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Showing posts sorted by date for query plastic. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Tuesday, November 09, 2021

Split

(Started in August 2021, and please beware, because it is probably controversial, daft, thick, thought-provoking [?], polemic, opinionated, wrong, true, interesting and dull all at once. It is also a long read, so be prepared with provisions and a rescue team just in case)

Morning folks - hope you are all a rootin' and a tootin'!
This post is an interesting one, because as I start typing I have no idea where I am going, and no idea what (if any) conclusion or usefulness will come out of it; however as is often the case, I find the keyboard to be as valuable as a psychiatrist's couch, so please bear with me whilst I set the slurry lorry on flick and get spattering all that lovely watery cowy goodness out the back whilst pootering along this particular field.

Putt, Putt Putt . . .
Splat, Splat, Splat . . .


© Phil Rogers Dundee,Leica M2,35mm f3.5 Summaron
Battling Glare, Darkness, Spotlights, 
Full Aperture And A Handheld One Second Exposure, 
The M2/Summaron  Combo Delivers The Goods . . . 
Weirdly.
Proudly Unchimped.


Me and t'missus settled down to watch something we'd recorded off BBC 4 a while back:
Rankine's Photography Challenge. 
I was excited; it isn't often photography is featured on TV, so this was somewhat of an event. 
I munched my Lidl's Digestive and sipped my cup of really rather strong coffee and was genuinely waiting to be wowed. 
Cooo!
Here were the candidates, all fresh faced and toting really not inconsiderably expensive cameras. 
There was a young lad describing how he'd sleep in carparks in order to catch a sunrise; an older bloke with PTSD who said that wildlife photography had saved his life.
I noticed there were others; a healthy mix of all genders, very woke and PC, but to be honest by this stage I'd mentally switched off. 
Why?
Well amongst the pontificating of:

"That's The ONE!" 

"I'd be proud of that!!"

"Get down on the ground and shoot it from there!!!"
 
"Coo, you don't get many of those to the pound!"

(Made that last one up actually) something in me had begun to feel really rather sick. 

There were about a billion shutter activations in the first fifteen minutes. 
Studio flashes like miniature atomic space battles
People 'chimping' left right and centre.
Kids putting themselves in shutterly inappropriate positions - the way people mishandle handguns in films (you know, loose wrist, pointed sideways) - camera as an extension of forearm.
It was snappy, overloaded and packed to the gunwhales with jaunty camera angles and semi-shouty presentation to make it look interesting, and sadly, like two Cokes plus a kilo of candy-floss plus several spins on The Sickener, this fairground ride made me feel the way I always feel at fairs:

Queasy with a capital Q.

So I turned to the missus and said:

'Can we watch something else?'

And that was a shame, it really was, because these people were buzzing with photography
They were truly enthused.
To coin a certain Mancunian phrase from decades ago, they were:

Mad For It.

I wished them well, bade them good luck and with a heavy heart and a sick bucket, switched to something else.

The "something else" was a program which is still in my head.
It was a BBC documentary about Lee Miller
What an extraordinary life, however it was her contact prints from the liberation of Dachau and Buchenwald which left a mark. Though not shown closely, what she said in the frames taken with her Rolleiflex said oceans more than a million digital spray jobs. 
And then, the fact that said experience made her pack away all her negatives and prints and not talk about it for years, speaks volumes about how much of herself she put into taking those photographs.
And also how much those photographs took out of her.
You can find out more about her here.

The following night, just because, we watched a documentary about Ansel
To say the guy was driven, would be a slight. 
These days you'd probably say he had OCD.
It came as no surprise that the huge channeling of human spirit, energy and sheer effort that went into the taking of every negative and the making of every print, came about as a result of methodical obsession
I believe this could only ever have been achieved with film and paper. 
He would never have been able to internally and externally transition the piece from "score to orchestra"' (negative to print) with some photoshop moves and an inkjet printer. 
Absolutely no way José.
To watch him dodging and burning was like watching the poetry of great dance or, dare I say it, football. 
It was transfixing, assured and magical all at once. 
A master class in craft skills and second nature.
It was definitely not the nurdling around of a mouse and cursor and ordering some 1's and 0's to: 
"Do THAT!"
It was not some old geezer checking his screen after every shot.

I thought about it and was so stunned by the apparent dissolve between these masters and what passes for photography in this digital age that I had to investigate further.

It will come as no surprise that You Tube is a tremendous source of old photographic documentaries.
Name the crafts-person (gotta be PC y'know) from a bygone age and you'll probably find something about them on there in some form.
From the classic Parkie-style interview, to decent overviews. 
And it is weird because you'll see the overlaps too - great photographers who have gone over to the Light (room) side like it means little to them.
Yet I truly feel something has been lost, and in that loss lies a blackhole that is at the centre of current photography:

The photographer as printmaker.

Bill Brandt (BBC Master Photographers) was a revelation to me. 
I only really knew Bill from a handful of photographs, but in this programme there were countless great images - so stylistic and austere, yet better than anything I have seen produced in 'modern' times.
To paraphrase a conversation in the programme:

Interviewer: "Mr. Brandt, you always do your own printing don't you?"
BB: "Oh yes."
Interviewer: "It is very important to do one's own printing?"
BB: "Yes, definitely, very important, yes . . . because I change pictures completely in the darkroom . . . most of the work is done in the darkroom . . . "


© Bill Brandt Estate


André Kertész? The poet who wasn't technical enough for the American Photography Scene (apparently).
Whilst enamoured with polaroids (technically geeky I suppose) at the end of his life, he produced numerous beautiful images which were all the more perfect for their imperfections. 
I couldn't imagine him chimping at his Canon's screen - he knew exactly what the photograph he had taken would look like. How's that for confidence and skill? 
The post-digital world of perfect, everything in focus from 3" to infinity and then HDR'd to the hilt, would I think have left him cold.
Look at this.


