I like film...(open thread)

[gbealnz]

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I am curious about something. After years of good service from my Paterson tank, it seems to have sprung a leak between the black plastic tank and the red plastic rim. Is this the usual manner of failure for these tanks. Is there certain behavior, e.g. tapping tank bottom on countertop after an inversion, that brings this about?

 

OBTW, due to this failure, I have switched, temporarily, from inversions to using the black, pronged stem (originally supplied with tank) to rotate the reels in solution. I find the rotation to be a bit more to my taste. Is there any evidence that tank inversion renders superior result to that of reel rotation? So far, I have not seen any great difference in result. The rotation method leaves a markedly cleaner countertop.

 

Best,

 

Wayne

 

I don't have mine in front of me, but recall a style of sealing ring surrounding the top lip of the tank proper. If my memory is correct, it is a stiff ring, so perhaps there is an additional O ring within the lid segment? Maybe this has become frayed or brittle?

 

Paterson is all I have used, and for many years too, always a light tap to hopefully shift any bubbles, then 2 inversions every 30 secs. Never used the twizzle stick.

 

But the proof should be in the pudding, so if the negs are fine, carry on, and like you say, reduces both the leaks and the bench-top damage.

 

Gary

 

[AntonioF]

I am curious about something. After years of good service from my Paterson tank, it seems to have sprung a leak between the black plastic tank and the red plastic rim. Is this the usual manner of failure for these tanks. Is there certain behavior, e.g. tapping tank bottom on countertop after an inversion, that brings this about?

 

OBTW, due to this failure, I have switched, temporarily, from inversions to using the black, pronged stem (originally supplied with tank) to rotate the reels in solution. I find the rotation to be a bit more to my taste. Is there any evidence that tank inversion renders superior result to that of reel rotation? So far, I have not seen any great difference in result. The rotation method leaves a markedly cleaner countertop.

 

Best,

 

Wayne

 

I don't that much experience, but I switched from inversions to rotations a few months ago (mostly to mitigate air bubbles marks when developing 120mm) and I have not noticed any difference in the results for 35mm.

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[Tmx]

@wayne: I never have heard about the failure like that. I am currently using 3 Paterson tanks, in different sizes with no issues. However it wouldn’t be an option for me with the rotation because I agitate them with the Heiland TAS processor. It‘ very convenient. In your case I wouldn’t expect any significant changes

Edited June 4, 2018 by Tmx

[chrism]

Rolleiflex 2.8GX, XP2, ISO 50, HC-110, X1 scan:

Driftwood 2 by chrism229, on Flickr

[gbealnz]

I am curious about something. After years of good service from my Paterson tank, it seems to have sprung a leak between the black plastic tank and the red plastic rim. Is this the usual manner of failure for these tanks. Is there certain behavior, e.g. tapping tank bottom on countertop after an inversion, that brings this about?

 

OBTW, due to this failure, I have switched, temporarily, from inversions to using the black, pronged stem (originally supplied with tank) to rotate the reels in solution. I find the rotation to be a bit more to my taste. Is there any evidence that tank inversion renders superior result to that of reel rotation? So far, I have not seen any great difference in result. The rotation method leaves a markedly cleaner countertop.

 

Best,

 

Wayne

Wayne,

I took a look at the two Paterson tanks I have, both are the same. The red ring at the top of the tank proper appears to simply be a press fit, and I don't see that it seals or doesn't seal to be honest.

 

Could it be that the leak is from the "lid"? The plastic, flexible, lid. I always "burp" mine when I first fit it. Failure to burp usually ends up in spillage of some sort, but by burping it is usually always mess free, with or without tapping it on the bench-top.

 

Gary

[Wayne]

Wayne,

I took a look at the two Paterson tanks I have, both are the same. The red ring at the top of the tank proper appears to simply be a press fit, and I don't see that it seals or doesn't seal to be honest.

 

Could it be that the leak is from the "lid"? The plastic, flexible, lid. I always "burp" mine when I first fit it. Failure to burp usually ends up in spillage of some sort, but by burping it is usually always mess free, with or without tapping it on the bench-top.

 

Gary

Initially I assumed it was the lid not sealing properly, but last night I got a clear view of it. It was definitely coming from between the black plastic of the tank and the molded, red plastic rim. Considering the price, three- or more- years of good service is enough to satisfy me. I ordered a new one today. It was time for new reels anyway. It is a good product. I was just wondering if I accelerated the the failure of integrity through careless tapping of the tank on the counter.

