I went to support the people of Gaza at a rally in Trafalgar Square. Hopefully also to get some images of the protest in circulation since there seemed to absolutely no coverage in the mainstream media despite the presence of snappers and news crews in the press area (not very many though, to be sure).
The stewards were officious. Queues for the press to get onto the podium area. One snapper� down, another up. Not a good way to encourage press coverage. It was easier to circulate in the area under the podium but there was hardly a scrum except predictably when flags were burned.
I decided to use film rather than the digi to the wry amusement of some of the other hacks. Four rolls of Tri-X later, I too was questioning my sanity. 148 negatives to develop and process… another roll still in the camera.
I shot Tri-X at box speed on the Nikon F4S – the old workhorse of 20 years ago. Mine is working flawlessly today. Coupled with a Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 zoom. Lightweight it isn’t and it is built like a brick shithouse. All the controls are analogue and all of them are where the fingers expect them to be. Tis like some kind of photographer race-memory made real, the ergonomics are perfect and as a result the camera is very simple and fast to use.
Developing was done in APH09 (rodinal) at 1+40 for 11 minutes at 20C. 10 seconds initial agitation followed by two (gentle) inversions every 30 seconds. Had to do two batches which added to the pain since I’ve only got a two-spiral 35mm tank. Well, I have a huge tank but it takes four 120mm spirals so probably about eight 35mm spirals. I only have three (so far…)
I really like this combination for this kind of work. The Tri-X is fast enough to keep the shutter speeds high in order to catch movement and with the 80-200mm open at f/2.8 it gives really good foreground and background blur (bokeh, the quality of which I would describe as creamy if these were in colour). Using Rodinal will inevitably show grain, but with increased sharpness. I have no problem with the grain and I think it adds something to these images. It is film FFS, not digital…
And of course these are in B&W. Another way of thinking about the final image since there is no colour interest.
The protesters:
The children:
The speakers:
The weird:
Higher res images can be found at my other photography site, snapsthoughts.com
by skinnyvoice
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