© André Kertész Estate



It truly is exquisite in colour, composition and form. 
A simple sculpture and mirror in his apartment and a piece of Polaroid film.
OK, the smelly wet stage of printmaking was taken away (although remember the 'orrible caustic stuff you use to get with Polaroids . . hmmm) but it is still a print and besides, he'd earned his stripes for decades.
The colours on the Polaroid are ageing in a way like the patina on a piece of Bronze Age metalwork - it is beautiful.

Delving deeper and randomly, I came across a documentary about the British photojournalist Tim Page.
A young man, leaves home at 17; travelling he picks up a camera and gets somehow caught up in Vietnam! 
It is an old BBC Arena called "Tim Page - Mentioned In Despatches"
Unlike other war photographers I have seen, who have dealt with the aftermath in more stoic ways, Tim (in the documentary) seemed to be that same young man fresh from combat, frozen in time, back in civi-street, recovering from debilitating war injuries, trying hard to find something to hold onto to keep him from drowning in the downright ordinariness of 'normal' life. 
He finds some solace in photographing an RAF camp filled with Vietnamese Boat People - there he truly looks at home. 
In his local Charrington pub, quaffing a pint of Charrington's Best Bitter (or so it looked) and smoking a fag, he looked pensive, evaluative; to be frank, out of sorts as they say.
In the documentary he replies to a question (in a Q&A session) about carrying a gun, and explains, that he never really did because guns are heavy, especially when you are carrying 4 cameras, 6 lenses and 50 rolls of film.
50 rolls - 12 or 1800 images as if your life depended on it. 
Finite. 
They had better count.


© Tim Page
© Tim Page


And man did they count. 
Look at the above - one image that sums up the human cost of war. No corpses, but the young man's demenour says more than anything I have ever seen.
If it were digital, there'd be screeds of images, the scene would have been sprayed, broadcast live to a news feed, looked at once and probably forgotten.
And yet here, Tim's skill and eye have rendered the cost, visible on one perfect frame of film; one perfect print.
That's photography. 
He took pictures like he was never sure whether he'd be coming back; fearless. 
Negatives, slides.
I found his images incredibly hard to look at, and yet, to paraphrase him:

". . . there is a lot of Asian softness in them."

You should watch it.
His website is here.

I could go on about the documentaries, but I won't - you owe it to yourself to find them.
It isn't hard.
The above is the merest skirting of the subject though - get looking and thinking.

Dipping on further and looking at my small collection of books, I came to the conclusion that it is the finite quality of traditional photography which defines it

You take a picture, process it, print it, file it. 
It is a one-off artefact - even manipulated via multiple negatives (a la, say, Julius Shulman's astonishingly beautiful architectural photographs) and all the work done in a darkroom to bring it to completion.
If you have never encoutered Shulman and you love black and white (and buildings) you owe it to yourself to seek them out - they're really fantastic.


© Julius Shulman Estate


This was apparently a composite of three negatives, nevertheless it is wonderful. 
The skill involved at all stages to get to the final print is breathtakingly complex.
The printer's skill has not been outsourced to a computer.

The print becomes the full stop on the image. 

The image defines the moment.

Yet I don't think it's really like that anymore.
You might well disagree with me, but to my mind it really isn't.

Have a break - have a Kit Kat.


Aaah, that's better!

I understand there are many concerned and committed photographers out there taking important pictures and I have nothing but respect for them, but the digital rendering is to my mind just convenience. 
It is the 'norm'. 
Everybody else is doing it so why don't we?
You possibly even have little choice with editors and picture people on your back wanting something yesterday.
You can whizz that important image around the world in nano-seconds. 
There is no waiting whilst you send your films back to an ever-awake processing department.
There is no wait whilst you close the door on your darkroom and sweat.
The screen has become the pseudo-print, but rather than that print being put aside in a pile, or brandished in a breathless run to show someone, your image is now a collection of part-remembered photons in your mind's eye. 
Scrolled by contemporaries . . .
In the words of Alex Harvey:

"N. E. X. T. . . Neeeeexxxt!"

And it isn't just to do with how your precious image is stored and presented either; film and digital, obviously they are both utterly different, but to tie things in with my original ride on The Sickener from the top of this 'ere page, it's the sheer ease with which everything can be done.

There used to be an expression 'kicking against the pricks' - whilst the usual interpretation is about authority, I have always thought of it as something that ties in with art. 
Art is struggle.
Photography used to be a struggle.

To my mind though, in ALL creative pursuits, struggle can be beneficial

You strive to do better.

I remember once walking for miles, taking many (so I believed) fine photographs, only for said photographs to be rendered null and void by expired developer. 
It is a thing you only do once. 
It informed me. 
It made me a more careful craftsman.

With digital, you no longer have that. 
You check every single bloody image
Make sure it is perfect on the spot. Just watch the news!
You delete those that you don't like and yet, to quote Tim Page:

"Every day is an assignment. Every picture you shoot, even be it an idle snap; I'm using the word snap, in a sorta very loose context.       
The snap is gonna be valuable."

Snaps are gone with digital - eradicated by the monkey-move and the editorial thumb.

