Piste-off (Part 2)

Mornin' Turnips! 

Regular yawners will note that last week I took them on a long and documented photographic journey into some semi-wild country . . . with a very large camera . . . well, this week we are going to see the evidence.

It is hard opening up oneself like this and bearing all, after all, most photographers generally keep their contact prints to themselves, like a private collection of vacated snail shells (a hobby so unusual that any mere mention of it would have the thought-police around).

Well, rather than just saving the best and posting them in a ooo-aren't-I-clever sort of way, I thought I would just show you the mistakes that can be made, and the final triumph of a handful of prints you are happy with held high as you dash across the finishing line.

So here goes.

Film was Kodak TMX 100, which I exposed at EI 50 (so half the recommended speed). Why? Well, to be honest, although manufacturers recommended speeds are their recommended speeds, I would rather deal with a negative that had a bit of bite to it, in that it has been well-exposed, rather than a thin, sorry, battered whippet of a negative skulking in a corner.

Will I get 'blown' highlights? probably, but then again, with some basic darkroom dodging and burning, even a well-cooked negative can be salvaged. And actually, my eye, which is what I am using to view life, does get beset by flare. Bright sunny sky, gosh that is hard on the eyes. What I am trying to say, is that to me for a photograph to work, the skies don't  have to be a wonderful interlaced-lattice of mystical clouds. Yes clouds are important, but sometimes they are the be-all and end-all in a landscape photograph, and to be honest, unless you are capturing the majesty of them with an incredible grey scale and broad range of tones (a la Adams - and God is it ever so difficult), then why not try and let them burn-out, flare, whatever.

The photograph is a dimensional world between you and the real world.

It isn't life.

It is the world, narrowly caught by light and glass and chemistry onto a sensitized piece of plastic, so why not (at times) let it be obvious that it is a photograph and a print, rather than trying to be a soulful mirror.

Developer for this was that aged Rodinal I have been writing about recently. Dilution 1:25, temperature 20° Centigrade.

Each negative was tray developed individually - yes it takes bloody ages, but then I don't like the eel-effect, of trying to handle several sheets of film at once.

Stop was Kodak Max stop, Fixer was Agfa AgFix . . and that's about all you need to know!

Well, that's the evidence - sorry about the orange cast - I don't possess a lightbox and it was pre-dawn when I took this, so you have an orange blind behind the negative holder. Oh and as you can see, it is a PrintFile holder - they're nice and soft.

And the proof of the pudding:

Contact print.

Well, what have we here?

Yep, four big negatives.

The contact is on Ilford RC multigrade, a paper I am not fond of, and the contact was printed at Grade 2 and about a stop darker than it should be. Muddy isn't it. I have no idea why, every time I do a contact on MG it looks muddy, but it does. I also find I have to slightly overexpose MG for some reason, but them's the breaks, I have little choice . . .

The chronological sequence they were made in is:

Negative #1 - Top Right

Negative #2 - Bottom Right

Negative #3 - Top Left

Negative #2 - Bottom Left

Right, we've got that sorted!

A word about metering:

Now this is interesting for me.

I use the Zone system, in a strange way, but it works for me. To me it is the most accurate and wonderful way of envisaging print tones. I am not going to go on about it, however if you have a scout around, there's a TON of great articles online, or indeed, for the olde fashioned, in books.

My meter is a Gossen Lunasix 3S. It is fairly old (1980's), but was refurbed by Gossen a few years back and it is a great light-meter. It can take reflected or incident readings and with the addition of attachments can be used as a lab meter, or a spot-meter. I have the spot attachment and it is very useful, however, in recent times I have thought, why not (in trying to get a fairly natural representation of what I sort of see) use incident readings from the main subject matter of the photograph, place the LVs on the Zone you want and let the rest of the picture deal with itself from there. In other words, say you were photographing rocks as I was in Negative #3. Use an incident reading from the rock, place it on Zone VI (1 stop overexposed) and let it all roll out from there.

Most landscape photographs are made with spot-meters. Generally, this is because Ansel Adams and all the guys said they found it easier and more accurate, however accuracy is not necessarily my intention.

I half-close my eyes, look at a scene, imagine the Zone values in my head and take it from there.

I have spot-metered for more years than I care to think of, and I have made a lot of very poor imitations of The Masters.

I rather like the incident way, because you aren't necessarily going to render your shadow detail as a Zone III (although most people should read Bruce Barnbaum on this, or indeed watch his talk about it on YouTube) or Zone IV, it'll just fall how it falls, but the weird thing is, it is incredible how consistent Light Values are, and you can often get a good idea of where things will go.

