Rise Of The (Junkyard) Robots - Part One

Well folks - if you've read enough of these posts you'll know that I am a fan of a certain old camera - my Rolleiflex T - or Olly as he is known. He's a cheaper Rollei with the Tessar lens as opposed to a Planar or Xenar.
He is the camera I chose when I decided I wanted to start making photographs again - I bought him some, Oooo, ten years ago from the now defunct (and sorely missed) MXV Photographic. Olly cost me the not inconsiderable (at that time and even now) sum of £249 and that included a case and a proper scissor strap too.
Prices on T's have wildly fluctuated, and I have often wondered about that - I think a lot of people just see the name Rollei and are then underwhelmed by the results from the lens, but actually, the lens is rather good, you just have to know how to use it properly.
Forget the world of shooting wide open all the time (it just shows that you have little imagination as a photographer)- on the T, the results will be OK, just not stunning.
Mix it up for close-ups with some Rolleinars and you will end up with a photograph as sharp as any you could ever wish to take. Rolleinars are a close-up accessory and come in 3 sizes, ultimately going from face filling frame, to super-close.
When you have played enough with them, take them off and then stop down to the Tessar's optimum aperture of f11 and you have a different beast altogether.
For years I had stopped well down for landscapes and so on, and it was only latterly that I read about the Tessar being designed to work at its best at f11, so I tried it, and bingo! It took me a long time and a lot of film to try this - surely, I thought, stopping right down will give me the maximum DOF and detail . . surely ? ? ? ?
. . . in other words I was too pig-headed and stupid to try anything other.
Well I was wrong.
At f16 and f22 it is a good lens, don't get me wrong, but, simply put, at f11 it is pretty wonderful.
I've scanned a couple of photos made at that aperture for you to look at below; they were made on Ilford Pan F, developed in HC110.
I wonder if you'll agree with me.
Oh and I used a tripod for those too.

Don't Fence Me In.
I loved the fact that someone had trimmed this derelict garden, but had left the greenhouse.
Hard to tell from the web, but the detail goes on and on - none too tardy for an 'amateur' camera.
Rolleiflex T at optimum aperture f11, Ilford Pan F, Kodak HC 110
Ilford Galerie - Grade 2, Kodak Polymax Developer, Rodenstock Rodagon, DeVere 504, Untoned.

Primitive Landscape.
I've made a lot of landscapes over the years, but this is my favourite.
There's a strange 'plasticity' to the image which I find quite 'painterly'.
It happens every now and then with the Tessar and I have no idea why, but can you see what I mean?
This was made on a small foray along the Southern Upland Way - wish I had the time to do the full route.
Rolleiflex T at optimum aperture f11, Ilford Pan F, Kodak HC 110
Ilford Galerie - Grade 2, Kodak Polymax Developer, Rodenstock Rodagon, DeVere 504, Untoned.

In a lot of ways, thinking about things recently, I am almost wondering whether the TLR isn't just the most perfect travel camera. It is small and light enough not to be a pain, and yet you'll have a large negative to give you all the enlargementness you could want. Certainly using a slow film like Pan F (as used above) there is all the detail you could want . . the only hindrance being a tripod.
Anyway, wot's the upshot of me writing about Olly the Rollei?
Well, he's gone.
The film advance has decided to return to a state of shiteness (this happened when I first bought the camera) whereby you can wind a film on and in, expose a frame, and another and then the camera locks, the advance refuses to turn. This is quite upsetting - you hate to see an animal in pain and the same is true of cameras.
The problem is, rather like getting my Nikon F2 serviced and refurbished (£180 from Sover Wong - he will return it to a state of newness, but for someone with limited funds like myself, I simply can't even go there) the cost of a Rollei service from someone decent (not a tinkerer) is going to be prohibitive - you see the shutter is a tad slow too, and I'd rather like the taking lens cleaned of a little bit of haze.
I'd estimate at least £120 and probably more, which is getting into the grounds of, why bother.
You can still (just about) get Mamiya TLRs or Rollecords for not a whole lot more, they're newer too.
So I find (found) myself in somewhat of a dip, and then I remembered . . oh yeah . . years back . . that sub-£50 spontaneous purchase . . a 1958 Minolta Autocord . .
Wha???
Yeah, you remember . . the one you ripped most of the leather off, took the lens apart, cleaned a bit, sorted out the extremely gritty aperture and shutter setting controls, put back together, thought you'd done it wrong and have meant to get sorted ever since . .
Oh yeah . . that camera!
From this dear reader you will imagine me having piles of old cameras just lying around . . I don't, and I hadn't totally forgotten about the Autocord, it is just that Olly was my main MF camera . . . 

1958 Minolta Autocord - Special Risqué Export Model.
Eagle-eyed readers (and those who can see around corners) will see it is sans most of its leather.
To the right you will see a mug handle poking out of its back . . .
Of course it doesn't have a mug handle attached - don't be daft.
Oh and don't worry - it isn't a Nuclear Bomb going off  -I couldn't be arsed with colour balance.