You could argue that the plethora of idle phone pointing that goes on, is the snap.
Well yes, I can see how you come to that, except they're not really, simply because they only exist on a screen. 
They will never  be gripped and looked at again; beery, smoky, greasy fingers will no longer leave their mark. Spitty crumbs of laughter will not mar their perfection.
(As an aside I'll draw your attention to The Anonymous Project - a laudable collection of old slides - their like will never be seen again.)
In my family, we still sometimes drag out prints and snaps from decades ago and laugh and talk and reminisce - it is a wonderful, unexpected and oft overlooked aspect of being a (semi-modern) human.
Who would have thought, when photography was first being developed and people had prints made for relatives, as keep-sakes, records of their lives, that those simple (yet vastly complex) pieces of time would come to define their lives?
Identity was established; some kind of social grace was incurred - all dolled up in your Sunday Best, and thence on to the snap, the wonderful delineation of humankind in all its incredible variety.





Look at at the above - a chance physical find whilst doing some tidying. 
That's me in a photo-booth 40 years ago! 
A close relative to Kertész' polaroids, technology wise. 
It exists in the world. 
It isn't a collection of data lost on some hard-drive, or more likely, deleted as no longer relevant.


Can you see where I am going?
Far from furthering an art-form I love; far from moving it forward, I feel that creatively and archaeologically, digital has pretty much killed 'photography' (as I know it) stone dead.
Cuddle up with that phone and scroll through all those pictures - oh can I see that one with the rubber chicken? 
Oh shit, where the heck is it? 
Och God I can't be arsed . . . . 

But then maybe that is just me. 
A rank amateur living on the East coast of a very small country - what do I know? 
I'll bet most people disagree with me. 
But I look around (a lot); I trust my eyes and my observation of quality and bog-standard snappery from ages past, and I see little now that surprises or impresses or pleases me.
What a feckin' B.O.F. eh!

And then there was a pause during which yer author rubbed his chin and thunked.

Re-reading the above a month or two later, I decided I was being too polemical, too pontificating and too downright opionionated, so I decided to put some distance between me and 'it' and see how I felt a while later.

So, a month or so later:

I feel that what I wrote makes me sound like an arse.
What right have I to pass judgement on one of the world's most popular hobbies?
How can I stand here and say that truth is no longer what it used to be? 
You could argue that photographically truth was never what it was.
I can totally see where you are coming from. 
And yet, I can't quite put the way I am feeling about the current state of photography into words. 
Maybe it has always been thus. 
Millions of images, with maybe one in hundreds of thousands that makes you go:

'OH!'

There currently seems to be no end to the massed ranks of clamour; of images made for pleasure, purpose, or mostly, so it seems, just because you can
The digital image knows no boundaries, and I don't mean in the creative sense, I mean it in the sense that it is an ever-expanding frontier of data assembled into pictures. 
There is no physical limit simply because you don't really need to think like that anymore. 
You are not going into a combat situation with 50 rolls of film. 
You are not limited by the physical length of a roll.
The sky is the limit, and even then  . . .

Even the most careful digi-photographers I know complain endlessly about the sheer amount of stuff they have. 
It is archived and filed and amassed on hard drives or clouds, and it sits there by the myriad, consuming energy in a pointless waste of storage, because nothing will ever happen to photo #15 of the 300 you took of your children playing ball. 
You really won't make that nice picture of a daisy (in macro-mode) into a nice picture for your partner. 
IT IS FACT - YOU SIMPLY WON'T.

They say that traditional photography was environmentally unfriendly in its use of chemicals and resources, but I conject that digital photography is far more unfriendly simply in its power usage. 
Not only that but the traditional photograph impacts environment relatively quickly: a release of noxious chemicals, the results filed away and delved into occasionally; but that is it, the results are yours. Of course you have to factor in the silver mining and plastic production, but counter that with rare earth metals in every camera battery, the plastics in every SD card. 
And you've got to think about the trillions of digital images stored on servers; all drawing energy for their storage whether viewed or not, usually not. 
Some are printed, but they're still stored on physically ultimately fragile devices like hard drives or flash media or SD cards - future landfill.
Of course on the other hand they could also (unwisely) only be stored on cloud storage, where they are entirely at the behest (unpaid, or peppercorn-rent guests as it were) of digital flop-houses. 
An uncertain future! For should owners of said digital flop-houses maybe start charging considerably more, because of power costs, because of hunger for more dosh, for whatever reason, what then happens to a visual history of the latter half of the twentieth, early part of the twenty-first century? 

Yep: 

"Oh that old picture, nah, not going to pay for that." 

"I've got another 30 of the kids, forget about that one." 

Look how truly fragile this digital world really is.

I know we could sit and argue this till the cows come home - maybe you should come around sometime and we could head to the pub.
All of the above reads like it was written by someone who at a certain time of life has become thoroughly entrenched in their thinking and has no wish to look over the parapet. 
Strangely, I wouldn't blame you for thinking so, but also, I wouldn't count myself as one of those.
I am open to argument, but I also know what I like and what I think, and if you are from 'the other side' as it were, my salutations to you - I am not taking a pop, just providing a different slant on what you'll see elsewhere. Hopefully it will make you think about the physical/un-physical fragility of the modern world.

To be honest, my bias towards so-called 'traditional' photography is as firmly entrenched as an old wellie in a huge pool of cow shit. 

You might be able to extract me, but it would be incredibly messy for both of us

Best let entrenched boots lie, eh?





