I like film...(open thread)

[Ernest]

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Your seven sentences,  Phil: the beginning of a photographic radio piece without pictures, except for the audio portraits of space in a time, textual snapshots, if you will. A kind of radiographic happening. Hear Samuel Beckett's Cascando, consider an account of a Marina Abramovic happening, or Bill Viola's text to one of his video installations, without the video. Tarkovsky's poetry, like diptychs to his Polaroids. Put your photo recollection on replay. Someone in your talented family might throw in a percussive music score. Film sans film. Nothing is ever completely erased, almost. Ask Rauschenberg.

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Edited May 5, 2020 by Ernest

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[gbealnz]

5 hours ago, stray cat said:

Not always brighter in the intelligent sense, however. Today was a wonderful day with the most exquisite light and I took a bunch of photos of light on the water down at the beach. Nearing the end of the roll on the M2 I was thinking ahead to developing the film when I suddenly realised - what film? The camera was empty. How many years is it since I did that? Anyway it wasn’t too late to go home, find a roll of XP2 and return. And I cannot believe I just admitted to that on the I Like Film forum! 😱

You've been shooting how long? And just suffered this? Heck, if only we were all that lucky. No film, not loaded properly, so 40+ "shots", (did this while shooting a wedding once), opening the rear door before rewinding...... The list goes on. But most importantly, the shots were taken, in the mind, and possibly that is more important than actually shooting them on celluloid.

Plus, admitting it is part of the fun, you're now in the club.

[Kl@usW.]

Am 4.5.2020 um 12:05 schrieb stray cat:

 

Thank you so much for responding to my little "riddle", Klaus - and thank you also Steve and Rog

Fun and games, eh? Aaaah, lockdown!

 

Phil, Thank you ! for the fun ! 

Am 4.5.2020 um 21:12 schrieb Suede:

Yeti – a real working mountain dog in Silvermax 100

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off duty right now--enjoying a sniff. look at the eyes...  😁

vor 20 Stunden schrieb Ernest:

Nothing is what it appears to be. 

Isn't that an important part of the photography game anyway ? We are taking photos, pretending to capture things as they are, knowing that nothing is what it appears to be, but we pretend anyway.. Don't get me started on the "unscharf" again.. 

vor 8 Stunden schrieb stray cat:

Rog I composed a long reply to this and then scrapped it because all I really wanted to say was ‘thank you’, sincerely. Putting things into these broader contexts always helps to see the picture bigger and brighter.

Couldn't put it better. Having put things and pictures into broader context is the most important reason for me to come back to this forum. It´s a privilege to look over your shoulders... 

[Kl@usW.]

I was searching for lilies of the valley, when I found this skull. probably of a small red deer... amazing how close  to my and your skull the details are.. just a bit smaller and bigger teeth and a more pronounced olfactorial anatomy.. 

this might be the last example from  the Ferrania P 30, of which I shot 8 rolls. Maybe I´ll have another go if they roll out the 120. For 135 I won't try again.  The results are  quite unpredictable,  when they come out good, they are good, but when the come out bad, they are catastrophic.  In my count the relation is 2/8... This is one of the better outcomes--technically. 

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[Ernest]

40 minutes ago, Kl@usW. said:

Isn't that an important part of the photography game anyway ? We are taking photos, pretending to capture things as they are, knowing that nothing is what it appears to be, but we pretend anyway.. Don't get me started on the "unscharf" again.. 

The presence of absence!

[Steve Ricoh]

Just interested to a reaction to what I’m going to ‘say’. Many like myself (in the past, that is) like photographing ‘things’. The problem with ‘things’ is that there’s little or no emotion. Pictures of people, however, connect in so many ways. So should we doing more ‘people’ type of photography and thinking more emotionally? Or is there a place for ‘things’ if done artistically.

I’ll get my coat and let myself out.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Steve Ricoh

[Wayne]

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[stray cat]

5 hours ago, gbealnz said:

You've been shooting how long? And just suffered this? Heck, if only we were all that lucky. No film, not loaded properly, so 40+ "shots", (did this while shooting a wedding once), opening the rear door before rewinding...... The list goes on. But most importantly, the shots were taken, in the mind, and possibly that is more important than actually shooting them on celluloid.