I was sure that in my disassembly of the lenses I hadn't set focus properly, but having a tootle around, I discovered that the taking lens is actually very simply set . . it either has a spacer behind it, or it is screwed flat into its mount . .no tinkering. I had reassembled exactly as I found it. Ergo, unless it had always been a taker of out of focus pictures, the focus must be correct . . but I had to find out . . . .
So I dragged him out of the cupboard, marvelled again at how the shutter and film advance are a million times smoother than the Rollei, stuck a roll of TMX 100 in and proceeded to use him over the holidays.
A couple of the results are below.

Lights, Camera, Action!
For some reason my son has taken to dressing like a 1930's film director.
This was at Dunnotar Castle, after an extreme rain shower followed by 80 Degrees of unusual heat.
Man that guano can't half pong!
As you can see the Autocord has imparted a nicely vintage feel to the image.
Kodak TMX 100, Agfa Rodinal 1:25.
Kentmere VC Select Finegrain, Kodak Polymax, home-made Hypo, Untoned

Into The Unknown
Again, a nicely vintage feel from the lens.
Kodak TMX 100, Agfa Rodinal 1:25.
Kentmere VC Select Finegrain, Kodak Polymax, home-made Hypo, Untoned 

Just to see the quality of the lens.
Individual hairs are very apparent on the negative.
The mottled stippling comes from the surface of the paper.
Kentmere Finegrain is a Matt paper, with a slight surface texture.
It is really lovely stuff.

Now you'll be thinking to yourself . . what?
Sub £50?
That is a bargain!
Well there was a reason for its bargain price . . the taking lens had been cleaned for nigh on 40 years by a nefarious collection of ties, hankies, jacket sleeves etc . . in other words it is well sandpapered!
Here are some pictures of it backlit, just to give you a shock.

I know - it looks like fungus, but in reality it is a good ol' example of
that famous lens affliction of old - Tiekerchiefitis

And of course, what do you get with a lens like that?
Yep . . .flare . . lots of it, so a hood is a prerequisite.
My initial results with the camera when I bought it weren't great, but neither were they bad, however I dunno, I just never clicked with it.
But now?
Well, needs must when the Devil drives . . and not only that, I can counteract the low contrast from a flarey lens by using a stronger/more contrasty film and developer combo . . . the things you learn eh?
The TMX 100/Rodinal combo from the above photos was good (and very smooth - I'd also had good results with the now sadly defunct Neopan 400) but nothing prepared me for the next bunch - TRX 400 and Rodinal.
Grain as crisp as a freshly starched and ironed pair of underpants.
Greys like God's hair.
As I get older I find myself drifting away from the zero grain option in pictures, simply because (and with T-grain films especially) it is getting so fcecking hard to focus a negative onto the baseboard!
My eyes aren't what they were . . even with my Peak focuser . . so grain it is . .
I don't mind, just bring it on!
And flare?
Blasted into oblivion! The negatives are so dense that anything flarey just wimps out and runs off to the corner to hide.
Happy days indeed.
Don't you find it surprising that a lens that looks like it is worthy of being nothing more than a paperweight, can actually produce any images at all, let alone the ones I am going to show you next time.
It brings to mind tales of aerial recon. lenses from WW II, where, hit by pieces of flying shrapnel, the offending chips, gouges and missing chunks of glass were simply painted over with a matt black paint, and photography resumed, with little effect on the images.
I have a 150mm Symmar-S which has a decent sized missing crescent of glass on an inner element - I used a Mattel Matt Black model paint on it (it dries matt-ish, not totally flat, but not bad) and it is absolutely fine - a Sharpie would do the trick too.
Anyway, back to the Minolta . . . it was a Saturday afternoon and having been self-scuppered by not getting out early morning with the Wista, I had to take some photos, so thought I'd have a wander down the Hawkhill.
I loaded her (Minnie . . doesn't everyone give their cameras names???) up with TRX 400, and this time took my meter, which I set to EI 320 (which seems to be a nominally accepted EI for Tri-X 400 - though possibly not quite enough for this combo - should be more like EI 200) got my stomping shoes on and went out, mind alert and eyes open.
And now a  brief aside into the fun world of dimensions . . .

Woooooooah, man, did he just say dimensions?

Yep, I certainly did Space Cadet, so hand me my Cormthruster and make sure the Space FogBluggy has its stabilisers fitted . .it could be a bumpy ride!

I have been thinking lately about photographic satisfaction.
You know what I mean:

There's a lovely scene.
I'll take a photo.
Oh.

It often doesn't end up how you wanted it at all.
So I thought, well that's because you are trying to stuff a lovely 3-Dimensional scene, into a 2-Dimensional object (the print).

Below is an official communication I received from the NAOTLRP (National Association Of Twin Lens Reflex Photographers). I was a bit surprised when I opened the envelope, not least because there was a thrupenny stamp on it. Anyway, after I recovered, I thought it best to pass it on in the interests of all things photographic.
It reads a bit weird, so you are best to speak it aloud (preferably to someone else) in your finest 1947 BBC English accent. It makes perfect sense then.