Anyway, as you can see from the following snippet:

I incident-metered the lightest values on the gate's wood and placed them on a Zone VI and took it from there - the result is a fairly decent looking Zone VI (that is the darkest parts on the negative above) Some of those shadows (the lightest parts) have fallen away to a Zone II/Zone I and that is fine by me!

 I am using the film's latitude too - it is amazing how irreverent and abusive of exposure you can be, however, when in doubt develop  the film more rather than less - there is nothing in this world worse than an underexposed AND underdeveloped negative.

Right, just to refresh things again:

Contact print.
Chronology is:
#3 - Top left                        #1 - Top Right
 #4 = Bottom Left           #2 - Bottom Right

As I have said, the contact is about a stop darker than it should be, hence the Zones don't look correct . hey ho!

Warning . . here comes the techy bit!

Exposure and development details:

#1 - Lens: Schneider Angulon - 90mm f6.8

     - Reading: Incident. Wood of gate placed on Zone VI

     - Exposure: 4 seconds (extended to 6 seconds to deal with reciprocity) at f45, front tilt on camera.

     - Development: Rodinal 1+25. 6 minutes at 20° C. 

     - Agitation - constant first 30 seconds, then 15 seconds each minute.                                    

#2 - Lens: Schneider Angulon - 90mm f6.8

     - Reading: Incident. Wood of gate placed on Zone VI

     - Exposure: 2 seconds (extended to 2.5 [OK, say 3] seconds to deal with reciprocity) at f45, front tilt on camera

     - Development: Rodinal 1+25. 6 minutes at 20° C.

     - Agitation - I lost count of the time (easy to do) so, constant first 30 seconds, then 15 seconds each minute. To deal with my panic, I thought I had better stop agitating, so, I either stopped at 5 minutes and let the negative sit, unagitated in the developer until 7 minutes, or (more likely) stopped at 4 minutes and let the negative sit, unagitated until 6 minutes. Looking at densities, I think it could well be the latter.

#3 - Lens: Schneider Angulon - 90mm f6.8

     - Reading: Incident. Stone of Cairn placed on Zone VI

     - Exposure: ½ a second (extended to 1 second just because) at f45, front swing on camera. The wind was gusting to approximately 40/50 mph . . Ever heard a View Camera hum? The negative isn't that sharp, but neither is it that bad.

     - Development: Rodinal 1+25. 6 minutes at 20° C.

     - Agitation - constant first 30 seconds, then 15 seconds each minute, however at 4 minutes I gave 30 seconds agitation and then let the negative stand, unagitated to 6 minutes. This has worked well in terms of compensation, as the light was all over the shop.   

#4 - Lens: Kodak 203mm f7.7 Ektar.

     - Reading: Incident. The cotton of the curtain placed on Zone VI

     - Exposure: 1 second at f32, no movements

     - Development: Rodinal 1+25. 6 minutes at 20° C.

     - Agitation - constant first 30 seconds, then 15 seconds each minute.                                  

                            

Agitation is a very strange thing, but thinking about it, it can be used creatively to help or hinder a photograph . . this could be the most snooze-tastic FB ever . . hmmm, must think about that one.

Well the proof of the pudding as they say - here's the results.

I didn't print negative #1, because it is the dullest photo I have ever seen, but here's the rest.

Caravan To Nowhere
Adox Vario Classic, Kodak Polymax Developer
Grade 1.
Bleached.

I initially printed this on a Grade 3, however it didn't work, so I did something I have never done before and printed on Grade 1, and you know what? Slightly overdeveloped negative/soft paper grade = Vintage Tone!

I was surprised. Oh and here's a sectional enlargement - the performance of the lens is superlative, same with the TMX 100/Rodinal combo. I struggled to find any grain printing a 10x8 print.

Sectional Enlargement of print - 800DPI

Ah yes, a tale of two prints - first is shite.

Cairn Of Barns
Adox Vario Classic, Kodak Polymax Developer
Grade 4

Rubbish - over exposed print. Grade 4 was useless too, so guess what . . grade 1 again:

Cairn Of Barns
Adox Vario Classic, Kodak Polymax Developer
Grade 1
Selective Bleaching

Now I will admit I had to do a fairly extensive bleach on this, firstly the whole print into a fairly weak solution, then refix, wash a bit, out and use a brush.

With bleaching, I'll paint some on and wash off with a shower hose, repeat and repeat until the desired effect is achieved and then fix, however if you want to get a blammo extra-bright bleach just add the print with the bleach still on it straight into a bath of fixer. It works.