To round things off, the above is a perfect example of why, like Tim Page says, the snap matters.
This was a 'snap' with a Hasselblad SWC/M.
The light was sort of like that - heavy cloud cover and a brief bit of liquid sunshine hitting the path making the stones really stand out. 
I did print the sides down slightly (in a poor fashion) but on the whole it was pretty much like that.
It has sat as a scrap in my darkroom for a year or so. I never ditched it, just used it for setting print borders.
Now I come to look at it properly, I like it.
Had it been digital I would probably have deleted it at the time.
Not saying, just saying . . . .

As I finish, I'd like to say that really, I know none of you, however if you are a printmaker, I tip my tifter to you - you're keeping something vital alive, and if you don't run a darkroom but get other people to make prints from your negatives, I tip my hat to you too, because you're producing something physical.

If you're a squirter (sorry - that's my own nomenclature) well at least you are printing, but as far as I am concerned, it really isn't the same. The skill set is vastly different. 
This being said it doesn't NOT make you a photographer, it's just a shame that the world of modern photography has been skewed away from something that was always its beating heart - THE DARKROOM.

If all you ever view is screens, think again - it is worth the effort to try and change that. Buy a modern Polaroid camera and go and have fun - it will transform the way you feel about making images, and the Polaroids will probably outlast you as well - something for future times. A present from the past.

That's it - thank you for reading once again.
Take care, be safe and watch out for the normal people.







Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Get Stuffed

Morning folks - well it's that time again. 
Time to sit and groan as another mince pie is force-fed into your open, dribbling gob.

Oh yes, It's Ker-ist-mas!

I've had the sprouts on a gentle simmer since October and we're all fully prepared for a day of debauchery. 
Don't you think it's amazing that so much effort and thought is put into just one day and at the end of it, everyone goes:

 "uuuuuurgh, Uncle Tony's stomach has just split, get the hoover will you . . . . urgh . . . well, was that it?"

I do. 

Let's face it, post about 15 years old it looses its appeal don'tcha think? Well, actually, that doesn't seem to be the case with most people and if you are one of them, Wassail!
I do enjoy it though (really!) but, rather like Halloween (and especially what that has become) to me it just seems to be a thing that has utterly lost all meaning. 
I'd love to strip away all commercial aspects of Christmas and see what would happen. 
I do wonder whether people would actually bother

But then again, here I am, with a tooter and a Santa hat on my head, awaiting that magical tinkling of bells and the thunder of hooves . . .

Anyway, enough pontificating, you're here for negatives AND positives, so let's get on with it.

There's a lot of reading below, so consider yourself warned. 
It's sort of fun though.

In the words of the marvellous Franco Battiatio in his song Strani Giorni:

"I had fallen into reverie
I dreamed a vague outline
The whisky flowed
Sending me into the past
Action! (roll the cameras)
Here comes a lightning tour of my life!
The two in the corner didn't say a word. "


JANUARY


I started the year off with a Rollei in one hand and a map in the other and got into a new regime with my precious Fridays off. 
I got t'missus to drop me in the vicinity of my work and then headed down through Broughty Ferry and along the Dundee docks waterfront and thence home. 
It is quite a walk - roughly 6 miles.
I liked it so much I did it a number of times.

In a stupidly enjoyable photographic way it was great though - tootling along taking pictures of all sorts of stuff, minding your own business and getting really cold in the process.


Dundee, Phil Rogers, Hasselblad, Ilford SFX, 150mm Sonnar
Dundee/Bauhaus


It might surprise you, but the above was unfiltered SFX. 
Camera was a 500C/M with 150mm Sonnar . . . 
And no tripod!


Most of it made fairly dull photographs, but I suppose at the end of the day, just what is the point of this stuff we all do?
Are we aiming for world recognition (very unlikely) or are we doing it as a form of catharsis against the madness of modern life? 
I don't know about you, but I find the sense of order in the acts of seeing, composing, measuring, adjusting and then finally taking (not making) a photograph, profoundly comforting . . .
It's a bit like eating 15 Creme Eggs in one session . . .
Well not really, but you know what I mean.
Or do you?


FEBRUARY


Never properly Winter-cold up here, February was more of the same; long walks, poor photos, random finds and fun!


Nikon F, Pre-Ai 24mm Nikkor, Phil Rogers
Hurt


The above was taken with my 1971 Nikon F and an old 24mm pre-Ai lens.
I should really have rescued Johnny from his fate.
This was a bin at the side of a hotel.
Lovely.


I was still doing the riverside discovery process, and (strangely, to these end-of-the-year eyes) mentioning something that seemed to be starting to get some prominence in the press - Coronavirus.
Oh and the Doomsday Clock had gone to 100 Seconds To Midnight at the end of January.
Shite
That is the closest it has ever been.
Concerned? Me too.
You can see the timeline here
In the words of my Mother:

"You've made a bloody mess of that!"


MARCH


I got it out of its controlled storage and took the M2 for long walks and had fun. 
I was swapping between the Canon 28mm f3.5 and the Canon 50mm f1.8. 
You could buy these lenses for peanuts years back, but their reputation has slowly increased, especially given the stupid prices of Leitz lenses from the same period. 
Though try and find a 28mm Canon these days . . . 
I like them though.
However, dare I say it, I've had similar results from the old redoubtable Russian Jupiters. 
Ah you didn't know about my Soviet background did you?
Привет, товарищ
Blame a brother with a Zenit E Sniper.
Russian optics are largely regarded as jokes, but there's a fantastic quality to them if you find the right one.