I say chap.
We've got some bad news.
Corners have to be cut, departments shaved, budgets adjusted, bits snipped off, weight lost . . etc etc . .
So why not make today a happy-chappy sort of day, grab a nice handful of Capstans, adjust your tie properly and head off out and photograph something proper.
You know, something for all intents and purposes Two Dimensional, like an interesting wall.
See what you can do.
That's a good fellow.
Toodle-oo

Runciter Barking (President)


Quite a strange thing to receive don't you think - I do wonder why I was singled out, but there y'go.
Anyway, this rule of flat-earthness is of course a well-known get-out-of-jail technique that has been used by pretty much everyone from the dawn of photography - name the photographer and I will almost guarantee that somewhere in their pantheon, there's a picture of a poster or graffiti or something very flat . . It is seemingly simple, and I always thought something of a cop-out, however I have now come to rethink that actually it is a valid bit of your self-expression (but maybe that's only 'cos I've just taken some photos of something similar).
Anyway, the other thing to remember about photographing flat surfaces is that really for the photo to work you pretty much have to get your film plane parallel with the flat surface (hence all the talk about converging verticals and all that stuff).
This is a strangely obvious thing which it has taken me a loooooong time to understand properly and it probably explains why the majority of my LF photographs are so terrible.
Your film plane equates to a picture frame if you think about it.
It is what your film (and ultimately, barring any darkroom trickery, your print) is positioned against (in a manner of speaking) no matter what you are photographing.
I think if one thinks about the film planes' position when making a photograph, it can help you get an idea of the final image. I certainly did that with the following photographs and it made me more careful and choosy. Obviously I have subconsciously been doing the same thing for a long time in that I like my verticals vertical etc etc, but I'd never thought in terms of film plane positioning before (at least not consciously and conscientiously whilst photographing). And I had certainly never made photographs with a thought in terms of the 2-Dimensional world that is The Print, and how this cross-dimensional challenge might work.
On the other hand, am I reading too much into it?
Isn't a photo, just a photo, just a photo?
I'll leave that for others to discuss - meanwhile Sigismund and his Treens are attacking and I need to defend my borders . .
Zooom, Whoooosh, Blat, Blat.

So where does all this get us?
Well, here's the Contact Sheet.

Contact Sheet

The keen eyed amongst you will notice that the film rebates are not printed to paper black, and that is for the reasons that:
A./ I buggered up the print, and
B./ you have to balance contact prints when your aren't being totally consistent, also web-viewing isn't the best for these things, hence it is lighter than it should be.
All rectifiable in the darkroom though as you will see below.
The images which struck me most were 4 to 9 inclusive . . that central portion.
Yes there are two of my own style of self-portrait in there . . .sometimes when you are wandering around looking down onto a TLR focus screen, you are struck by something, and that was the case with those two, however the others were conscious efforts.
The only problem I found with these, was the Minolta's lack of parallax compensation . . so it was down to my own style of compensation: basically when you are in very close, compose your image, and then lift the camera a few centimetres . . it sort of works actually - it is a bit trial and error, but these things are.
You don't have a parallax problem with Rolleis though - clever and expensive design and all that . . .
But no Rollei, and as I said before Needs must  . . .
Oh, and I used the Rolleinars on frames 4, 5, 6 and 10.
The Tri-X was developed in 1:25 Rodinal at 20° C for 11 minutes. it always amazes me that people don't put their agitation sequences into the equation when they write down what their development times were - agitation can make or break a roll ,and it is quite an organic thing, not the slosh around that most people think it is. My sequence for this was gentle (as always) for the first 30 seconds, then a 10 second sequence every minute and a half, so:
0 (start the 30 second sequence at 0)
then 10 seconds at:
1 minute 30 seconds,
3 minutes,
4 minutes 30 seconds,
6 minutes,
7 minutes 30 seconds,
and then at 9 minutes I gave another 30 second agitation sequence and let the tank stand until 11 minutes.
It could have actually done with slightly more agitation, but I will save that for next time!
And on that (hopefully) tantalising note I am gong to call it a day for the noo.
In the next post, I am going to put on my Mr.Pompous Trousers and round this off by showing you how equipment that could easily be regarded as junk, can actually be employed (with some judicious thought and care) to produce work you can (possibly) be proud of.
Be sure to check out Part Two - loads of people have read this one, but hardly anyone the next one - most perplexing!
There, you can have a break now - bet that feels better already doesn't it!
Take care, God Bless and thanks for reading.

The Transformed Man (And Other Tales)

Well - what can I say folks except, I am sorry to have neglected you, and hello again. It has been rather a long time hasn't it, but I'll put it down to a necessary need to pull back from writing this every week - it was too much and I felt my creative juices being squeezed dry - for me, when something creative stops being enjoyable then I have to immerse myself less. 

