Night moves

A photo from the archives. A pause in the heartbeat of the Tokyo night as a homeless guy crosses the road. Surprisingly stable shot considering it was shot hand held with a Rolleiflex.

Morning confusion

Chiba Sea

Went out the other weekend in search of a semi reasonable location to shoot something other than night city action. thoroughly uninteresting I have to say. Half a roll shot but some how I get the feeling that this place could have potential. Maybe because I walked 6km to reach this spot in the middle of a summers day my judgment of the place has been affected.

Peekaboo

This one is definitely making it into the exhibition. It's the odd shot like this that makes lugging that camera around every day worth while (or almost ;-)

Great Quote

I’ve become increasingly nihilistic about photography... photography was much more interesting 50 plus years ago, and now there is just this overabundance of photography. It’s like saying “What type of art do you do?” “Oh, I do Twitter.”

-- Alec Soth Via http://www.aphotoeditor.com/

Flickr response

It's interesting to see how people respond to different photo's. More often than not (80% of the time?) I find people liking shots I've taken that I think are ok but nothing out of this world. This particular shot appeals to me for a number of reasons and was ignored on flickr :-)The tones in the shot are hard to achieve in B+W film unless the exposure and circumstances are spot on. The picture was taken using the Contax 645 with the Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2 lens with a special adapter which makes the background just vanish into a smooth blur. I like this photo a great deal and it was interesting to see who fav'd it. Expect more in this series and follow up with a bit of colour too.

5D mk2 continued...

ok, So I might have over reacted a little when I slammed the camera. It is actually an amazing camera. Takes stunning pictures. Yes, even better that the 1ds mk3 (for $8k!) but it can't focus very well (I say not at all!) in low light / night. Some of you know I shoot events in these situations and also like to shoot the odd night candid photo. Well, seems with the 5D mk2 I was not going to be able to do any of that. It's a day time only kind of camera or night time - no moving subjects and break out the manual focus in certain situations - kind of camera. I.e. not suited to all subjects I am shooting. So, not able to aford or justify buying a 1ds mk3 or paying canon to build a special 5d mk2 for me I've opted to trade back.

I'm mentioning this so as not to kill anyones dreams of the camera being everything they hoped for. I'm sure if you've never shot with a pro camera for a while it will be. But for those that have you'll understand, read this and not learn the expensive way :-)

Getting the temperature right

So there I was, packs of ice in hand, Rodinal at the ready and the cold water running at 24c. hmm. I figured I had this problem solved by putting my container of rodinal into a container of ice water to drop the temp. Seems that I was a little off with that theory. Next I tired putting the ice into the water the rodial was to go in. Not sure which batch came out better but I definately got a few dodgy negs out of it. Moral of the story...be super careful in summer when developing and always have ice on hand. The image above might be a bit small but the shot starts to break up in the dark tones towards the top. Bummer.

Canon 5d mk2 the worst camera ever?

Well, I have to say, I have tried hard. Very hard to give this camera a chance to prove it's worth. I've tried different lenses, tried other peoples versions of the same camera, tweaked the settings and taken it to stores to get checked. No one can fault it yet it absolutely cannot, in any way focus on anything reliably at night. In the day it even struggles. You have to start questioning the camera when you revert to manual focus with your auto focus camera. I am quite simply stunned at how poor it really is. I own a canon eos 3 film camera, circa 1998 which does a MUCH better job at focusing than the 5Dmk2. I'm SO appalled by it I'm getting rid of it at once. I will not shoot with it again. I think I'll either be going back to the 1D mk3 or get myself a 1ds mk2 16mp. I HIGHLY recommend you stay well away from this camera. It's really a complete piece of shit. (but then who the fuck am I to give such an opinion anyway!)

Out with the new and in with the old or out with it all?

So I started shooting medium format film for a few different reasons. I like the "look" of film. I like the mood it gives you. I like it's unpredictability. I like that it's not easy to get right. I like that it can give pictures a timelessness. I like that medium format photography is a slow process. It's manual focus. It's slow lenses and manual winders (most of the time). You can make big prints. And when you manage to get all of the details correct you can make a great picture (or so I've been told).Another reason I changed formats and mediums is because I realized that my old digital photos were easy to copy. And when I realized this I understood that what I thought were great pictures were not. Anyone could take them. So I thought I should try harder and set myself a challenge to try to shoot the same subject matter with a different camera. Give myself a challenge to see what I could achieve. And so after countless rolls of film and a huge amount of time trying I finally realized that I suck at medium format photography. A friend of mine took a look at my pictures recently and told me not to give up on the old stuff I'd done. I think I'm slowly starting to see his point. And what's interesting about this is that what he's saying not only is that my old stuff was better but, given it was so easy for anyone to replicate even the old stuff was not much good. I think I may need to revisit the whole idea of taking pictures.

and the point is?

I watched a video the other day about a man who came up with his own set of rules to live by. One of them was "always try to do your best" and another was "don't try to be better than anyone else". I like these. I think they would not be bad to adopt. And so, when I apply this to photography it appears that I've been encountering a few issues.One is, I genuinely believe my immediate friends take better pictures than me. So, this should be a good thing. I'm in the company of people with great skill and eye's that can see what I'll never be able to. This also inspires me to try to take "good" pictures. Unfortunately, out of the insane number of photo's I've taken within the last two and a half years I'd say that I'm happy with maybe 2 or 3 of them. I've poured a lot of time and energy and money into this and what is interesting is that, in the process I've managed to make more good friends than good pictures (I don't quite know why given the quality of my shots). Now I'm sure a few of my friends would argue that I've managed to make more than a handful of great shots and that would be nice of them to say but I don't think I have. And if the reason for doing this for me is, just that, to make me happy and for me to make pictures that I am happy with then is there a point in continuing when I have clearly failed? Have I really tried my best or could I do more? And what is ones best anyway? Where do we draw the line? What and how much do I need to sacrifice in order to really, genuinely do my best (the job, the wife, the friends?) Photography can be a bit on the evil side. You can try all you like and not make a good picture. But because of the nature of photography we're lulled into this idea that "maybe the next shot" will be the one. And so you continue in the hope that the next one will be better or be good. At what point do you stop and admit defeat?