© Phil Rogers,Dundee,Ilford FP4+,Ilford HP5+,Leica M2
Pyscadelic Pub


Pub shots are always largely hopeless. 
The finest I ever saw was taken by Malcolm Thompson (RIP) of a chap smoking in the Phoenix (in Dundee). 
This isn't anywhere near the same league (though it is the same pub) but it seemed like a good idea at the time. 
Leica M2 and Canon 28mm. Ilford Delta 400 at EI ?1200?. 
All exposures guessed.


© Phil Rogers,Dundee,Ilford FP4+,Ilford HP5+,Leica M2
Seabraes Bridge


Same Film and lens. 
This is Seabraes Bridge - if you've read FB for a while you'll know I have been photographing it in a certain way for years - well, since it was built actually. 
Curiously, recently, I have started to see official Dundee Council publications featuring the bridge, with exactly the same treatment; that is, letting the reflections (which are many and superb) speak for themselves, so that planes of focus are played with . . . 
Hey, maybe someone from their Art Department is reading this . . and if it is you, HELLO!


© Phil Rogers,Dundee,Sinar F, Seabraes
Waiting For The Inevitable


Here's one I took earlier - about 3 years earlier actually.
Well before the bridge was constructed.
And also before this chap was ripped off his footings by a storm . . . 
To be left as a disassociated set of eyes in the grass, with . . . 
DOGS CRAPPING ALL OVER HIM.
Camera was my Sinar F. 
The lens was probably a 150mm Symmar-S
Think I was using some sort of compensating developer - what a drag.


After using the M2, fun though it was, it hit me hard that I really AM NOT a 35mm user at all.
Who'd a thunk it!
Seeds were sown. 
Sell the Leica? 
Get it all tootled up and then sell it?
It IS a lovely camera, but really, how much do I use it? 
I actually much prefer the old Nikon F.
I was in not one, not two, but at least five minds . . . 
However, by the end of the year, some stern talking with The Online Darkroom's Bruce has led me to decide to hang onto it and use it - if I sold it and changed my mind I'd never be able to afford another.

Did a stock take and discovered I had a massive stock of film:
20x SFX 120
10 x HP5 120
10 x FP4 120
10 x Delta 400 35mm
+ a couple of boxes of expired 5x4" film (and no inspiration ** - more of this later)

By the 13th of March I was detailing the clearing of supermarket shelves by human locii.
And then lockdown happened.
I wrote: 

"Cold War Paranoia is stalking the land!" 

. . . who knew where everything was going?
And on the 25th, working from home started.


APRIL


After a period of re-adjustment (I don't know about you, but it didn't take long) we all sort of settled into the new regime of working from home.
Gads though, it was hard at times, but me and t'missus dutifully manned our desks - me in here, and she in the a temporary office space in the living room. 
Cup of tea love? 
Magic!

I processed all the colour film I owned (some of it exposed 25 years ago).
The Tetenal kit was about 10 years old too.



Git Out Of Dat Barf - I Need It For Me Film!


It was a proper amateur job, involving washing basins, a bath and hot water, but you know what, much to my surprise the results were absolutely fine.


© Phil Rogers,Dundee,Nikon F3,Kodak Gold
Who Are You And Why Are You Photographing Me?


Get a roll of Kodak Gold.
Leave it for about 12 years in non-friendly places, like warm rooms etc etc.
Pick up. 
Go "Urgh, wot's this?" 
Stick in camera. 
Take photos. 
Process.
Sheephouse SnappySnaps, we always get your film to you (in the end).
Camera was a Nikon F3, with an old non-Ai 24mm lens.


At the end of the month I took the Hasselblad for a walk around some of the city's old mill areas and was quite happy with the results.
But I've not printed any of those shots, so here's one (of different subject matter!) I took earlier (just to fill up the space and look pretty).


© Phil Rogers,Dundee,Ilford FP4+,Ilford HP5+,Ilford MGRC,Hasselblad 500 C/M,Hasselblad SWC/M,Hasselblad 150mm CF Sonnar,Hasselblad 60mm Distagon,
Haunted House Along A Haunted Lane


One of my little lane shots. 
We're littered with them in Dundee - lanes that is not shots. 
This was early morning and I think the 60mm Distagon - the slight glare and early morning haze makes the house look haunted to me - if you know what I mean.


There was a positive from Lockdown. 
We got to know our local area better than before. 
It was amazing how many lanes we went up and came down. 
To be honest, we're very lucky we don't live in a 30-storey tower block in some urban connurbation, rammed with other blocks. 
This small City on the Eastern edge of Scotland does have its advantages.


MAY


May was an incredibly beautiful month - the weather was clement, the skies were bluer (because of the lack of smog particles); birds were tweeting their hearts out. 
Me and t'missus settled ourselves into being a support unit for each other, ageing parents and a son who was missing his social life. I think the whole pandemic has, in a strange way, made familial groups closer.
Time seemed to be a blessing to be used with less urgency.
It was in a way heaven.

I wasn't even thinking about photographs as I needed to catch up and did a spot of printing over a couple of weekends. 
However at the very end of the month, the urge overwhelmed me (well, actually after the worst night's sleep of my life) and I got up really early and detailed a 1960's car park. 
It was quick shoot, but enormous fun.