But anyway, that's enough of lousy excuses - I am not going to be publishing this on such a regular basis, simply from the fact that there is only so much one can write about and continue to stay interesting!
So, onwards.
I met someone on the bus a couple of weeks back - I hadn't seen him in a long time (nearly 8 years) - time had changed him - he looked old, and yet when I tickled his memory it was surprising what he was capable of recalling. His name is Malcolm Thompson and he was (and is to an extent) someone who has made their entire career from photography, which is no mean feat. In recent years he has been a printer and processor, as well as doing course work on a monochrome photography course at Dundee's famous DCA.

I like Malcolm - he can appear curmudgeonly at times and yet, underneath that surface is a passionate and experienced photographer capable of not just superb images, but some of the best printing I have ever seen. I asked him how he was doing and he said he'd retired, though he still held an informal portfolio session at the DCA (has asked me to go along . . not sure whether I will or not . . I am not a great fan of these things) and also still had his wee darkroom going at Meadow Mill, and then he said, 'Well, I can't do anything else.' And it struck me then, that his commitment to the photographic image was so total that any other way of earning a living had never occurred to him . . 

Oh Lucky Man! I thought, for that has never been the case with me, but that being said I am still rather proud of my 'amateur' status, because, strangely the only thing amateur about it is that I don't have to earn a crust from my efforts. I can just about do anything I like and the only people apt to comment are myself and my wife, and, should there be any of you left after such a break dear readers, yourselves.

Anyway, back to the grist.

Before I took my break, I had a roll of Delta 400 in the M2. 

I'd broken it out for a trip to St.Andrews extended that to a Sunday wander and then decided I would finish it off on my walk back home from Ninewells Hospital where I had had to have a cytoscope examination (surely the most strange feeling that one can ever inflict on one's urethra and bladder . . short of trying to stuff peanuts up there . . but I digress). 

I had a marvellous time on the walk back, just snap-happy snapping away at anything that took my fancy.

The walk took me through Balgay Cemetery, a place I have walked in ever since I arrived in Dundee some 33 years ago. It never ceases to surprise and that day was no different, with a drear mist popping in and out off the Tay. There was something strangely beautiful and silvery about it, so I went and took some photographs in a place I have walked past millions of times, but never entered . . a waiting room for funeral services.
It sounds quite formal doesn't it, but is in fact just like a wee rural bus station waiting room!
The light and the windows though rendered it magical and rather surreal, so I set the LeicaM2/5cm Elmar at 1/125th of a second and approx f16 and started shooting. 

I even did the unheard of and went and asked a Parky if I could take his portrait . . .anyway.

Now actually from this film something happened which I haven't really found before . . 

I entered the realm of sequences. 

However these were simple, two photograph sequences, rather than elaborate narratives. 

When I developed the film I was rather struck actually by how they seemed to group themselves together on the film, and so have paired a few of them below in what I think are nice little duets (and one triptych) of light and form.
Sequencing is an art, that I have long felt I should pursue (and as you can see below, I definitely haven't got there yet, but it is a start).
A sequence, no matter how loose, separates your precious creations from being 'just' a collection of photographs and takes them into the world of visual narrative. Now if all this sounds a bit artsy-fartsy, worryeth not, I am not going to go all pseud on you (I hate 'art-speak' more than most, having been on the end of it at college) but a sequence isn't artifice, it is a genuine and valid photographic principle, and one which is all the more valid in these days of a billion-images-everywhere-you-turn-anyone-can-take-a-photo-innit.
I mean, face it folks, we (that's you and me I am talking about} have become about as relevant to the modern world as Catweazle.

Spot the difference - both now irrelevant to the modern world (though Catweazle always was . . I suppose that was the point of the program!)





Catweazle discovered the telephone . . or 'Telling-Bone' in a particularly memorable episode, and Mr. W.Eugene Smith created sequences of photographs (and remember a simple sequence can easily become an essay) that are lyrically beautiful and masterworks of craft and an advanced visual perception.
But now everyone carries a camera wiv 'em, innit.
We as photographers are seemingly redundant, because we have nothing to say to anyone except other photographers. Who gives a monkey's nuts about the fine monochrome photograph and print these days? Other photographers. That's about it, or so it seems.
This hit home to me over the holidays when, whilst photographing around the DOJCA building, a back door popped open and out came this young cove and we started chatting. He was awfully nice actually - I believe his name is Phillip Vaughan. Anyway, we talked for a while about cameras and art and it turned out (as far as I could tell) that DOJCA no longer has anything to do with 'traditional' photography. It is all digital and they don't use film, this being said, he did say there was a hunger amongst students to explore film . . but (and this is my own take on it) it is considered as arcane to the practice of art, as a plate camera would be to your average smartphone toting man or woman in the street.
Anyway, rant over, the whole point of what I have just said is that the art of sequence is vanishing, and I for one feel it is a great and solid shame.
Sorry - had to get that out - onwards with the shiite now.