Plus, admitting it is part of the fun, you're now in the club.

Oh, don't get me wrong, Gary - it's happened more than once over my 50 year or whatever affair with photography 🤢. Including at a wedding I was photographing professionally. Luckily I realized just in the nick of time - it was the last of the bridal group shots and we were walking back towards the reception - and with the help of one of the bridesmaids who snapped into full organizational mode we quickly reshot the ten shots (it was on 6X7 luckily, not 35mm!). As it turned out, the group was somehow more relaxed then and those shots came to be among the ones I used for all my subsequent promotional material. So, not sure what that means, but sometimes all is not lost, even in the face of a crisis!

Looks like that much looked forward to meeting in NZ will have to wait just that little bit longer, unfortunately Gary 🙁.

[stray cat]

1 hour ago, Steve Ricoh said:

Just interested to a reaction to what I’m going to ‘say’. Many like myself (in the past, that is) like photographing ‘things’. The problem with ‘things’ is that there’s little or no emotion. Pictures of people, however, connect in so many ways. So should we doing more ‘people’ type of photography and thinking more emotionally? Or is there a place for ‘things’ if done artistically.

I’ll get my coat and let myself out.

Oh, I don't know Steve. The common phrase that we hear so much is that you may be "overthinking" things. There's a place for everything. Look at the last couple of shots by Klaus and Wayne. Both invite us to bring our own experiences, thoughts, emotions to an extended contemplation of what is shown - who's barn is that? What are they like? What fate befell that red deer, and how many deer roam that meadow now? These are (simplistically) some of the things that occur to me when I look at those pictures and I am engaged with not only the picture, but the thought process of the photographer at the time of taking (I am a firm believer that our photographs are self portraits). Look at Rog's assemblages - there is a history of art and design behind each, and it is all too easy to gainfully wander in the universe of meaning that buttresses each of his posts - especially taking into account Rog's frequently cryptic titles. And look at your own exquisite work, Steve - those mysterious shadows, the "presence of absence" that is your pictorial signature. I and I'm sure many here have spent much time contemplating those often dark, moody images - taken from the everyday, presumably but, like the film noir images they often invoke, projecting a universe of meaning stretching way into the imagination of each viewer.  One the other hand I could show you (I'm sure most of us could) 10,000 images of people that just suggest nothing.

It's not about what's in the photograph, it's about what's in the photographer.

So, leave your coat on the rack - and it's your shout I believe.

Edited May 6, 2020 by stray cat

[Ernest]

2 hours ago, stray cat said:

It's not about what's in the photograph, it's about what's in the photographer.

Invigorating, as usual, and artfully succinct. I want to change the period at the end of this vital sentence, though, to an exclamation mark!

Aside. My take is usually "not what you include, necessarily, but what you exclude."

[stray cat]

4 minutes ago, Ernest said:

Invigorating, as usual, and artfully succinct. I want to change the period at the end of this vital sentence, though, to an exclamation mark!

Aside. My take is usually "not what you include, necessarily, but what you exclude."

Yes, that is key, isn't it? Inclusion/exclusion. My own photographic tagline is "exposed | unexposed", something conveniently printed on 120 backing paper, and in appropriating it by which I seek to mean much the same thing. Imagine if Wayne had have included more around that barn - what context would have been lost? Or maybe gained? Would it have had the same impact or something different? Or that Klaus' deer skull hadn't have occupied precisely the proportion of the frame that it does, offset so masterfully against that emotive and suggestive darkness by his so expertly using the unique properties of the Ferrania film? And your own work, Rog, so considered and artfully constructed, imbued with meaning? Of all possible permutations and combinations, what you set before us is anything but random - the meaning is there ("the truth is out there!") and it is offered for us to deconstruct into something that has coherency for us. And your phrase "nothing is what it appears to be" (or, to put it in Lynchian terms "the owls are not what they seem") rings so true of Steve's own work. Wave a camera around on the end of its strap, taking 500 frames per second and, sure, you'll get a lot of pictures. But align a brain with an eye and an individual, perhaps idiosyncratic sensibility, and you get what we are so privileged to constantly see here - considered, thoughtful work that could only have come from the mind of its creator.

