Up Close & Personal

Listen. What's that sound? It's like a cross between a lonely sea monster (thank you Mr. Ray Bradbury) and a fog horn, way out beyond the reef, where the dark ocean starts to shelve away to night. Yes, its the sound of another FogBlog!

On that salubrious note, I will greet one and all a jolly good morning.

Today's post deals with an oft overlooked (and much beloved by me) accessory for ye olde Rolleiflex, namely the Rolleinar. These close-up lenses were made in 3 different magnifications namely #1, #2 and #3. As close-up lenses they excel - you've never seen anything as sharp, you've never seen 'bokeh' as nice. They are extraordinarily good, and parallax corrected too. The people behind the design of the Rolleiflex really thought everything through - everything fits and everything works so well, you rarely have to think much about accessories at all.

However despite their abilities as close-up lenses, one day I discovered another use for them. Messing around, I focused in really close on something and then changed my view so that what I was seeing was something from nearer infinity, and bingo, I discovered that by racking the focus in and out on subject matter that wasn't a close-up, you had a wonderful, variable soft focus lens.

I love Clarence White's photographs, and I also have a massive respect for anything from the Photo Secession, and I found that by using the Rolleinars in this way I could achieve a faux Pictorialist effect. I think it works, if you like what you see, feel free to comment.

This photograph was taken in some woods on the edge of a caravan site we were staying at at Crocketford in Dumfriesshire; the weather had been the usual mix of shower-dodging and things were getting really stormy quite early. What I think about this photograph is that it can either be threatening or friendly.  You could get a feeling of threat from it (as in nothing is as clear as it seems; what is that shadow lurking up ahead? etc etc) but to me it is more friendly and hopefully touching on some of that Pictorialist Romanticism whilst being a tad ethereal at the same time.
Who'd have thought some densely planted Pine and Birch could have been so transformed by light.
Camera was my old Rolleiflex T, with a Rolleinar #1 fitted. Film was TMX 100 developed in Barry Thornton's 2-bath developer. It was a cinch to print on Grade 2 paper, and I printed it slightly lighter as the original lighting was a bit too oppressive.
In the words of Joe Satriani: I like it. 

Lucky Findings

Morning, as they say around these parts, and it is. Not as cold as it has been thank goodness.
This post is going to extol the sheer enjoyment of walking around with the right camera.
You're probably muttering to yourselves, what? and you could well be right. I wander a lot with a 35mm camera and it is fine, but there's certain things that deserve the breadth of greys that you will only get with 120-size film.
The strange thing about this is, that just using medium format isn't always a guarantee of tone. My main camera for a number of years was a 1960's Rolleiflex T - quite possibly (well any Rollei really) one of the greatest cameras ever invented; negative size was the ubiquitous 6x6 cm,  however I have at times struggled to get a spaciousness of grey tones.
A number of years ago I had a Pentax 67 for a very short time - it was great but totally unreliable, as well as having the loudest shutter on the planet (akin to a bird scarer actually). I returned it to the vendor, and missed it like mad. Last year I had the opportunity to buy a Koni-Omega Rapid 100 - yes it has problems like the film advance which is the most strange thing ever, and its rangefinder is a tad dim, but the lens, gosh it's a beauty. Mine is the 90mm Super Omegon a direct descendent of the original Hexanon in a different shutter. It's a Tessar design, but actually one of the very sharpest lenses I own.  Very versatile, AND attached to the correct 'walkabout' camera (see where I am going here) just the thing for wandering around with just in case the unexpected turns up . . .which in this case it did. It wouldn't have looked half as nice in 35mm.

This TriCool machine was pure happenstance, found in some old mill buildings along the road from me. What it was for I have no idea . . however it was obviously three times cooler than any other machine on the planet.
The scan doesn't do the negative justice. Film was TMY2 400 at EI 400, developed in the rather marvellous HC110 Dilution G. This was a compensating dilution as extolled by Mr. Ansel Adams, and I really like it. HC 110 is very active, but using this dilution semi-stand gives an enormous palette of greys. The camera was handheld, and yes, the white specks everywhere are what you think they are - God bless the pigeon.
There y'go, you've maybe learned something and it wasn't too painless was it.

Early Beginnings

Och well - its 2012 and I have just caught up with the world. Funny how you sometimes need an empetus to do things, and that to me was Carl Radford liking my photographs and posting them as part of the Scottish Photographers site.
I've been a member of Scottish Photographers for a couple of years now, and it really is a diverse bunch of people . .
Anyway, the main concern of this blog is probably going to be the one creative endevour I have stuck with - namely photography. and yes I know, there's a ton of other photography blogs out there.
I hope to be a tad different in that I feel very strongly that the art form I really love has been undermined by the equivalent of 'white goods' salesmanship - namely the 'digital revolution'. I know, you'll be stroking your beards and going 'but isn't he using that self-same revolution to publish this?'  . . and you'd be right, however rather than get into the film vs. digital argument and at the risk of sounding like a curmudgeonly old fool, I'll just say, I use film. I have tried digicams and I don't like them, so B&W film it is - anything I can get my hands on really, though a preference for Kodak. Cameras are old - Nikons, a Rollei, a Wista, a Sinar and a Koni-Omega.
What else do you need to know? Well, I owe my love of this entirely to one person - the great Scottish photographer Joseph McKenzie. I was fortunate enough to be tutored by him back in the '80's and he was an inspirational man - a master photographer AND printer. In a word he epitomised the word 'photographer' - to me he is just the same as the likes of another hero of mine: W. Eugene Smith. These chaps had control of the whole creative process from making the photograph to printing the final interpretation, and I think to an extent that has been lost.
Yes you can do it with digital, but how much creative control do you have? You are using exactly the same software as everyone else. Tweaking to the nth degree the same as everyone else.
I (on the other hand) am using the same chemicals as everyone else, but minute variations in everything make it more of a creative process to me. It's a craft, and I am proud to be part of it.
It was interesting to see that the Winnipeg FreePress sees us 'analog' types as a 'counter-culture' - that made me smile very much indeed!
Sorry - I don't mean to turn off any digital users out there either - you're all welcome
Oh, and why 'FogBlog'? Well it is easier to type than 'PhotographyBlog' and hopefully I'll get to confuse the world a bit, like it can be when you are out hillwalking and a mist blows in.

And yes that hill was that steep - it is the Kilbo Path and though clearly defined can still be an eerie place when the mist comes down.