[Ernest]

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This is so great, we are opening our minds to exploring ART with our cameras and that delicious medium that is FILM! There is no boundary to what our minds can conjure, and we are able to sit on the shoulders of giants when we are willing to. I'm glad you mentioned Barnett Newman as I knew there was someone important I was missing, and your mention of Marcel Duchamp, who was also someone who came to mind. All this ART is somewhat known, I'm sure, to us all - at least subconsciously. The Adams - Eggleston conflagration is something that I'm sure we are all at least somewhat aware. To be able, in photography, to find the materials, and set them to creative use - not just photographing "things" but photographing light, and colour, and mood, and texture and all manner of things. These are photographs that only exist because of the photographer's imagination and a determination to realize that mind's picture as a visual entity - one that is able to be shared with us all. The assemblage of inclusions - the visual cytoplasm that exists within the picture frame (or within the diptych/triptych etc) - is a product of our imagination and skill - it is our contribution to art.

 

This is a picture I took some time ago which I gradually came to realize is not a picture of a hire lot I passed in the street:

 

 

When I was still at school the Australian Government controversially bought Jackson Pollock's "Blue Poles" for a staggering (at the time) $3,000,000 and it caused all sorts of ructions in Australian society. Of course it therefore necessarily became a cause célèbre among those of us of a certain age group. It still makes me swoon each time I see it in the flesh. Anyway, as I became more familiar with my picture above, I came to understand that this is my homage to that great work of art.

 

This picture, too (which was produced during my short-lived digital dalliance - ssssh!) puts me in mind of the work of - is it Miro? Klee? Anyway one of those artists whom I grew up venerating, and I am happy to try to forget that it was an abandoned notice board in Orvieto, Italy:

 

 

In both cases the photograph is not a picture of what it is a picture of - it is something altogether different.

 

Thank you Rog, Wayne and all who contribute here for constantly opening up our minds to new possibilities and ways of seeing. Each of us has that vision that only belongs to us, individually.

Well, strike up the band and stand at attention, paying attention to your insightful parade of ideas. Your two abstract realist works knock me to the floor and beg for more than the three-second museum tour viewing.

 

Your first photograph, which I am thinking of as “Black Bars,“ is robust, especially taken in the context of Pollock’s “Blue Poles.“ I can understand how you argue the similarity between the two. Obviously, Pollock has eight “blue poles” in his painting, while you have how many black fence bars? Yes, eight! All right, kidding of the coincidence aside, your color palette does indeed mirror Pollock’s. And when I take my glasses off, my uncorrected vision with its far-sighted blur scrambles your “Black Bars” into a Pollock facsimile. What’s more, the eight black bars create an optical illusion that divides the plane into vertical sections that float in front of the bars. (No, I have not been to the bar, and I am wearing my glasses.) Pollock’s painting, likewise, has a sense of floating.

 

Even though this may be a fortuitous grab shot from the street of a hire lot, why is it so arresting? On the face of it, there is the heavy equipment yard presumably fenced off for security with black iron bars. But if we let the mind play with interpreting these elements, there could be a subliminal statement here that conjectures the means of construction, the heavy equipment, is corralled and denied. “I had no such intent!“ you, the artist, protest let us say. The point here is not the validity of the interpretation, however, but that the work invites interpretive dialogue. It engages and is not dismissed. The voice of the work, how it speaks, may not even involve language in the sense of words but rather subjective tone, the texture of emotion, ambience. It is the province of analogy, metaphor, and allegory. It is one thing, yet another, simultaneously. As you say, “the photograph is not a picture of what it is a picture of - it is something altogether different.” Applause, applause. This is Derrida’s simultaneity—heavy lifting. It is remarkable that you suddenly realized later what had prompted you to take the photograph in the first place. The subconscious impulse!

 

I imagine your photograph, originally titled No. 1 in the Pollock fashion but now retitled “Black Bars,“ enlarged to 7‘ x 16‘, roughly the same size as Pollock’s painting, hanging on the museum wall in the National Gallery of Australia next to “Blue Poles.”

