Normal Service Will Be Resumed As Soon As Possible

Hi folks - if you normally subscribe to FB by email, you will not doubt have been very surprised by a post this morning that seems half ready - please ignore it - it is an incomplete one posted by an errant set of fingers and a tea-deprived brain. 

It is nearly ready though, but needs tweaking. 

(Ab)normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Dr. No? Blofeld? Nope It's Goldfinger!

Morning folks - y'know, in a galaxy far, far away and a long time ago, people actually used to prInt and mail out paper catalogues! 

It was dead exciting getting one through the post because you could muse for hours over your choice of whatever you liked from a planet full of stuff, narrowing your choices down day by day, till the ultimate list was made!

No more searching your High Street and feeling despondent and glum because your local shops never stocked anything you wanted at all. No, for a small amount of postage, there were wonderful people who would send you everything your heart desired.

And so it was with photography.

There are still a number of excellent mailorder suppliers of photographic stuff in the world - you should be using them rather than Ebay, or Amazon, simply because they care, they are knowledgable, and it is their business. Yes, you'll maybe pay more, but you are paying for a service and deep stock

Goldfinger pre-dated Silverprint (in London) - this is one of their mailorder things - it used to be available as a download on Silverprint's site, but it vanished a few years ago - I guess they thought 'Who wants to read this old stuff!'

So, in the interests of knowledge and some bloody fantastic reading, here it is again as a fully downloadable PDF.

My apologies to Martin Reed and Silverprint, but I just feel that stuff like this should be 'out there' as it were and not consigned to the digital skip of history! Though if you are from Silverprint, or indeed are Martin and you don't want this to remain posted please contact me.

This post buys some time for me - a small stop-gap whilst I try and get some more printing and writing done . . . but that's another (series) of stories . . .

The Godlfinger Craftbook is a well written photographic processing discourse. Sadly the price list has gone . . . as has a lot of the stuff mentioned.

I hope you enjoy it, oh and if you do, remember, FogBlog is pretty much dedicated to Ye Anciente Arte Of Printing And Processing, so have a look around - there's some interesting stuff on this blog if I do say so myself.

UPDATE 20/12/17:

I had a lovely comment from Martin Reed giving the history of Goldfinger - well worth a gander!


No problem at all posting the old Craftbook, I'm sorry the original I posted on the Silverprint site had such a grubby cover, however I still haven't got a better one.

But someone who does deserve credit was Peter Goldfield, the pharmacist who started the Goldfinger enterprise which led to the conception of that book. Strongly influenced by US photographers of the 1970's, including Paul Caponigro & Ralph Gibson, & aided & abetted by Paul Hill over here, Peter's aim for the setup was to get the UK 'up to speed' in the attitude to photography as a serious art form.

It might have suffered a bit from a 'Don Quixote' mentality, rather than laying down a firm financial base for long term survival, but at least the heart was in the right place. We were so strapped for cash that I printed all of those booklets in-house on a power ink duplicator, and they were then hand trimmed & hand collated before comb-binding them. Sounds a bit strange now, but the 70's was still a vaguely post-hippy time & it was possible to combine dedication to a business with also having some fun along the way.

Unfortunately Goldfinger was a company held together by one company's products, Agfa-Gevaert, & we built the company on importing these into the UK starting in 1977, when Agfa Germany had abandoned monochrome over here. We must have done a good job, as a few years later Agfa UK came back in & pushed us aside.

Subsequently it was to be Silverprint, & we kept the base a lot broader, so we were never again reliant purely on one agency.
I moved on a few years ago, the current SP management operate pretty much along the same lines - some of the history went by the wayside, though. 

This is the link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6G6yz9RRO3ITUk4U0JrRXNvZlE/view?usp=sharing

It works. It'll open in Google Docs and is fully downloadable.
Every home should have one.

Photography's Not Dead (It Just Smells A Bit Funny)

Morning folks - well, more time away from the keyboard just doing stuff has meant there's been little time for posting, however, some stuff will be posted the noo. 

So hold onto your hard-hats and be intrigued by the title of this.

You see, I really believed in my heart that photography was pretty much dead - I did and I bet you did too!

For all intents and purposes, our style of photography, pretty much is. 

Where are the massed ranks of analogue photographers rushing home to their darkrooms with oodles of film? 

I figure they are out there (the confidence shown by film manufacturers recently certainly says that something is going on) it's just that, be honest, apart from yourself and your mad friends, how many others have you actually seen?

