I like film...(open thread)

[Sparkassenkunde]

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19 hours ago, A miller said:

Here's the second, which was about 15-20 minutes later, and around 8 minutes of exposure time...

Some of the highlights are blown to hell, but I think this goes with the long exposure territory and doesn't bother me.

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If I had to choose between the two version, it would be this one for me

[Sparkassenkunde]

On 9/22/2019 at 10:46 PM, benqui said:

If there is a special light, I try sometimes color film

Plaubel Makina 67, Portra 400

 

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What a light, what a woman, what a lucky photographer!

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[MT0227]

14 hours ago, benqui said:

The eye contact is perfect Marc! Very good!

Thank you, I appreciate it. 

[MT0227]

11 hours ago, philipus said:

Wonderful Marc, really well done. It raises so many questions.

 

Thanks Philip..

[Ernest]

Skit
M-A Thambar-M & APO 50
ADOX Color Implosion, E100, and JCH StreetPan 400

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[benqui]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Sparkassenkunde:

What a light, what a woman, what a lucky photographer!

You are so right James!!

[Kl@usW.]

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vor 22 Stunden schrieb stray cat:

I share your enthusiasm, Christoph, for hints of a world outside the frame - thank you for pointing this out. Yes, most definitely shot à la Sauvette as HC-B would say and from the hip. Sometimes - not too often it must be said - it just seems the most prudent approach.

 

vor 21 Stunden schrieb Ernest:

From your Web site Global Portfolio  http://philipnwright.com/ , the photograph of the two girls, one holding the hand of a companion out of the frame--Villa de Zaáchila, Mexico, 2011--we brushed against this topic last year. A topic that deserves consideration, what's in the frame and what's out of it, should the photographer embrace fragmentation or exclude elements cut off at the frame's edge? I mentioned Raushenberg's photograph, "100 Norman's Place, 1955, " as another example, composed with elements that all lead to "life outside the frame." What a way to engage the viewer in speculative dialogue to construct a narrative that is only suggested by the fragments in the frame. Filling the gaps created by the evidence, fragmented and partial as it is. I always enjoy dropping in for a visit on your Web site to see what new visual treats are spinning on the lazy Susan.

Cheers,
Rog

Philip: you nail it in the intro to your website: taking photos is ( at least for the amateur in the positive sense of the word ) a  way to explore how  you  relate to the world--- so for me it seems quite normal and necessary to oscillate between  the states of mind when you take in the world " just as it is" and every now and then to return to your  self and take photos that express  your own  sense of beauty, your needs for harmony or conflict, realism or abstraction, mystery or revelation... -your identity needs this confirmation of who you are, may be it´s a kind of an inner monologue.  

And Rog: Yes, a good photo or assemblage or color field is an invitation for a  dialogue, because the photographers narrative is an option which is true for him or herself -the beholders experience maybe quite  different. What makes looking at photos and assemblages of other people so interesting is the fact, that unlike suggested earlier in this blog, photography is not a lingua franca but a message without a code... so highly interpretable.... In this blog I find good examples for both conditions --recording the world as it is or  looking inside who I am and everything in between....that keeps me returning. And thank you and everybody  for your valuable contributions.  

( sorry for stretching my school english beyond my abilities , I hope you got an idea anyway... )

K.  

[A miller]

5 hours ago, philipus said:

So C42 is that ultra secret emulsion that in one fell swoop is impossible to over-expose and also gives you the meaning of life with every picture

Really appreciate that you've taken the time to set out your thoughts. I very much feel the same regarding long exposures. And looking at that really sublime print on the wall, I agree with you that any blown highlights from the lamps (or anywhere else for that matter) do not affect the image one bit.

Whether one is comfortable, also on shall we say a principled or ethnical level, with merging two exposures is a very personal choice. I fully respect anyone who believes that film as an analogue medium should be kept as such, meaning optical enlarging is the way to go. I love the hybrid workflow, though, because it just gives so many more options (and my house is too small for a darkroom; even though I did hand in a request in triplicate, with a stamp, to the powers that be for a room to be dedicated to this purpose in the house we bought (it was denied)). All that to say that I probably wouldn't do it with a scene like the ones you posted earlier, but might try it for long exposures of single buildings, for instance, where completely over-exposed windows would derail the photo or for scenes like the one below.