I'll apologise in advance and say I am sorry to say that the images below aren't from prints - I have run out of chemicals and need to stock up and have spent all my recent pocket money on camping gear (more of that later) - so they are scans from my schiite scanner (verticals on the negs are correct, verticals from the scans are not . . grrrrrrrrrrrrr . . some tweaking in Irfan was necessary)

Anyway, comments welcome. Oh and the Delta was developed in good old (very) 1:25 Rodinal. Quite a remarkable lack of grain for such a supposed 'fierce' developer (the scans look rough because the scanner is simply incapable of dealing with anything remotely contrasty, without making everything look lumpy and flat).

The thing about the duets is that they weren't conscious at all, my eye just seemed to pick out similar things at relatively concurrent pieces of time and ordered me to make the photograph. 

This is actually where the method I expounded in 'The Ralph Gibson Experiment' came into play. I won't repeat it again, but knowing that you can pretty much count on the film's latitude to deal with everything except the grossest errors of exposure, you can set up at (in Scotland and on 400 EI film and with decent daylight) 1/125th of a second and f16 and just concentrate on composition and things come out pretty much OK. It is a weird thing actually, because by the rules, it shouldn't work, and yet it does.

I think Mr.Gibson should actually be lauded for his discovery, because not only does it work, but it works well.

Anyway, see what you think.

Here's the contact first of all - heart on my sleeve and all that . . warts n'all.

Contact Sheet

And here's the duets - I rather like them, even though they are a diverse bunch.

Delta Frames 2 & 4

And on

Delta Frames 12 & 13

And on

Delta Frames 18 & 19

And then a little tryptich

Delta Frames 20, 27 & 21

I am sure that every single man-jack of you has at least two or three photographs that could go together to make something more than just a single photograph. The above aren't great, but I enjoyed making them, and the fact they are on the same film was a surprise to me - they could be better arranged, but if I start farting around I'll never get this FB posted. So how about doing yourself a favour on a rainy afternoon when there's nothing better to do. Lay out a selection of your bestest prints on as much floorspace as you can allow,and grab a coffee or tea and have a mull over them and see if you can't come up with some duets or trypti or something longer and more narrative. It will set you apart from the also-rans, and might just get your brain thinking about the images you make in a less random, clearer fashion. Not nagging . . but give it a go.
Then see if you can't pursuade a loved-one to comment.
It isn't a skill learned overnight (or in my case at all) but it is something worth doing. Let me know how you get on.

And at the end of it all, wondering how I was going to use up my final few frames I had another go at a 'Leica snaphot' except this time the camera was in it's open ever-ready case around my neck, and all I did was set focus and surreptitiously release the shutter. I am not very good at this though, because shake came in again and yet it led to the photograph I like the most from this session and the one I named this Blog after - The Transformed Man. And no, this isn't a nod to William Shatner's album, this is a title from a 1950's Sci-Fi book, but unfortunately I can't remember the author's name (Alfred Bester?). 

Anyway, the pic suits the title.

The Transformed Man

And that's it folks - FB over and out - hopefully it won't be as long next time.

Take care, God Bless and thanks for reading again

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.

The LF Madness

I really didn't need it . . honest I didn't, but you know when your mind starts thinking about something . . .

Well, I was already well-stocked with LF film (100 sheets TMX 100, 50 sheets TXP 320 and some odds and sods [18 sheets of TMX 400, 9 sheets of Delta 100 and about 5 sheets of Adox]) however when I saw a member of FADU offering to sell some of his film, I jumped.
Crazy? yes definitely, but for the princely sum of £105 including postage what else could I do?

I bought 50 more sheets of TXP, 50 sheets of Adox 100 and 25 sheets each of HP5 and FP4. After a word with my wife explaining that it doesn't get any cheaper and we really do have room in the fridge, I am, officially, STUFFED TO THE GUNNELS. 

300-odd sheets. 

I think probably enough film to outlast me, given that I often only expose 4 at a time usually, or maybe 8  or 12 on a good hillwalk.

And what was the reasoning behind this madness . . well, given that last year a box of 50 sheets of Kodak film increased by roughly £25 a box (to £75!), and given that when I started making 5x4 photographs, a box of 25 sheets of Ilford film was around £16 and is now approaching the heady heights of £37, the answer is simple . . economics. 

I really do question the motives of film manufacturers in this day and age. On one hand you want to keep your business going, HAVE to keep your business going, and on the other hand you risk alienating your prime users, the few enthusiasts who are left, who won't go the digital route and find themselves through no fault of their own having to question why (for instance) a roll of 36 exposure Ilford HP5+ now costs around £5!

Yes, I can appreciate that it is expensive to make, and yes the wholesale price of silver rose dramatically last year, due to China and India's demand for it, however this year it is quite different. You only have to look at the share prices of commodity miners to realise that the demand has gone belly-up almost overnight. Just look at the recent drop in gold prices. The world's economic markets are up and down more often than a bride's nightie. This still doesn't make silver cheap, but I would love to see the profit margins on film. Maybe they're not as great as I would expect . . .  