 

Your second photograph, which for me is “Still Red,” reminds me of Clyfford Still if we are to look for the mirror of paintings in photographs or vice versa. I found this Still painting PH-385 (1949 No. 1). I really admire your photograph of “an abandoned notice board in Orvieto, Italy” for the color field abstraction and the realism of the shards of paper floating above the red. Hodgkins sometimes puts shadows under his blobs of paint, giving them a floating look. But this photograph stands on its own without referring to a painting. Looking closer, we realize that the ripped pieces of paper are what is left of messages taped on a glass door. We are left to wonder about the messages, what did they say? This calls to mind the British Romantic vogue for the mock fragment poem, which was written to imitate a fragmented verse found on a ripped piece of paper that was missing both beginning and end of the poem. The art was to provide just enough of the poem so that the reader could imagine the beginning as well as the end. If the fragments of paper in your photograph provided some text, some evidence of the posting, we could at least imagine what the sign or message had to say. What is it political, social, or a missing person notice? As you so astutely say, we are “not just photographing ‘things’ but photographing light, and colour, and mood, and texture and all manner of things.” This is the flag I want to run up the pole and salute! Thank you for articulating this so succinctly.

 

We appreciate the influence of photography has on artists we all recognize, who use it as a starting point: Rauschenberg, Richter, Ruscha, Bacon, Warhol, Hockney, Close, Celmins, and the list goes on. At the end of the day, the discussion does not hinge on paintings versus photographs but rather their intersections. The influence, the confluence.

[Peter_S]

Metro Commute. Tbilisi, Georgia.
Leica M6, Zeiss Sonnar C 1.5/50, Ilford HP5+ at ISO 1600. Scanned with Flextight X1.

 

[A miller]

"Hey, you never know..."

Chinatown, NYC

M3, 50 DR cron, Cinestill XX

 

Btw, just purchased a liter of the FF monobath and am very eager to try it with some Ferrania P30 and Tmax 3200.  I'm back in business, baby!!!

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[gbealnz]

Btw, just purchased a liter of the FF monobath and am very eager to try it with some Ferrania P30 and Tmax 3200.  I'm back in business, baby!!!

FF Monobath, as in process it yerself??? Well done.

Gary

[A miller]

FF Monobath, as in process it yerself??? Well done.

Gary

 

yes, as in don't tell my wife 

[gbealnz]

That was the next question, OK, I won't.

Really though, it's a piece of old rope, really.

Gary

[A miller]

That was the next question, OK, I won't.

Really though, it's a piece of old rope, really.

Gary

 

Thanks for the encouragement.  John "Activatedfx" got me onto it a couple of weeks ago when we hung out together.  I'm looking forward to picking up the old rope!

[Wayne]

Country Girl. (A bit of the Irish in this one)

 

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IID, VC 28/3.5, Astrum 400

Edited June 5, 2018 by Wayne

[Wayne]

Kidding Around.

 

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IID, VC 28/3.5, Astrum 400

 

[Ernest]

Vertical Orange

M-A APO-Summicron-M 50mm f/2 LHSA  ADOX Color Implosion (top)+ Macro-Elmar-M 90mm f/4 Portra 400 (bottom)

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[edwardkaraa]

FM3A 50/1.2 AIS Portra 400 by edward karaa, on Flickr

 

FM3A 50/1.2 AIS Portra 400 by edward karaa, on Flickr

[edwardkaraa]

FM3A 50/1.2 AIS Portra 400 by edward karaa, on Flickr

 

FM3A 50/1.2 AIS Portra 400 by edward karaa, on Flickr

[stray cat]

Well, strike up the band and stand at attention, paying attention to your insightful parade of ideas. Your two abstract realist works knock me to the floor and beg for more than the three-second museum tour viewing.

 

Your first photograph, which I am thinking of as “Black Bars,“ is robust, especially taken in the context of Pollock’s “Blue Poles.“ I can understand how you argue the similarity between the two. Obviously, Pollock has eight “blue poles” in his painting, while you have how many black fence bars? Yes, eight! All right, kidding of the coincidence aside, your color palette does indeed mirror Pollock’s. And when I take my glasses off, my uncorrected vision with its far-sighted blur scrambles your “Black Bars” into a Pollock facsimile. What’s more, the eight black bars create an optical illusion that divides the plane into vertical sections that float in front of the bars. (No, I have not been to the bar, and I am wearing my glasses.) Pollock’s painting, likewise, has a sense of floating.

