to mind) and Walker Evans' masterful work for the FSA in the '30's. Joe's photographs are revealing and beautiful and tender. He gave of himself and in return his subjects repaid him with an openness that is rare.
In this photograph the stoicism is obvious. Here are two workers confronting each other, one behind and one in front of the camera. They leave their pretences behind and let light and film and time record the moment. It is such an honest photograph.
There is a care-worn attitude to the crofter that is so incredibly Scots. If you look carefully you can see that those dungarees have been carefully darned but there's still years of use in them. It is obvious that crofting is not an easy life. Hands like that are not created by desk work!
I have no idea what camera Joe used, but it looks to be large format so I would hazard a guess at a Graflex which I know he used. Film could well be Tri-X which he was fond of, and he used to use D76 a lot . . . so maybe it is that combo . .who knows.
The print is on a matt paper which has an 'almost' platinum sheen to it, in that the darker areas have that metallic matt/gloss when angled towards the light.
It is dry-mounted and personally inscribed to myself on the back.
The print size is 6" x 8" and I have it stored safely in an archival sleeve and then in an archival print box. It is a jewel to be treasured.
Given that Joe took the utmost care to fix his prints properly and selenium tone them, I have no doubt that this photograph will outlast me by a number of generations.
Remember the saying:
"He who laughs last, laughs longest"?
It is entirely appropriate methinks.
Thank you Joe (for everything). 


* And sorry graphics animation people . . . computer animation still doesn't cut the mustard as far as I am concerned.
** When the V&A Dundee opens in the city to which he gave his working life (and which he documented with such care and passion) it would be utterly remiss of them if the first photographic exhibition they staged wasn't a McKenzie Retrospective.
*** If you can find his book 'Gorbal's Children' I can highly recommend it.