However I do know one thing, film, once the cheapest part of our hobby, is now, pound for pound the most expensive (apart from Leica accessories - my FISON hood, incredibly costing more gram for gram than Gold). And to the big 3 I will say this: all that is happening is that people like myself (your enthusiastic amateur customers) are seeking out cheaper alternatives, which is stupid really, because where the big three have the beans is in the area of quality control. I can safely say that I have had no problems ever from Ilford or Kodak or Fuji, but I have from Foma (not the roll film though, just the sheet film).

Anyway, I suppose this all explains why I went mad and stocked up . . .

So where does this lead me . . well, the crazy impulsiveness of my purchase has made me think that I had better learn to use the 'man's camera' (5x4) more, and use it properly.

I do actually love the whole involved and laborious process of making a Large Format photograph - it is therapeutic and you really feel at the end of a session that you have done something.

Thinking back to when I started I cannot be entirely sure why I did in the first place . . 

I think I was maybe driven by the thought that I could achieve better, sharper, images than the combination of things I was using at the time (Rolleiflex T and Pentax 6x7), but actually, let this be a sage warning to you, unless you are printing to a massive size on a regular basis, then you are going to notice very little difference, and in fact if you are only printing 8x10" then there is almost little point. 

I say almost, but there is one area in which a 5x4" negative excels and that is in rendition of tones of grey. 

I seem to get a broader breadth of grey tones with a larger negative, and you can argue with me on this, but I am just basing it on my experience.
Up to and including 6x6, my greys often seem a little compressed - maybe this is because I am using a 'lowly' Rolleiflex T; maybe it is down to single-coating.
I even found this sort of tonal compression to be the case with the legendary long tonal scale film/developer combo of Ilford's HP5+ and 1:3 Perceptol. In 6x6, it was good (not great), but in 6x7 negatives (one whole cm bigger!) the greys breathed big time. A whole night/day difference.
My problems seemed to vary depending on developer/film combination, but on the whole, it seemed to be pretty much the case (to my eyes). Moving beyond 6x6, to 6x7cm, 6x9cm or 5x4" then it was like a corset being loosed and there was this enormous intake of breath and the image could breath!
My grey tones seemed to expand massively, and I am not sure entirely why. Effectively, the film and developer were the same, so what was the difference? I don't actually know. Chemical conversion per square inch? Rendition of fine detail? Micro-contrast? Film/Dev combo? Lens/Film combo?
Maybe that is part of the mystery, but it looks to be the case to me.
Obviously being able to tweak each and every exposure and develop each sheet individually helps a negative to reach its optimum, rather than just averaging out the whole roll of film, but it also seems to be more than that. 

Anyway, as usual another aside, however if you have any thoughts, please,  leave some comments!

Sorrow
Not a great picture, but were it not for the fact it is obviously sculpted,
you could almost believe that those were eyelashes instead of cobwebs
and there was skin underneath the lichen.
Sinar F, Schneider 150mm f5.6 Symmar-S, Ilford FP4+, Barry Thornton 2-Bath

Sorrow 2
Same subject, different angle, different camera.
Rolleiflex T with Rolleinar ~1
Kodak TMX 100, Barry Thornton 2-bath.

See what I mean about tonal compression?
They're not great examples, and obviously there are enormous variables, but that is just my experience. I think, were I to invest in a Hasselblad or 'proper' Rollei, then I would have to say I might well notice a difference. Certainly looking at some of the great old 'proper' Rollei and Hasselblad photos out there, there seems to be a good breadth of greys and a tonal smoothness which is very acceptable, so maybe I am talking bollocks . . . .
Anyway, we've been sidetracked . . . onwards troops . . this way . . .

So the LF Madness and a hunger for something other, led me to purchase a Sinar F and a Schneider 150mm Symmar-S (the cheapest modern lens I could buy secondhand). I then obviously needed a tripod - and this is where bottom feeding came in . . a Linhof Twin Shank Pro tripod (see photo below) - £35, closely followed by a Gitzo Series 5 low profile head that once belonged to the British Museum - £25. Together I can guarantee you that that combo can hold the heaviest camera you can throw at it. I was once able to make an exposure with the column fully raised (nearly 8 feet high) in the wind with the Sinar atop, fully extended with the 6" extension rail and angled. Not exactly the lightest or least unweildly combination, but it did the job beautifully.
The tripod must be about 30 years old, same with the head, and they both operate beautifully.
You can still buy parts for Linhof tripods too if anyone has one that they need to sort - quality engineering from a golden age.

You call that a tripod?
Linhof Twin Shank Pro Tripod in action.
The ladder is optional.
Oh, and that is me in our (oh so difficult to wallpaper) hall btw.

However, having nearly killed myself by doing a 7 mile hillwalk carrying the above (you can imagine can't you . . I didn't take the ladder though .  .that would have been a bit mental and besides I have never seen a hillwalker carrying a ladder!) I realised that something less weighty was required. Beavering away and saving my pennies, I came up with a (relatively) lightweight kit: Wista DX, Gitzo Series 2 with Series 2 head, Kodak Ektar 203mm, Schneider 90mm Angulon. Cost, respectively: £300. £120, £45, £90. Less than the price of a Leitz 50mm Summicron . . .