 

Even though this may be a fortuitous grab shot from the street of a hire lot, why is it so arresting? On the face of it, there is the heavy equipment yard presumably fenced off for security with black iron bars. But if we let the mind play with interpreting these elements, there could be a subliminal statement here that conjectures the means of construction, the heavy equipment, is corralled and denied. “I had no such intent!“ you, the artist, protest let us say. The point here is not the validity of the interpretation, however, but that the work invites interpretive dialogue. It engages and is not dismissed. The voice of the work, how it speaks, may not even involve language in the sense of words but rather subjective tone, the texture of emotion, ambience. It is the province of analogy, metaphor, and allegory. It is one thing, yet another, simultaneously. As you say, “the photograph is not a picture of what it is a picture of - it is something altogether different.” Applause, applause. This is Derrida’s simultaneity—heavy lifting. It is remarkable that you suddenly realized later what had prompted you to take the photograph in the first place. The subconscious impulse!

 

I imagine your photograph, originally titled No. 1 in the Pollock fashion but now retitled “Black Bars,“ enlarged to 7‘ x 16‘, roughly the same size as Pollock’s painting, hanging on the museum wall in the National Gallery of Australia next to “Blue Poles.”

 

Your second photograph, which for me is “Still Red,” reminds me of Clyfford Still if we are to look for the mirror of paintings in photographs or vice versa. I found this Still painting PH-385 (1949 No. 1). I really admire your photograph of “an abandoned notice board in Orvieto, Italy” for the color field abstraction and the realism of the shards of paper floating above the red. Hodgkins sometimes puts shadows under his blobs of paint, giving them a floating look. But this photograph stands on its own without referring to a painting. Looking closer, we realize that the ripped pieces of paper are what is left of messages taped on a glass door. We are left to wonder about the messages, what did they say? This calls to mind the British Romantic vogue for the mock fragment poem, which was written to imitate a fragmented verse found on a ripped piece of paper that was missing both beginning and end of the poem. The art was to provide just enough of the poem so that the reader could imagine the beginning as well as the end. If the fragments of paper in your photograph provided some text, some evidence of the posting, we could at least imagine what the sign or message had to say. What is it political, social, or a missing person notice? As you so astutely say, we are “not just photographing ‘things’ but photographing light, and colour, and mood, and texture and all manner of things.” This is the flag I want to run up the pole and salute! Thank you for articulating this so succinctly.

 

We appreciate the influence of photography has on artists we all recognize, who use it as a starting point: Rauschenberg, Richter, Ruscha, Bacon, Warhol, Hockney, Close, Celmins, and the list goes on. At the end of the day, the discussion does not hinge on paintings versus photographs but rather their intersections. The influence, the confluence.

 

Rog, you're a breath of fresh air. Where else would one get such insightful, personalized and considered commentary on their pictures? I love it that the conversation between you and Wayne has expanded to encompass all sorts of considerations of the nexus - the confluence as you call it - between painting and photography (I see a strong Rothko in "Vertical Orange"). Also the intuition you bring to looking at pictures. Looking at pictures - that's the key. It is like looking at "the next building" or "our backyard" or wherever else we may happen (if we're particularly sagacious and/or lucky) to find pictures in the oft-overlooked voids. Because once these pictures are appropriated into our cameras and, through a process of transformation via scanning/printing/processing are shared with our audience, we are all granted access to the uncovering of mystery and, hopefully, we are therein better armed to see these things ourselves. You have elucidated things about my pictures that I never imagined - thank you! - and that I feel really great about knowing. The mock fragment poem - who ever knew such a thing existed? - but, yes - once the association is made, the affiliation of my picture with that vogue is a source of immense pride.

 

It helps (a lot!) to have an online dictionary and Wikipedia at hand to read your posts, but I thoroughly enjoy both the learning and the consequence of being more aware of elements in photographs - even my own pictures - that you seem able to divine at will. Thank you.

Edited June 5, 2018 by stray cat

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[chrism]

Btw, just purchased a liter of the FF monobath and am very eager to try it with some Ferrania P30 and Tmax 3200.  I'm back in business, baby!!!

 

 

Now that will be fun. I spent around a year mucking about with Qualls' monobath, a homemade mixture of HC-110, Ilford Rapid Fixer and ammonia:

Breaking Bad by chrism229, on Flickr

 

I diluted the ammonia to get it to the right specific gravity for the desired concentration, but even then the ammonia was really stinky, and I had to do it with an extractor fan on in the washroom where I develop. I found that agitation is extremely important. The immediate and rapid development that occurred led to streaks from the sprocket holes across the film that formed as the chemical was poured into the tank. The only reliable way I could get round it was to use a Rondinax or Rondix tank so that the streaks would form along the length of the film, in the sprocket border where they didn't matter. All my monobath photos are in a Flickr album.

 

I hope you have lots of fun, and that your successes will lead you to try all sorts of processes!