© Phil Rogers,Dundee,Ilford FP4+,Ilford HP5+,Ilford MGRC,Hasselblad 500 C/M,Hasselblad SWC/M,Hasselblad 150mm CF Sonnar,Hasselblad 60mm Distagon,
Car Park


I do so love the light in this carpark. 
I like the concrete brutalism too.


I was so excited by the car park shots that two days later I was out again with a roll of SFX, a home-made infrared filter and the Rollei T.
I was chuffed with the results. 
My old Rollei T (nearly as old as me) still surprises me - weirdly it seems to be one of the lesser-regarded Rolleis. 
You see Rolleicord Vbs selling for more! 
No idea why.
The Tessar is just a single-coated continuation of the original Rollei line before they replaced everything with Planars and Xenotars.


© Phil Rogers,Dundee,Ilford SFX, RolleiT
Another Haunted Lane


Set the controls for the heart of darkness.
EI 12 and don't forget your tripod. 
Oh and it's a Rollei so don't forget to move your focus mark forward to f5.6 to adjust for the difference in IR focus.
Good ol' SFX.
I likened it to "HP5+ In A Spangly Mankini" and I still stand by that statement.


To me, .the greatest thing from this enforced period of isolation was Birdsong. 
I don't know what it was like where you live, but having a traffic-free audio landscape populated by birds singing their hearts out, was pure bliss.


JUNE


Ah, flaming June . . . 

It was a lovely month apart from my left eyeball exploding.

Despite this (which sapped any motivation I might have had) I found a great deal on a slightly battered Hasselblad Pro-shade and a 100mm Lee infrared filter.

I tried to do some printing too on Ilford MGRC (expired) and looked out some old prints, among which was this:


© Phil Rogers,Dundee,Wista DX,90mm Super-Angulon
Haunted Bridge
(Can You See The Theme Yet?)


This was a 5x4" contact on (torn, not cut!) old Agfa MCC.
Camera was a Wista DX; lens a Super-Angulon f8; film I think was TMX 100.
I was still developing in dilute Rodinal at the time (no, not me you fool, the film).
There's something eerie about it to my old eyes (apart from the cottage at the left, but then there could be a chainsaw murderer living there, so you never know!)


Dere Street


This is a vintage print - about 10 years old.

It was printed on Adox Vario Classic (now gone too).

Camera was my Rolleiflex T with the 16-on (645) masks inserted.

I still love the light in this and there was something about the trees that really transported me in time.

Romans and Royals all used Dere Street.



Unfortunately, in mid-June, a much anticipated trip to Berlin had to be cancelled - drat and double-drat (oh go one then, and triple-drat!)
I bid farewell to birdsong and time and returned to work at the end of the month.
It was like Lockdown had never happened.


JULY


So what do you do with a Hasselblad, a Pro-shade, a Lee IR filter, a roll of SFX and some time? 
Yes, you go and waste it.
I'll say no more except read the specs of your film and filter.
Well, actually you might be puzzled by that statement. 
Basically, Ilford's SFX isn't a true IR film, just HP5+ in a spangly mankini. 
It only works with a narrow range of filters:

WRATTEN 29 - DEEP RED - EQUIVALENT = B&W 091 

WRATTEN 89B - VERY DEEP RED - EQUIVALENT = HOYA R72 and HELIOPAN RG 695


I spent 2 hours carefully taking all these great photos with the SWC/M and then an hour+ developing them only to find I had lots of shots of my out of focus filter ring.

I was so cheesed-off, that the following week I just went to a lost spot in this city, just so that I could and discovered that homeless people (person?) had been using this lost area of land as a camp.
I detailed it here
I should explore it more.


Phil Rogers, Dundee, Hasselblad SWC/M
Abandoned Latrine


Camera was the SWC/M again. 
The print has scanned well. 
It's bog standard Ilford MGRC developed in the last of my Kodak developer.


Slowly but surely all Kodak stuff is being eradicated from my life.
That is VERY sad, but unfortunately the powers that be price it like they think it's a privilege to use their products. 
For some people (Hello America!) it is like breathing - i.e. a total necessity, oh but the shareholders require a profit . . .
Well. just a thought, how's about this - cut the wholesale price, so that it'll sell at £5 a roll of 120 not nearly £8 and then you'll sell twice or three times as many.
It's simple economics.
Future sorted.

At the end of the month I went and re-trod my own tripod holes around the back of Duncan Of Jordanstone Art College. 
I'd love to get in and teach people film properly
Sadly I don't think the fire is there to get people out with a roll of film and get down and dirty with developing and printing it. 
It seems to be (and semi-verified by a lecturer I spoke to) all 'imaging' . . just re-read that word . . . Gaaaaargh! 
Fecking hell . . . Joe McKenzie's LARGE legacy seems to have been diluted to the point of:
"Wot's the point?"

Anyway, 'nuff sour grapes, I'm not quite a miserable old git yet.
My eyes were playing merry hell with me and it was hard to get motivated, but I somehow did.


Phil Rogers, Dundee, Hasselblad 500C/M,150mm Sonnar
Ghastly Poster


OK, it is hardly inspiring.
Hasselblad 500C/M and 150mm Sonnar
It's printed up lovely though, on some NOS Agfa MCC 5x7"
There was just something truly ghastly about this aged and splatty poster I couldn't resist. 
My Mum would have called it 'Perverse'.


It never ceases to amaze me that you might keep on treading the same old ground, but there's always something to photograph!


AUGUST


Desperate to break the bounds of my eye-depression, I hit the ground running and went to a sacred site (pre-Dawn) and took what I think is my own personal favourite landscape photograph . . . ever . . .
This is it.