[gbealnz]

9 hours ago, stray cat said:

Looks like that much looked forward to meeting in NZ will have to wait just that little bit longer, unfortunately Gary 🙁.

Plenty of time Phil, and quicker if the trans Tasman bubble gets introduced.

[Rennrocky]

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[Kacper111]

Testing new (old) lens- 196 5summicron 90
My sister, M6, 90/2, colorplus 200 and coolscan 8000

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[Wayne]

10 hours ago, stray cat said:

Oh, I don't know Steve. The common phrase that we hear so much is that you may be "overthinking" things. There's a place for everything. Look at the last couple of shots by Klaus and Wayne. Both invite us to bring our own experiences, thoughts, emotions to an extended contemplation of what is shown - who's barn is that? What are they like? What fate befell that red deer, and how many deer roam that meadow now? These are (simplistically) some of the things that occur to me when I look at those pictures and I am engaged with not only the picture, but the thought process of the photographer at the time of taking (I am a firm believer that our photographs are self portraits). Look at Rog's assemblages - there is a history of art and design behind each, and it is all too easy to gainfully wander in the universe of meaning that buttresses each of his posts - especially taking into account Rog's frequently cryptic titles. And look at your own exquisite work, Steve - those mysterious shadows, the "presence of absence" that is your pictorial signature. I and I'm sure many here have spent much time contemplating those often dark, moody images - taken from the everyday, presumably but, like the film noir images they often invoke, projecting a universe of meaning stretching way into the imagination of each viewer.  One the other hand I could show you (I'm sure most of us could) 10,000 images of people that just suggest nothing.

It's not about what's in the photograph, it's about what's in the photographer.

So, leave your coat on the rack - and it's your shout I believe.

Phil, it is kind of amazing to read what you have written, as it represents so much of what I value in the opportunity to take, and view, photographs. Most recently I am reading a biography of Benjamin Disreali who, aside from being a great statesman, was also an accomplished novelist. A quote from one of Disreali's novels:."Man is a creation of God, and devine; the public is a creation of politics and the press," struck me in the same way your thoughts have. It begs the question: how much real value, or quality....of what is innate to our individual being.....is missed by the signs that have been imposed and interfere with our real connections to the things we encounter? It could be a barn, a deer skull, or even a parking meter.......it sometimes connects me with a sense of, and a belonging to, something infinite....and comforting.

Best,

Wayne

 

[Steve Ricoh]

12 hours ago, stray cat said:

Oh, I don't know Steve. The common phrase that we hear so much is that you may be "overthinking" things. There's a place for everything. Look at the last couple of shots by Klaus and Wayne. Both invite us to bring our own experiences, thoughts, emotions to an extended contemplation of what is shown - who's barn is that? What are they like? What fate befell that red deer, and how many deer roam that meadow now? These are (simplistically) some of the things that occur to me when I look at those pictures and I am engaged with not only the picture, but the thought process of the photographer at the time of taking (I am a firm believer that our photographs are self portraits). Look at Rog's assemblages - there is a history of art and design behind each, and it is all too easy to gainfully wander in the universe of meaning that buttresses each of his posts - especially taking into account Rog's frequently cryptic titles. And look at your own exquisite work, Steve - those mysterious shadows, the "presence of absence" that is your pictorial signature. I and I'm sure many here have spent much time contemplating those often dark, moody images - taken from the everyday, presumably but, like the film noir images they often invoke, projecting a universe of meaning stretching way into the imagination of each viewer.  One the other hand I could show you (I'm sure most of us could) 10,000 images of people that just suggest nothing.

It's not about what's in the photograph, it's about what's in the photographer.

So, leave your coat on the rack - and it's your shout I believe.