Yer Sheephouse was recently extremely lucky to be invited on holiday by his parents-in-law (along with Mrs Sheephouse of course) to Dubrovnik, in Croatia.

If you've never been, go.

If you have been, you'll maybe know what I am talking about.

It's a stunningly beautiful place, full of some of the most happy and welcoming 'natives' we've ever encountered, but man is it rammed with tourists.

It's as busy as busy can be, and you know what? to a man (and woman) they're all taking photographs.

Billions and billions of them.

Everywhere.

All the time.

If I thought that Amsterdam was indeed the city of a plague of bicycles (which it is - they come at you from all directions) then Dubrovnik, is the city of the selfie-stick toting tourist.

Well, you'll be saying, that's just the modern age innit.

Yes it most certainly is, but amongst all the phone photography (and seriously, the selfie is an extraordinary phenomenon in its own right) I have never seen as many massive-lensed SLRs being carried, anywhere.

They were predominantly Canon, and toted by everyone from bearded/concerned young men, to grannies.

To my eyes, the digital compact is all but dead, having been supplanted by the phone, but for 'serious' stuff . . . well, SLR it is.

There was also a smattering of Sony NEX-style cameras, but these were outnumbered vastly.

So, photography isn't dead.

Indeed, were I to be stuck in a chair and tickled by Ken Dodd (overseas readers, look him up) then I would say, missus, that our lovely hobby is alive and kicking, in spades 

But (and here's the question) how many of these masterpieces ever make it out of their little envelopes of plastic, metal and silicone?.

So, it's alive, but worrabout Film?

Did someone say film?

Well, I've mentioned this before, but there is a curious phenomenon in the world, whereby the only people carrying film cameras in daylight hours are . . . young Asian women.

I believe they're mostly Japanese too (God bless 'em) and my spotting haul was good this time - 5 film cameras!

From memory they were: an Olympus OM1, another later OM (not sure what), a Minolta, a Praktika (!) and a gorgeous Pentax Spotmatic . . .

So what was I doing to hold our side up, film fans?  

What was Mr Sheephouse, proponent of film, film and more film doing?

Cough. 

Err. 

Cough.

No Film camera, cough.

What was that?

Cough.

Err, sorry, no film camera . . . 

OK, I chickened out again about carrying film through security scanners and ended up with the Sony A6000 and 35mm f2 Nikkor-O.

Now the Nikkor is a fine lens and I've taken a lot of photos with it that I actually like, but I dunno, on the Sony, that character it normally oozes is lost in a world of digital flatness. The Sony relates any detail captured in life-like colours and great quality, but the photos below look, to me, as dead as dodos.

Let me know what you think.

I can't begin to tell you how many times I hungered for a film camera!

Honest, I even dreamed about a Leicaflex SL. 

It was total pain (and shame) I was feeling, and I am now more determined than ever to travel with film. I've been thinking that something really really small and discreet like an OLD screw-mount Leica with the Canon 28mm f3.5 lens I have and using Sunny 16, would yield me the sort of photos I'd like to print.

Of course, I have the M2 too, but that is rather a target I believe, sadly. 

The other thing that came to a head with the Sony was it's reaction time.

Excuse me, as I am going to swear:

It was fucking fucking fucking fucking slow.

Nearly 3 seconds to wake up and react to my presence and that stupid fucking electronic viewfinder . . ah jeez. Well, you can tell, I was frustrated as fuck. In fact I would rank the electronic VF (apart from the nice red focus confirmation bits) on the Sony as being WORSE than the faff that is focusing and composing on a screw-mount Leica.

So, is the Sony going to get the boot?

I dunno - potentially.

I think I should replace our 7 year old Panasonic which is getting a bit long in the tooth (and whose screen has started to go) but still takes a decent pic, with something that'll do the job with an optical VF, but that is compact, and for the rest, well, hyperfocal with the Canon on a screw mount Leica - how does that sound?

Or accept the cudgel, get a Sony short focal length zoom for the Sony, use that as the 'general' camera and forget about using Nikkors on it.

Oh and I think solid B&W from now on - none of this colour stuff for me (even though I like it) - so that I can come home with 36 or 64 real negatives that I can easily deal with, and not nearly 500 digital ones, that are so-so and consume hours of time to sort.

So why is photography a bit smelly then Sheepy?

Well, the thing this has all highlighted for me, is that in the total move to digital, we, as photographers, have lost SO much. 

Yes, you get an optical VF with an SLR, but you also get a camera that is huge and has just way too many options that make me personally just say:

"Oh fuck OFF!"