Hasselblad SWC/M,Ilford MGRC,Hasselbl© Phil Rogers,Ilford HP5+,Dundee,Ilford FP4+,
Ritual Landscape


The light was incredible and this felt special as I was taking it. 
Weirdly it isn't entirely sharp across the frame, so I can safely assume my gorilla-like grip on the cable release was causing camera shake.
The tripod was a tad unsteady too as I was perched on a couple of rocks in the river.
SWC/M and FP4+


I like to think that the Old Earth Gods of the place were smiling on my supplication for light and atmosphere.
I couldn't believe it when the negatives emerged from the wash.
The negative printed like a dream.
I have to say, despite the fact I am still paying it off (some two years later!) my Hasselblad SWC/M (Florence) was an investment in pure pleasure.


SEPTEMBER


After years of wishing and asking, I finally got my son up a Munro. 
We had a brilliant day despite the near-50mph winds on the tops. 
It was enough of a pleasure for him to ask when we could do it again!


The Road Home


Y'know, a SWC/M makes a surprisingly decent travel camera.
It's light and not too farty-aboot.
We still had about 4 miles to go, but at least it was all downhill.


The end of the month was a holiday next to one of Scotland's great rivers. 


Please Leave Deliveries In Bag


This was a strange one.
Nothing changed with regard to the bag for a whole week.
Not a very good print though - way too contrasty.
SWC/M and HP5+. 
Such is the wideness of the lens that from the tripod's position I could almost touch the gate.


Faery Path


Imagine being perched on a wall that is on average 4-5 feet high and about 2 feet wide, with a river on one side and thorn trees on the other.
In the twilight.
With a tripod.
Camera was Hasselblad 500C/M and 60mm Distagon. 
Film was Ilford FP4+


It was pure bliss and I was able to indulge twilight walks with a lot of camera work. 
The results weren't great, but the further on I get with this thing we call photography, I realise that that probably isn't the point.
'Faery Path' is so called because the first thing my wife said when she saw it was "That looks faery!'

Whilst on holiday, not to be outdone, my right eyeball quietly exploded too.

That's not one, but two PVDs (Posterior Vitreous Detachment) missus - cooooor, you don't get many of those to the pound do yer luv? Eh!

Dundee Museums produced a Joe McKenzie 'Love Letter To Dundee' exhibition. It was bloody marvellous to see the old masters prints in the flesh again. If all this ghastly lockdown stuff stops and things get back to normal, please find some time to see it (if it ever travels).


OCTOBER


My busiest weeks at work ever meant that I couldn't photograph - I was too knackered and had no days off (apart from the weekends . . . snoooooooze). 
It was a personal triumph to have packed the number of things I did, however I did end up with tendonitis.

A hero of mine, Eddie Van Halen died this month.
It was a tragic end to a true innovator and whilst I never liked their music post-Women And Children First, Ed was a great guy. 
What a lot of people didn't get was his endless search for great sound and yet he had it in spades already. 
A man with numerous patents to his name and a constant thirst to do new stuff, he sadly got tracked into the endless parade of Greatest Hits re-treading tours that seems to plague the majority of 'legacy' acts.
It was almost like caging a Lion.
I saw out the month playing my old Peavey Wolfgang Standard (a guitar he designed) to death, further compounding the tendonitis.
Kudos to his son Wolfgang for not jumping on the making as much money as possible in a short space of time bandwagon. 
Sit tight on your Dad's legacy Wolfie - it needs to be treated with respect.


Women & Children First


Norman Seeff is the photographer
If that doesn't look like a Zeiss Softar on a 150mm Sonnar, well.
There's a softness yet clarity. 
Look up his work - hell of a photographer.


I also managed to find a (fairly) cheap deep red filter on ebay and had a bash at using Ilford SFX with the Hasselblad in desperately DULL conditions. 
How dull was it? 
Well, suffice to say, it was like the sun hadn't risen.
At all.
Ever.
And wasn't going to ever again.


Hasselblad SWC/M,© Phil Rogers,Dundee,
Monkey Wave


I like this.
Basically it was so dark, I pointed my camera at the sky for the sheer hell of it, opened the shutter and this is what turned up. 
Film was Ilford SFX, camera was the SWC/M


I ended the month on only one film shot and processed - there's lazy for you mister.


NOVEMBER


Ah November! 
A month when the skies greyed-out and sun was never seen . . . or at least that's how it seemed.
I would say this has been the greyest Autumn I can ever remember. Normally there's some let-up, but global warming has meant that waves of storms and cloud come in off the Atlantic with predictable regularity - i.e. ALWAYS at the weekend.
It was sheer torture actually - maybe I'll just become a house photographer like Edward Steichen at the end of his life - this being said, I'm not sure whether you've looked at any of Steichen's last days pictures, but for what on the surface seem to be loads of inconsequential stuff, there is a quiet acceptance of the mores of life fixed deep in them. It seems like he anticipated the end. The colours are wonderfully funereal.

Talking of Steichen, I had forgotten I had this:


Family Of Man


A lucky find in a charity shop for a fiver. 
The binding is sheer quality, considering it was given as a present to someone in 1963.
It moves me to tears every time I read it.
Taschen - a lovely hardback reprint would be perfect please, and thank you.


It is in my opinion one of the finest photographic books ever made, because it isn't just a collection of great images (which it is) it is more than that, it's a statement that came 10 years after the most terrible conflagration. 
It's an appeal to live and let live, to tolerate (to a point); to accept that no one is ever going to agree with you totally, but that's their human right. 
It is something we all need to think about these days - I think my Mum and Dad and indeed yours, would be mightily pissed off at the state we've got everything into.