I shot this from the Waterloo Bridge using Portra 400VC (expired) at EI100. It barely looks OK, perhaps for Instagram it would suffice but on anything larger than a phone screen it would look rubbish. Facade lighting is very difficult to deal with because the buildings become so extremely bright.

 

Flickr

Just look at St Paul's in this 2000dpi scan at 100%, completely blown. 

 

So here it could have been useful to merge images and mask out the buildings. But I didn't think of that at the time  Luckily I shot another frame with my FM3A. Btw, if anyone is looking for a long exposure camera for 35mm get one of these. This was with the meter set to Auto, just point and shoot. If anyone wants to grain peep here's the 3000dpi scan. It's a little bit better (and pretty good for a small neg).

Flickr
85/1.8 pre-AI Ektar X1

 

This is lovely, the wide aperture makes the silhouette stand out very well. Really excellent.

 

Many thanks, Philip.  I don't mean to come across as a film prude.  I am much more like you regarding our espousal of the hybrid workflow for all that it gives us.  And believe me if I could find a way to do an impeccable merger of two film scans of the same photo at different exposures, I'd happily do so.  

These are really interesting comparisons.  The second with the Nikon shows a really sharp neg.  Wow!

5 hours ago, philipus said:

I shot this in Sälen in Sweden in February. The moon didn't get higher than this (and these are by no means high mountains). I don't really remember what colour the sky was but it was probably more blue. Still there's something to be said for the way slide film exaggerates colours sometimes (and this is pretty much exactly how the slide looks on the light table).


Flickr
80 Planar+2XE Provia 400X X1

Beautiful. Philip, and I really do like how you embraced the color shift.  It makes it look really cool.

5 hours ago, Sparkassenkunde said:

These are some incredibly good long exposures, Phil and Adam! I wish I could give some input on this complex topic, but my attempts in long exposures where more on the trial and error path. I simply count minutes in my head according to the scene I see in front of me - and as film is such a forgiving medium, I am almost every time rewarded with a nice picture (e.g. on the Silbersalz35 emulsion or on any other film I tried so far.

After another week of too much work load I treated myself a new (old) camera once more. Since I stumbled upon an offer for a Minolta Autocord in another forum, I came to the conclusion that this might be another great piece for my collection. Off I got and searched everything I could find on the net and took the chance to buy a beaten up camera the other day. After some initial problems with the shutter, which I could repair myself within a good evenings time, I now got my first roll developed. It was also the first time ever for me to develop 120 film myself. I thought it to be much more complicated, but it went really well. Only error I made was using too little fixer, as I used a new tank that needs 500ml and my old tank for 35 only needs 300. But I turned the spool around for another round of fixing and the film came out really nice. Ok, don't wanna steal more time from you, so here comes an example:

 

Minolta Autocord - T-Max 100 (dev. in Rodinal 1+50)

Very good, James.  Love how you composed this.

5 hours ago, Sparkassenkunde said:

If I had to choose between the two version, it would be this one for me

Thanks for your opinion, James.  Always highly valued!

[A miller]

Tel Aviv 🕵️‍♂️😉

IIIg, 28 summaron, Portra 400

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[Ernest]

21 minutes ago, A miller said:

Tel Aviv 🕵️‍♂️😉

IIIg, 28 summaron, Portra 400

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Is FM manifesting some Game of Thrones syndrome, getting taller and taller? Taking a snap of the lovelies taking a snap.

[Ernest]

3 hours ago, Kl@usW. said:

 

Philip: you nail it in the intro to your website: taking photos is ( at least for the amateur in the positive sense of the word ) a  way to explore how  you  relate to the world--- so for me it seems quite normal and necessary to oscillate between  the states of mind when you take in the world " just as it is" and every now and then to return to your  self and take photos that express  your own  sense of beauty, your needs for harmony or conflict, realism or abstraction, mystery or revelation... -your identity needs this confirmation of who you are, may be it´s a kind of an inner monologue.  