And that is where I am today. Good to go and itching to get out now the Winter is moving on.

There are other factors where LF tops everything else, namely in being able to control pretty much everything that you see within the image. Converging verticals, depth of field, weird out of focus areas, pin-point sharpness, you name it, you can do it, it just takes time, and rather a lot of it. You can even make something more Pictorial rather than just a straight renditioning of 'fact'.

The Garden
You could probably have made this with a 35mm camera,
but I quite like the olde-worldy look the Angulon has given it.
Adox CHS 100, Schneider 90mm Angulon

Sometimes under the dark cloth (nuthin' fancy . . two T-Shirts inside each other!) I think to myself, why the hell am I bothering when I could have done it with a Rollei, or even a 35mm camera? 

And then the madness overtakes me again and I feel the weight of Adams and Weston, Bullock and Evans and White and Strand upon my back, and I make my exposure and take down the camera, head off, spy something that takes my interest and go through the whole process of setting up the camera again, inserting the film holder, removing the dark slide, timing my exposure, packing up everything again and moving on. 

And I feel that all is right with the world actually. 

It is a significantly different feeling to normal photography (whatever that is) but it is a feeling I enjoy. 

I remember once being in a beautiful place with the Sinar. It was mid-March so the permafrost was still in the ground. Everywhere I looked there were icicles. I set up the camera, moved down the hillside to retrieve my hat which had blown away, and making my way back, looked up as sunshine dowsed my camera and tripod and the T-shirts flapped away in the wind, and I thought to myself, that this could be a scene from the making of any of the great photographs that I love looking at, and I think from that point I was hooked.

Permafrost
The scan hasn't done the print any favours.
Ilford Delta 100 (EI 64), Kodak Xtol (200ml stock+200ml Water).
Sinar F, Schneider 150mm f5.6 Symmar-S

So, there y'go. I will maybe be detailing my trips on a semi-regular basis, just because I can.

Over and oot playmates - be good, and if you can't be good be careful . . .

Keep your fingers crossed for me for this weekend - it's supposed to be Sun, Shite and Showers . . .

As usual, thanks for reading and God Bless.

Big Bunny

Morning friends. Well, firstly can I say that no one is more surprised than me that I have sat down and written this. I thought I was gone. I had no motivation for writing anymore FBs. I think I shall put that down to my weekly regime, it was too much. Trying to come up with something that is interesting to yourself (never mind a possible larger readership), every single week for a year is quite an achievement, not least to say, punishing.

It burned me out and made me feel that it was all rather pointless.

I suppose, it is pointless really.

I know none of my readers properly, though I will say a hello to you if you have made it a habit to read and comment, but at the end of the day, I am here at my wee desk in the early hours of a Scottish morning, and you are out there in the big wide world, and the distances between us are gulfs.

I thank you for your efforts in reading FB, you didn't need to really, but it is appreciated.

What my regime did do for me though, is hone my writing skills. I feel a far more confident and flowing writer than I did at the start, and to that end I have revisited several writing exploits I started a long time ago and have decided I should do something with them. It seems pointless to leave them languishing in drawers and folders . . all I need to do now is find the time and the concentration to complete them . . but I'll get there (though I have said that before).

Anyway, that is another thing. FB was pretty much always about FogBlography and it still pretty much  will be, so let me have a brief detailing about everything that has occurred since I hung up my keyboard just before Easter . . .

In a word nothing.

I haven't made a single photograph.

Now fortunately for me, I recognised something within in myself which has happened three times before in my life . . extreme passion burn-out. Sounds serious doesn't it, and you know what . . it is. VERY.

A brief aside into past-times again:

Burn-out 1:

From the year dot, I was an amateur artist. I drew all the time. It was a hobby which consumed me like a flame, and in a typical Sheephouseian fashion, whilst I wasn't brilliant, I was a solid plodder. You just have to look at pictures of me when I was young to realise that me and speed were not bedmates. So what did I do with my wonderful hobby? Yes, I went to art college. And as detailed many times before, it managed to snuff my love of drawing out as if it were no more than a small candle in a gale. The people I met were so talented and arty (quite a number of current high-falootin' major Scottish artists too) that my solid plod of line and form were as nothing against these folk. Also the whole feel of being in a mincer never did quite leave me, and pop! . . .one day it was gone. I haven't really picked up a pencil in anger since graduating in the mid-80's. I burned out, locked the door and have never returned.

Burn-out 2:

Music. Did I tell you I can play a guitar like ringing a bell? Yep, from the age of 13 when my Mum and Dad finally relented and bought me one, I was obsessed. Not a minor obsession either, but a full-blown, honest, down-to-earth whopping one. I spent vast amounts of hard-earned cash. I spent whole months of my life practicing, and I became pretty good.

It is easy to learn the guitar these days, but in those days it really wasn't.

Good players were few and far between and if you ever did meet up with another one it was more akin to Gunfight At The Rock N' Roll Coral. I kid ye not.