 

9 hours ago, stray cat said:

Yes, that is key, isn't it? Inclusion/exclusion. My own photographic tagline is "exposed | unexposed", something conveniently printed on 120 backing paper, and in appropriating it by which I seek to mean much the same thing. Imagine if Wayne had have included more around that barn - what context would have been lost? Or maybe gained? Would it have had the same impact or something different? Or that Klaus' deer skull hadn't have occupied precisely the proportion of the frame that it does, offset so masterfully against that emotive and suggestive darkness by his so expertly using the unique properties of the Ferrania film? And your own work, Rog, so considered and artfully constructed, imbued with meaning? Of all possible permutations and combinations, what you set before us is anything but random - the meaning is there ("the truth is out there!") and it is offered for us to deconstruct into something that has coherency for us. And your phrase "nothing is what it appears to be" (or, to put it in Lynchian terms "the owls are not what they seem") rings so true of Steve's own work. Wave a camera around on the end of its strap, taking 500 frames per second and, sure, you'll get a lot of pictures. But align a brain with an eye and an individual, perhaps idiosyncratic sensibility, and you get what we are so privileged to constantly see here - considered, thoughtful work that could only have come from the mind of its creator.

Lots to ponder on here, thank you Phil.

Yes I’m prone to overthink things and if we can classify people by left and right brain, I would say I’m more to the left, with maths and engineering being my thing, and I definitely struggle artistically. I’ve read loads about seeing photographically and have looked at many, many photographs produced by others (I would say I enjoy looking at the work of others more than my own, BTW) and I’m trying to allow my subconscious to make the decisions rather than the more conscious calculator mode inside me. Sometimes I let go and now and again it comes good.

Inclusion / exclusion is on point, totally agree with you, plus where the subject is placed with respect to the frame edge. Two aspects for me to practice further. Another is the unscharf you mentioned a while back. I thought about it some, and came to the conclusion that the lack of definition is something I like, being very close to dreamland where you have an outline understanding but lacking clarity (of course dreams are often chaotic madness and not the best analogy). For the same reason it’s the low fidelity of the Polaroid that I find attractive. If it wasn’t so expensive I would dive into instant photography and see if I could express myself, and perhaps show my inner self as you touched on earlier. 

 

[BlackDE]

Am 27.4.2020 um 01:53 schrieb Xícara de Café:

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Lovely 'fusca' 🙂

[christoph_d]

1 hour ago, Steve Ricoh said:

 

Lots to ponder on here, thank you Phil.

Yes I’m prone to overthink things and if we can classify people by left and right brain, I would say I’m more to the left, with maths and engineering being my thing, and I definitely struggle artistically. I’ve read loads about seeing photographically and have looked at many, many photographs produced by others (I would say I enjoy looking at the work of others more than my own, BTW) and I’m trying to allow my subconscious to make the decisions rather than the more conscious calculator mode inside me. Sometimes I let go and now and again it comes good.

Inclusion / exclusion is on point, totally agree with you, plus where the subject is placed with respect to the frame edge. Two aspects for me to practice further. Another is the unscharf you mentioned a while back. I thought about it some, and came to the conclusion that the lack of definition is something I like, being very close to dreamland where you have an outline understanding but lacking clarity (of course dreams are often chaotic madness and not the best analogy). For the same reason it’s the low fidelity of the Polaroid that I find attractive. If it wasn’t so expensive I would dive into instant photography and see if I could express myself, and perhaps show my inner self as you touched on earlier. 

 

Steve, 

Oftentimes, and rather thoughtlessly, photography is seen to truthfully represent reality. IMHO the photographic result is a model of reality, and as models are never the original, there are always significant differences. A few examples of those:

Real life has a continuous time element, photography takes a slice of time. 
Real life has continuous colour, photography has b&w or specific colours mixed from a few peaks of wavelengths.

Real life is seen through our eyes continuously moving, adjusting focus and aperture, photography is taken through a fixed lens, with a fixed focal length, distance and aperture.

All of the above somehow play into rog’s notion of exclusion.

Some lucky photographers have an intuitive grasp of the opportunities presented by the differences offered by photography compared to reality as humans see it. However, if you - like me - are not so lucky, it may help to systematically study said differences, and analyse the photographic effect they can have.

Thanks all for this stimulating discussion.

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[Ernest]

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[chrism]

I don't seem to be able to stop making inappropriate combinations of film and developer, and worrying at them until they work. This is XP2 Super (what else!) at ISO 200 in Diafine, and developed with continuous agitation for 5+5 minutes in the motorised Rondinax.:

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I'm afraid I cut off the top of my head, but there was only me at home and I needed to try it out. Anyway, I'm delighted with the minimal grain and thus the film was not wasted.