And Rog: Yes, a good photo or assemblage or color field is an invitation for a  dialogue, because the photographers narrative is an option which is true for him or herself -the beholders experience maybe quite  different. What makes looking at photos and assemblages of other people so interesting is the fact, that unlike suggested earlier in this blog, photography is not a lingua franca but a message without a code... so highly interpretable.... In this blog I find good examples for both conditions --recording the world as it is or  looking inside who I am and everything in between....that keeps me returning. And thank you and everybody  for your valuable contributions.  

( sorry for stretching my school english beyond my abilities , I hope you got an idea anyway... )

K.  

The teletype is whirring away, trying to keep up with your meteor shower of ideas.  So. . . here the ping pong match in my head.

Is the photograph a statement? If so, what does it say? Can it not be a question, perhaps the scaffolding of interrogation? Is the question, itself, a statement? Is there a conflict? What are the conditions for resolution? Or is the resolution irresolute? What are the casualties? What is at risk? Can a photograph be a line in the sand? What is the challenge of such a metaphor? What is the death of cliché? Can boring be interesting? Can the commonplace be unique? Can a photograph dismantle itself, deconstruct? Is what is not seen, actually what is to be seen? It is not all photography metaphoric, revolving? Rhetoric on the run? Or is it simply evidence that risks allegorization? What is the penalty of being irrelevant? Why does rage and outrage hold hands? Why is there no such thing as erasure? Is the concept of panorama a conceit? Does color dream?

Then, I have to come back to the frame, Alberti—what’s in and what’s out—and the poetics of perspective, the metaphor for subjectivity. Phil will have his meat cleaver to make the necessary cuts.

Cheers,
Rog

[Calin]

Thank you Phil and Philip for the feedback, I got lucky with that picture.

Next is from end August in the Romanian mountains ( North Maramures) where there are few steam working trains. We got  ride with one of them, like this. (Porta 160)

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[jona_gold]

MP, 1/50, FP4+

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[Suede]

6 hours ago, Ernest said:

Is FM manifesting some Game of Thrones syndrome, getting taller and taller? Taking a snap of the lovelies taking a snap.

Setting upon them... along with the sun.

[stray cat]

11 hours ago, Kl@usW. said:

 

Philip: you nail it in the intro to your website: taking photos is ( at least for the amateur in the positive sense of the word ) a  way to explore how  you  relate to the world--- so for me it seems quite normal and necessary to oscillate between  the states of mind when you take in the world " just as it is" and every now and then to return to your  self and take photos that express  your own  sense of beauty, your needs for harmony or conflict, realism or abstraction, mystery or revelation... -your identity needs this confirmation of who you are, may be it´s a kind of an inner monologue.  

And Rog: Yes, a good photo or assemblage or color field is an invitation for a  dialogue, because the photographers narrative is an option which is true for him or herself -the beholders experience maybe quite  different. What makes looking at photos and assemblages of other people so interesting is the fact, that unlike suggested earlier in this blog, photography is not a lingua franca but a message without a code... so highly interpretable.... In this blog I find good examples for both conditions --recording the world as it is or  looking inside who I am and everything in between....that keeps me returning. And thank you and everybody  for your valuable contributions.  

( sorry for stretching my school english beyond my abilities , I hope you got an idea anyway... )

K.  

 

8 hours ago, Ernest said:

The teletype is whirring away, trying to keep up with your meteor shower of ideas.  So. . . here the ping pong match in my head.