I want something that reacts in the way an M2 or a Nikon F reacts. Quickly and intuitively. That lets the photographer be a photographer and not just a button pushing curator of menus. Yes, I know, there are the likes of the digi-Leicas and Fujis, but they're really expensive. there has to be a cheaper common ground.

I doubt this very much, but

If there is a camera manufacturer out there, who would like me to design a camera that old-time photographers WOULD ACTUALLY LIKE TO USE, then please, send me a message!

I reckon I could design one for you.

There's a huge gap in the market for something as simple and wonderful to use as the old Olympus Trip.

Anyway, without further ado, Dubrovnik . . oh and the wonderful Kotor (in Montenegro). 

I make no pretensions about these photos - I just enjoyed taking them, but the results are so-so to my eyes, they're not 'art' they are '(ph)art' and they're sifted from, as I said, around 500 in total - what a fecking nightmare!

And that's it folks - normal service will be resumed shortly - got a massive backlog of negatives to be printed - I just need some time.
Be good, keep taking the pills and remember that a bird in the hand will more than likely crap in it too.

Fun With Rocks (And Mist)

Well, I think fun is stretching the michael a bit, but combined the two are kind of interesting to me.

Let me explain myself - I've got screeds of lengthy stuff coming up, but haven't even started writing it yet, so consequently, recently whilst looking through some prints for Bruce and Omar (yes, I haven't forgotten!) I rediscovered some prints I'd made years ago from a couple of really rather lengthy hillwalks.

If you've ever done a hillwalk you'll know two things - mist is often inevitable, and there are lots and lots of rocks. OK, stay on the beam, I'll get there . . .   

When a good mist comes in, there's really nothing quite like it, because it is disorientating and fast, often thick, cold, wet and blanketing. All external sounds are draped and you become acutely aware of your heart and the noise of the bood in your ears and your breathing. It makes you stop in your tracks sometimes - it's that surprising. The world looses all colour and becomes completely grey - even the brown upland grasses and heathers loose their colour and if you are really unlucky and haven't taken rough bearings things can start to deteriorate pretty quickly. I call it brown-trouser walking, because believe me, losing your bearings for even a few minutes is incredibly worrying. But that's why people carry a compass. Or do they? It's incredible the number of people you meet on the tops who are dressed in jeans and trainers, no obvious map or compass, a lot of times no rucksacks . . .really amazing! 

As I can attest from the photograph below, your surefootedness can quickly turn to "Oh shiiiiit!".

A Cautionary Tale

You see, for some reason, I'd spotted this rather dull rock, which had a nice patch of permafrost running away from it, so I left the path I was on and walked the 50-or-so yards over to this to see if I could  make it look interesting. Those were the days when all I carried were the Rollei T and my Slik Baby-Bambi tripod.

Now I was stupid moving off the path without first looking round, because I would have seen that things were closing in rapidly, but oh no, a stroll over to the rock and whammo - Mist-out! Right I thought, no problem, I marked a heel gouge in the grass and told myself I'd come up to that. No problems, just go back exactly the way you came and you'll be fine, but take the photo first. Duly taken and things packed away, I searched in vain for my heel gounge and could I find it, could I fecundity! So I went to the rock and thought, well if I move like a spiral around the rock, I am bound to find my mark. So that's what I did - clever thinking thought I - and the further out I got, the dimmer the rock got until I realised that the rock was the one sure thing in the whole world of mist I was encompassed by. No gouge was to be found, so I headed back to the rock in panic.

At times like that, clear thinking very much takes a back seat and it really is only through a force of will that you come down to straight thinking. It is bloody difficult though, because every ounce of your being is saying, "This Is It - You're Lost, You Stupid Bastard!" Visions of the old yellow Mountain Rescue helicoptors stooping over my emmaciated corpse weeks hence were very real!

I hunkered down against the rock and tried to calm myself down. Oatcakes were eaten, water was sipped and then I realised a friend was to hand - my map and compass.

I roughly knew where I had been before the mist came down and could see from the map that the path should be approximately due North from my position, so in an act of daring-do which I have never repeated, I let my compass do the talking, got up, and headed into the unknown, with only a slip of magnetised plastic between me and oblivion.
You see that's the weird thing about mist - it utterly removes you from the normal world.
I must have walked for a good 15 minutes on that compass bearing; I sweated buckets; every hump and drop of landscape was some new torture. But I held as true as my bearing and eventually stumbled out between two hillocks onto a path.

It is a Sheephousian Truism that "it might look no far on the map, but it's further than you think on the ground".