What's also interesting about photography for me is the idea that pictures that are unique to an individuals perspective. This and the idea that no one moment in time is ever the same makes every picture (almost) unique. This is suppose to be one of the main attractors of photography. But what if no one finds your viewpoint interesting? What if, as you look around you discover many people have a more interesting view of the world than you do? Is there a point to continue when everyone passes you by, uninterested in your view of the world?

47 minutes

Jim O’Connell. The man seems to have a knowledge on photography that knows no bounds.I've been trying different developers for a while and have found the process a huge time sink. Half of me enjoys it and the other half just can't stand sitting around Agitating every minute. So, over a flickr on the Magnum group (no, the other one) where we seem to have all kinds of crazy discussions, the question came up about Rodinal by Jon about how long to develop for. Jim answers "For that, mix 1/100 with tap water, mix well, pour it in, shake it like a martini for 5-10 seconds and then let it sit for an hour before fixing and washing." but I remember hearing from either him or second hand that 1 hour didn't cut it when he changed to a new batch of chemical so he dropped the time to 47 minutes. So I tried it on 2 rolls of TMax 400 @400 and they "look" like they came out fine. Also tried it on 2 rolls of TMax 400 @800 and THEY look like they are ok too. The real test was to see if I could do a roll of TMax 100 and Tmax 400 at the same time. Result! I can't confirm this 100% until they dry and I've done a few scans but it's looking promising. I think the moral of the story is, if you have a question about B+W film dev just ask Jim. Stay tuned for results.

Quote of the day

"Today, I went on a first date with an Egyptian/Cuban sorority girl. I asked her what language she was brought up speaking. She said that her mom spoke to her in Spanish, but that she only ever replied in English. I said, "Oh, kinda like Chewbacca and Han Solo?" "
Thanks to Jon for twittering this site

Shinjuku Station

So I often find my favorite place to shoot these days is on the way home from somewhere. The great thing about stations is that people are transitioning and are usually not in one place for that long. They don't want to move from their place in the que and are often in their own world wasting time until the train arrives which is the perfect environment for me to be shooting in. Why go find the people when you can let them all come to you? The difficult part is that a hasselblad or rolleiflex is not subtle and a regular rangefinder or slr is very obvious so you still have to pick your moments.

Polaroid

Well, It's actually not Polaroid, it's FujiFilm FP-400B but it's close enough given the number of boxes of the stuff I've gone through without getting a single result because, for the last year, I've been loading the fucker the wrong way! I was hoping, on my first outing with the stuff, to keep the negative side. But alas, it seems you have to really wait till it dries before it can be moved. Not really suited to taking a shot and moving around either unless you have some special container to hold the negatives (tried a box but got carried away with putting more than 1 in the box. Result? Stuck together and useless).

Any tips or suggestions on the negative holding, drying carrying or scanning are most welcome.

When developer dies

Sometimes you get lucky. First 2 rolls from my trip to Kanazawa and I'm using expired developer unbeknownst to me. The grain is huge but somehow this accident ended in a shot I am happy with. This is also an example of the over use of the red 25 filter I have :-)

4am

The thing's you do for a shot.I've been inspired lately by Mike Stacey, flux and Teiko's photos and while on a trip to Australia I thought I'd have a shot at doing a sunrise. Woke at 4am, which was a bit early but once I was up I thought it best to stay awake. Ended up leaving a bit late and arrived at Monavale beach just in time to see some colour in the sky. I wasn't sure what I'd have to shoot at (ISO) so I brought everything. Hasselblad with the Distagon 50mm, Planar 80mm and Sonar 150mm, a load of Kodak epp, GP and a bit of Provia 400x, my Canon 1D mark 3 with a 35mm prime, the Horizon 35mm panoramic camera and my light meter. My bag was brimming with gear. Worried that I'd meter incorrectly, I used my Canon as a meter, which, in hindsight was a good idea.

The sky was amazing. Basically exactly like it is in the picture. After being away from Australia for so long I couldn't understand why the beach was not full of people. Instead, to my complete joy, there was almost no one there. One swimmer in the pool, a few joggers on the beach...the atmosphere was fantastic. Just the sound of crashing waves and this amazing sky that was changing by the minute.

Going out on the rocks (near where the pole in the photo is) was my biggest worry. I wore my shoes, worried that I'd slip with 2 camera's and a bag full of lenses which was a bit of a mistake. Ended up having to trash the shoes. During the shoot I discovered the tide coming in which made for some seriously wet jeans and a slightly wet camera bag but no real damage done.

Managed to take 11 rolls while I was out before it got too light.

And to finish off the morning I found a great cafe close by serving excellent lattes, muffins and fresh fruit and yogurt.

If you have a chance to go to Sydney I highly recommend shooting a beach sunrise. But do yourself a favor and make sure you know a great cafe near by for after. It's the only way to finish off a morning.

Interesting to note that none of my pictures turned out anything like those who inspired me. Credit though goes to Mike Stacey for the location. I use to live in Monavale for a time and after seeing his picture just thought it made sense to go back since I knew the area.

Rolleiflex

Shot from the new Rolleiflex. Cake doesn't look that good in monochrome but with a Rolleinar 2 the tones become super soft.Shot on TMAX400-2 @800 developed in D76