Is the photograph a statement? If so, what does it say? Can it not be a question, perhaps the scaffolding of interrogation? Is the question, itself, a statement? Is there a conflict? What are the conditions for resolution? Or is the resolution irresolute? What are the casualties? What is at risk? Can a photograph be a line in the sand? What is the challenge of such a metaphor? What is the death of cliché? Can boring be interesting? Can the commonplace be unique? Can a photograph dismantle itself, deconstruct? Is what is not seen, actually what is to be seen? It is not all photography metaphoric, revolving? Rhetoric on the run? Or is it simply evidence that risks allegorization? What is the penalty of being irrelevant? Why does rage and outrage hold hands? Why is there no such thing as erasure? Is the concept of panorama a conceit? Does color dream?

Then, I have to come back to the frame, Alberti—what’s in and what’s out—and the poetics of perspective, the metaphor for subjectivity. Phil will have his meat cleaver to make the necessary cuts.

Cheers,
Rog

 

Not sure about taking the meat cleaver to the above discussion, but I'd like to produce some pictures from the last few days that I hope will provide EVIDENCE that all of the above, and more, is true.

Klaus elliptically refers to what John Szarkowski referred to, allegorically, as Mirrors and Windows, the binary concept for an exhibition he staged at MOMA in 1978. His basic premis was that photographers tend towards those whose interest lies in the intensely personal, introspective work or those who frame the world not in a mirror but through a window, telling it like it is.

Of course, Klaus is right - we all, I think, tend to oscillate between the two, depending, I suppose, on a whole lot of things. And pictures, too, can have that same duality to them, and this of course depends on who is doing the viewing and their own state of mind at the time. All of the pictures below could be categorized as both - mirrors and windows, although I'd suggest that, for me, they all say a lot more about the photographer than the world at large. A brief summary of my own thoughts on the pictures are as follows:

Summer Dream by Calin is a remarkable picture because it shows something quite unexpected, ie girls in 19th century dress, assuming what looks like a painterly 19th century mannerism, and it is presented in a quite unexpected way ie where the two girls, who we recognize as the principal subjects, are out-of-focus. So it plays with my mind and stays with me as a very powerful picture.

Inspector's Test by Marc T. is, on the surface, a Window (ha ha) but, looking deeper into it, there is so much more EVIDENCE in the picture that leads me to the conclusion that it is significantly more than that. I made a comment at the time so I won't repeat that, suffice to say this is, for me, an incredible picture - but then I'm inclined to see it that way. It doesn't matter if you're not, of course - we each must diligently defend the sanctity of our own reading.

Anthurium close-up by mdp... well, I did half-jokingly make the Mapplethorpe reference, but the delicious colours, the detail of what is included and what is left out - it doesn't take much imagination, does it, to see this as a highly refined analogy of a sexual nature. Or is that just me? Freud, where are you?

Sparky's Minolta Autocord refuses to just be a picture of a tent and some tree branches. There is such a definite tension in this picture. Brain, wired from a too-long session at Starbucks, is threatening mountains. Or something. What IS it about this picture that kind of unnerves me? But it's far from a straight descriptive picture - if you want it to be. Did James want it to be? Whether he did or not (and I suspect he did) it is there for US to ascribe our own meaning to, based on our own equipment that we bring to the show.

Rog's Skit - well, we could certainly segue to a discussion about titles, but perhaps that's for another day. This is a picture that I'd find difficult to think of as a Window picture, although Rog has framed someone through bars. Someone, ostensibly deep in thought, looking over a lake, is thrust behind bars next to the red for danger color field that we read in the western manner, left to right, before the fire is quenched by a magnificent blue, that perhaps harks back to the lake. It forms a circle and you wonder why. Is there an answer? Well, it's a Skit - a kind of satire, and I think the joke may be on us. Well, OK, on me then.

jona_gold's MP can certainly be viewed as allegorical, metaphorical, a Window, a Mirror - an amazing picture. A young girl stretches upwards on tippy-toes, her arms raised - almost a gesture of supplication but, really! - that's just going too far. Isn't it? The material object of her attention seems to be a bird perched on a window (aha!) ledge - except that we then see that the window has been bricked-in! Talk about mess with your mind! Aaaagh! But, hang on. IS the bird what she's stretching toward? She has no hope of ever reaching it, and the bird seems pretty disinterested in flying down to her, although it COULD perhaps be looking her way. But maybe the girl's interest is not in the bird at all. Maybe it just SEEMS that way... What a glorious picture this is.