I am chuffed with this actually. I left the vignetting from the lens at the left side, because it is a photograph.

And now for my final print.

This is printed down slightly, simply for the fact that I like it that way.

The gate wood is a nice Zone VI and as I mentioned before, everything else has fallen into a decent representation of how I saw the scene in the first place. Metering this way, has given me the Wynn Bullock look (not that I can photograph like him, but he's a hero and there's no harm in trying to emulate them in the furtherance of your own artistic endeavours).

I like this photograph. The little Angulon (widely disparaged as a cheap and fairly hopeless lens) has done a beautiful job.

Broken Gate, Coremachy
Adox Vario Classic, Kodak Polymax Developer
Grade 3.
Selective Bleaching.

I did, overprint a tad too much, so good ol' Pot-Ferry came to my rescue on the gate. As you can see from the sectional enlargement below, results are pretty fine!

Sectional Enlargement of print - 800DPI

And that is it folks - hope you've enjoyed this - if you want any more detail, drop me a line and I'll do my best to answer - no FB next week, the Highers are here and Alec Turnips needs the computer . . .

Take care, God bless and thanks for reading.

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.

Is It Real, Or Is It Memorex?

What is that rumbling sound I hear up ahead. Oh dear, I do believe it could be the sound of another working week heading straight towards us. If you are reading this and you are getting yourself together for another week in the hamster wheel, then my commiserations. If you are more of the 'leisure class' then my congratulations to you - it must be very nice to be relaxing into another day. It's the only way to get up really. Just be sure you don't leave that light bulb on more than you have to.
Back in the late 70's there was a brand of cassette tape called Memorex. Their advertising tag-line was 'Is It Real, Or Is It Memorex'. I've always liked that line, because it implies that there might well be a lot more going on in the world other than what you are aware of. In their case, I did not particularly like their brand of cassette as they were prone to lose their oxide at the drop of a hat, however the line was enough to make me buy a couple of packs of tape just in case!
It has actually made me realise (now, roughly 30-odd years later) that the world can be viewed in a number of different ways. This is why I now find myself photographing reflections and shop signs, because there is an inherent air of unreality in these things. What is going on? Are these things living out secret little lives that no one knows about? As mad as that seems,in certain images, there is quite often an interesting juxtaposition of photographic elements that can, if you think hard enough about what you are seeing, create a story in your head.
Thinking about taking a photograph in this way can help enormously.
And it can come down to, are you a 'The world is my frame' or 'The frame is my world' sort of person?
There are really several ways of taking a photograph as far as I am concerned:
1./ A direct (and if you are lucky) passionate response to the world around you - masters like Wynn Bullock and Ansel Adams excelled at this. When I say passionate response I mean that though they might have recorded the ordinary, they have created an image in which you can clearly sense the extraordinary. Sounds stupid? It isn't. It is a deeply unfashionable way of making a photograph these days.
2./ A direct recording of the world. The world is as you see it in the frame. I was here. I saw this. I did this. I photographed this. That's it.
3./ The frame is YOUR world. I am the master of this world. I can create this. I can imply this. I can say something that might not necessarily be what you are seeing. Ralph Gibson does this perfectly. There is story and implicit double meaning in a lot of his work. I like that.
This is all getting rather heavy for a Monday morning isn't it, when all you want is a piece of toast and a cup of coffee.
All I am really trying to say is this: before you go out with your camera and snap away (or spray away if you are digital user and don't want the discipline of 1 frame per photograph) think before you take that photograph. Experiment a bit with an empty camera. Try and look at the world in a different way. Would this be improved if I moved in as close as possible? Would it be improved if I changed my point of view and knelt down, or conversely if I risked breaking my neck by jumping up onto that wall and looking down on the subject matter? What if I placed that figure at the extreme edge of frame and then didn't focus on them? What if I moved back slightly so that new element was in there too so that now it just doesn't look like a snap, but something that has been thought about?
Once you start moving outwith the bog standard 'you-stand-there-I'll-stand-here' mode of taking a photograph and actually start thinking about things before you press the shutter, you might well find an improvement in your photographs. You'll be able to say: "I know it's weird hon, but I like it."
I rather went on a ramble there. Sorry.
Oh, and your FB will probably be moving to a more occasional basis from today - when I say occasional, I mean probably a couple of times a week as I don't want to bore you too much.

The above was made with Rollei RPX 400 at EI 400 and developed in HC110 Dilution G. Camera was a Nikon F2 and the lens was the ubiquitous 35mm f2 Nikkor-O. It was a bleedin' freezing cold morning and everywhere I looked there was condensation.

"I know it's weird hon, but I like it."