Whilst looking around, I found this statement by Steichen which I think nails the art of traditional photography on the head:

“I don't think any medium is an art in itself. It is the person who creates a work of art. It's perfectly clear that photography is different from any other medium — but that's only procedurally.

Every other artist begins from scratch, a blank canvas, a piece of paper, and gradually builds up the conception he has. The photographer begins with the finished product. When that shutter clicks, anything else that can be done afterward is not worth consideration.

At that point the differences between photography and any other medium stop because the photographer has brought to that instant anything any artist has to bring into action for the creative act.”


He's right isn't he. 
Once you take (not make) that moment in time and fix it into place on film, that is it.

You can of course elevate it further through print making, but for a defined moment; a tiny slice of the river of time, well, the negative is the thing.

It doesn't sound like he regarded print making with such profundity, and yet, to me, the two cannot exist without each other.
In this age of screen viewing, having something physical at the end of an often long (and concentrated) process, well, to go all '60's on you . . . it's where it's at . . (man).

Thinking long and analogously about this, howzaboot the following:

If the negative is say, the page, then the print (or prints [as in all you have ever done]) is the whole book. 
A page on its own can be meaningless, but a whole volume, well . . .

Maybe that's a way of looking at your prints and negatives. 
They are your story. 
All the time you've spent making images. 
Travelling and looking and snapping and processing, and eventually turning those small bits of time turned physical, into something that you can show to someone and say: 

"Look, this is mine  - I made all this!"

I've often wondered what this space-consuming collection of old print boxes, plastic sleeves and (occasionally looked at) bits of paper were there for. And now I think I might have found the answer.
They're me.

However, as my old mate, childhood chum and respected Aunty (whom I never met) Ursula K LeGuin would have said: 

'Endless are the arguments of mages . . . '

Anyway . . . onwards!

I've long been intrigued by some of John Blakemore's time-based photographs and so I thought that using a ND would help me copy him. So, guess what, I bought a (slightly faulty) ND off the same bloke I got the B&W red from.
It's a Tiffen. Beautifully made too - actually the bay 60 thread is smoother than the B&W. Neither however compare to 1960's and 70's Nikon filter rings - they're smoother than a pint of Guiness West Indies Export Porter with a Brylcreem sandwich.

However, as I later discovered when I actually re-read his book (surely someone somewhere should reprint it!) he used a view camera and numerous slight exposures. 
I (being a twat) opted for the sledgehammer and nut option and slapped the filter on, stopped down and stood about whilst dodging the reciprocity failure bullet.
FP4 at EI 12?
You betcha!


Hasselblad SWC/M,© Phil Rogers,Dundee,Ilford FP4+,
Balgay Cemetery


I like the plasticity of this image.
It's not a great print, but it will suffice.
I was perched with tripod on top of a bench to get a better feeling of depth and height.
Exposure was about 10 seconds in bright Winter sun.


And that was November.

DECEMBER


Well that's now isn't it, and if you have got this far, thank you once again. 
You know, I've been blogging since 2012.
It has been a consistent commitment from me and though it has settled into a gentle monthly rhythm, I've enjoyed it. 
I know some of you have been reading since the start and I'd like to say a really big thank you to you for keeping going!
As for anyone else, well, dig deep - there's tons of interesting (a matter of opinion) stuff about cameras and the photographic process - you can access the whole lot at the right hand side in the Search This Blog box . . . it's to the right of this and up near the top of the page.

FB isn't a Pleez-Pleez-Pleez-Miss-Pleez-Miss-Look-At-Wot-I've-Got-Miss-Pleeeeeeeeez-Miss, sort of thing like many blogs, no. Hopefully it is a bit more thought provoking than that.
Writing this has helped me (and in turn maybe helped you) through some photographic thought processes and general good practice (uncommon for me admittedly).

Anyway, to round things off, this month I have come to some conclusions and gone a bit mad.

The main conclusion is this. 
The end is nigh
You get to half your allotted years and it really strikes you.
So with that in mind, what better way to approach things, but with a new vigour and enthusiasm.
It is so easy to get caught in the 'can't be arsed' frame of mind!
YOU SIMPLY CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN!

So, for next year, or even the rest of this year:

Get Yer Finger Oot.

Get to it.
Take photos.
Make prints.
Blow your pension. 
As a wise man's dead Aunty once said to me:

"There's no pockets in a shroud!"

Too bloody right.

For myself, I've discovered that I have nigh on 90 sheets of expired 5x4" film - most of it is Kodak and died around 2013/2015. 
So I have gone from thinking - I really can't handle a view camera any more, to, right, I am going to crack this bastard and get back on and use the Wista (and Sinar). 

Hopefully this season will see me with enough time to actually do it. 

I've even bought some Adox FX39II because of the shorter times for tray processing. 

Wish me luck.


Phil Rogers, Dundee, Hasselblad SWC/M
Ferkin' Hell . . .When Did That Happen?



Anyway, that's it.
As always, many thanks for reading - I hope there was something of use and/or interesting in this. If it provokes thought . . . good. 
If it provokes laughter . . . even better.

I am off now - hopefully it'll be a good long break with a dark cloth over my head. 
I should have something new for you in January, so till then, stay safe and have a brilliant time.
And remember that if you boil enough sprouts now, you can have them all year round.
TTFN xxx.