I can see where I went wrong now, it was a Sheephousian triangle I was on and I ended up heading on the long edge of that . . . but I got there in the end and I suppose the thing I learn from this is that I really should brush up on my compass skills!

Near Broad Cairn

And as is so typical of the mountains, I stumbled back to safety and the mist lifted and this massive big puddle lay before me, so I celebrated photographically as it were. Bambi held the Rollei safely and I lived to fight another day. The misty horizon encompasses the whole of Broad Cairn (998 metres high, and on OS sheet 44) a massive, stone-strewn lump on the Mounth Plateau (for those of you of a geographiocal bent); the heady drop down to Loch Muick is on my right. I have never actually made it to the top of Broad Cairn simply because every time I tried . . . yep, you guessed it . . mist. I've wandered very closely to it though, just never actually climbed it proper as it were.

Anyway, onwards, so there I was, about a month earlier (yeah, weird eh? - no permafrost or snow in the above ones!) - it had been a wild sort of morning, with mist clearing to a wonderful crispness. The big snows of Winter hadn't yet started, but the permafrost was starting and new showers were coming in and the ground was hard as iron, smattered with new snow and the air was as sharp as a knife. I was climbing a well-known Munro and I was nearly there when I spotted this rock on the horizon. Had I not been footering about and observant I could have easily missed it, but it looked interesting and I took a detour, and discovered what I will call (and have ever since called) "The Watcher".
I think it's quite something and who knows what it (HE? almost certainly a he) has seen in the last 11,500 years since the glaciers tumbled him there!
You get that a lot - improbably gigantic boulders, I mean some of them are larger than a modern detached house, just sitting on a hillside minding their own business, waiting for time and more time to wear them down.
Anyway, back to the photo - this one is made with something I never use . .  Acros 100. The Acros was shot at box speed and developed in 1+50 Rodinal - you see the power of those notebooks - it was the 26th of October 2003 and this was the 3rd frame, shot at 1/60th and f22 . . . no tripod.
I've always liked this, but for some reason have never made a decent print of it.

The Watcher

Coo, all this walking has drummed up a hunger - I'm STARVING - now, where's the dumplings? Anyone got some? And follow that with a heavy dob of mashed potato and maybe even a deep fried pizza and a white pudding supper.
Full yet?
No? Well satisfy your gums with this stodgy, heavy-handed feast.
A true vintage Sheephouse print!
After hours of searching it seems to be the only one I have, sadly.
The thing is, the negative is gloriously tonal, and I know I can get a decent print out of it . .watch this space.
It was made with the Rollei T in 645 (or 16-On as it is known) mode!
Wonderful, because you are using most of the central portion of that lovely Tessar.
It also features the glorious tone of Ilford's FP4 and the Rollei Blau filter!
You know what, the older I get the more I think FP4 is just about the perfect film for tones. It seems to have them in spades, and whether that's because it's an old skool, medium speed film or not I don't know, but I like it.
Developer was 1+50 Rodinal again and this was made in October of 2003 - I seem to have done a lot of walking that year.
It wasn't really a misty day, but you can see that it wasn't exactly crystal clear either

The Cairn On Mayar

And now our last serving of carbohydrates.
It might not look it from the print below, but mist definitely stopped play.
This is where I carried a Sinar F, 2 Lenses, Linhof Twin Shank Tripod, Gitzo Series 5 head, 8 Film Holders, Loupe, Dark Cloth, Glasses, Emergency Gear, 2 Litres Of Water, Lunch and the heaviest 4 season boots I had (nearly 2kg a pair) up to a coll in an attempt to scale a Munro on a misty day.
It took me three hours to climb something that normally takes an hour and a half, but I got to the top of the coll and the bloody mist came in and draped me in doubt.
Memories of previous brown-trouser walks swept over me, so I retreated, rather than thinking it worth going on.
In truth I was utterly knackered and nearly dead by the time I got back to the car, and the one thing I learned from this is that you don't need battleship stability to make a photograph.
And yes, if you are wondering, there's no trickery involved, the path does ascend that 45 degree hillside.
 Details from notebook: 15/11/2009 - film foma 100 ei 80, 1+50 Rodinal

Shank Of Drumfollow

And that's it folks - in truth this is just a patch job - I've been taking loads of photos of stuff over the Spring/Summer along with my usual Summertime DIY projects (oh joy!) but rest assured, normal printing will resume as soon as possible.
And remember, if you pick that scab again it isn't going to heal . . .