So I've rabbited on about these wonderful pictures (there are so many other brilliant pictures to choose from, even in just the last few pages) and haven't addressed ANY of the things Klaus or Rog brought up, and have, amongst other things, condemned myself to probably years on the psychoanalyst's couch (thanks mdp!). Looking at these pictures again a phrase from the many interesting (rhetorical?) questions Rog raises in his  discussion which I quoted above nibbles away at the edge of my brain: what is at risk?

 

On 9/24/2019 at 9:59 AM, Calin said:

Summer dream (K200)

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On 9/24/2019 at 10:26 AM, MT0227 said:

Inspector's Test 

(DUMBO - Booklyn, NY)

2019-09-20-00016 by Marc Tauber, on Flickr

• 50mm Dual Range Summicron
• Portra 400 - in Unicolor C41 Press Kit
• Scanned w/ Nikon LS-9000

 

23 hours ago, mdp said:

Anthurium close-up

MP Visoflex Summarit 90/2.4 & Portra 160 in Tetenal

 

 

14 hours ago, Sparkassenkunde said:

These are some incredibly good long exposures, Phil and Adam! I wish I could give some input on this complex topic, but my attempts in long exposures where more on the trial and error path. I simply count minutes in my head according to the scene I see in front of me - and as film is such a forgiving medium, I am almost every time rewarded with a nice picture (e.g. on the Silbersalz35 emulsion or on any other film I tried so far.

After another week of too much work load I treated myself a new (old) camera once more. Since I stumbled upon an offer for a Minolta Autocord in another forum, I came to the conclusion that this might be another great piece for my collection. Off I got and searched everything I could find on the net and took the chance to buy a beaten up camera the other day. After some initial problems with the shutter, which I could repair myself within a good evenings time, I now got my first roll developed. It was also the first time ever for me to develop 120 film myself. I thought it to be much more complicated, but it went really well. Only error I made was using too little fixer, as I used a new tank that needs 500ml and my old tank for 35 only needs 300. But I turned the spool around for another round of fixing and the film came out really nice. Ok, don't wanna steal more time from you, so here comes an example:

Minolta Autocord - T-Max 100 (dev. in Rodinal 1+50)

 

12 hours ago, Ernest said:

Skit
M-A Thambar-M & APO 50
ADOX Color Implosion, E100, and JCH StreetPan 400

 

2 hours ago, jona_gold said:

MP, 1/50, FP4+

 

 

[frame-it]

On 9/18/2019 at 5:16 PM, jona_gold said:

Leica IIIa, Summar 2/5, Adox Silvermax, Microphen Dev stock

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nice shot

[Suede]

Taken in April in Australia, thanks to Phil. I forget the name of the rock.   [Portra 400]

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[Suede]

FM3a   [Ilford FP4 - 125]

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[Suede]

Castle [Ilford FP4]

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[jona_gold]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb stray cat:

jona_gold's MP can certainly be viewed as allegorical, metaphorical, a Window, a Mirror - an amazing picture. A young girl stretches upwards on tippy-toes, her arms raised - almost a gesture of supplication but, really! - that's just going too far. Isn't it? The material object of her attention seems to be a bird perched on a window (aha!) ledge - except that we then see that the window has been bricked-in! Talk about mess with your mind! Aaaagh! But, hang on. IS the bird what she's stretching toward? She has no hope of ever reaching it, and the bird seems pretty disinterested in flying down to her, although it COULD perhaps be looking her way. But maybe the girl's interest is not in the bird at all. Maybe it just SEEMS that way... What a glorious picture this is.

Thank you very much!

"She has no hope of ever reaching it..."

... I think she definately HAS this hope. This scene happened in Milano some years ago. I discovered this pic some time later under new eyes. This girl tells in my eyes that one should never give up. It's just her and this never ending game.  She is happy. Happy with the simple game of life ...

Edited September 25, 2019 by jona_gold