Anyway, for all the years of effort, you know what, the inevitable happened. Burn-out. And I have never gone back.

I stopped playing seriously when I met my wife and realised that there was more to life than sitting alone with a lifeless lump of wood and metal and trying to coax it into something akin to the flames I was feeling inside.

I haven't really picked up a guitar in anger since the early 1990's.

I will occasionally, but it is just for a quick strum and flail over the strings, check out me Al Di Meola chops, and back it goes into its case again.

Burn-out 3:

Fogblog.

Yep.

Too much, and I could feel it coming, so that is something else I have learned: if your pleasure starts to feel like a chore or a duty, stand back.

Drawing felt (at the end) like something in the world I hated.

Guitar playing felt (at the end) like a desperate attempt by me and my bandmates to persuade people how great we were . . in a word it became a chore.

And FB too. Yep a total chore, every week, like cleaning a toilet. Hence I have held back.

So where does this lead us now?

Well actually, I do rather enjoy FB, and I have missed it. Stopping felt like turning off a creative tap, so here we are again, and for the moment folks, whilst it won't be a weekly thing, I think I will approach it as more of an occasional, like that jar of Gentleman's Relish that you dip into every now and then.

I hope that is alright with you chaps.

Don't go throwing yourselves off of tall buildings or anything . . .

Right, in my break I have become a tad gear hungry again, however, that has manifested itself in one way . . . Try and make the most of what you have. I am feeling like I need to slim down my camera collection - you can only compose one frame at a time, and spreading yourself over so many formats can only mean that you dilute yourself in some way. However this doesn't mean that I am giving up on the Leica and the Nikons, the Rollei, or the Koni, but I have felt rather bad about neglecting my Large Format cameras (yes, ridiculously two . . a Sinar F and a Wista DX) so I feel I should get out and about with them again.

I also have rather a lot of film I stocked up on before Kodak made it nearly impossible to afford film (£75 for a box of 50 sheets of Tri-X these days) so I have to use that up.

I have also made a small purchase (well, actually it is pretty large). I have always struggled to carry my LF gear, shoe-horning it into the only rucksack I own (a 25 litre Deuter) and to be honest it was pain to use, and left little room for anything else important like lunch (I slimmed my hillwalking lunches down to dry oatcakes and dried fruit!), so I put my money where my pain was and bought for the grand sum of £39 from Ffordes, one of these.

Wista DX, Light Meter, 8 Film Holders, 3 Lenses, Loupe

Ready To Rumble
That's a Gitzo Series 2 Reporter tripod

It is a rather old Tamrak Summit 777 rucksack, and it fits the bill handsomely. I can now just unzip one compartment and everything is to hand . . what a relief!

Very well made (in the USA), great zips and a solid feel, and even though it is roughly 12 years old, and has been used, it is in fantastic condition still. Tamrak rather gets overlooked with regard to its bags, but I can tell you that they are second to none. Great build quality and comfortable.

So that is me, all packed up and waiting for a clear weekend, and I hope to detail some trips in detail soon as it were - we shall see. Stay tuned and all that.

Whilst I am here and on the subject, I thought I would show you what a lens which is universally disparaged, can do. 

People go nuts about lpm and all these crazy sharpness tests, and to be honest it is great to be reading about things like that, however at the end of the day it is all about the picture. If your composition is off, and the subject is dull then what is the point?

So to that end, here's a bottom-feeder of a LF lens.

The tiny 90mm Schneider Angulon f6.8, is either loved or hated. I actually love mine, it is tiny and sharp enough if you stop it down to f22 and beyond. If you are looking for a Large Format lens to start out with and you like wide angles, then they are about the cheapest thing out there, regularly selling for around £100.

As you can see it is small - that is a UK 50 pence piece, and it is on a standard Linhof/Wista lens board.

Mine is a later model and it is single coated.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Late 1964 Schneider 90mm Angulon f6.8

And to prove the point, this is what it can do. 

The scan isn't great, but the print is as sharp as you could wish for. Certainly you have no room for movements, but when doing landscapes like this you don't really need them.

The Suicide's Bridge
Ilford FP4+, EI 50
11 Minutes, HC110 Dilution H, 20 Degrees Centigrade.
Ilford Galerie, Grade 2.

As you can see the lens has given the photograph a lovely 'airy' quality in the way it renders the distant foliage. I am not keen on 'smoky' water, however in this case it is quite muted and not in yer face. It has also managed to convey some of the mournful atmosphere of the setting. Whilst I am unaware if anyone has actually committed suicide from this bridge, it sort of had that melancholy feel to it, hence my title for the photograph.

So folks, again thank you for reading, and whilst I might not see you next weekend, I will see you along the trail sometime soon. 

If you want to shout words of encouragement like 'Get Off Yer Arse You Lazy B.' in your best Brian Blessed bellow, then please feel free. 

Leave a comment at the bottom.

It is nice to know I am not just propelling this out into the dark . . 

Take care and God bless.