Nunhead Cemetery is now my test-bed de jour in favour of St Alfege. While not exactly ‘haunting’ the place (lol), we’ve visited it twice in the last week and I thought it would be fun to take some photos with a ‘newer’ Rolleiflex and compare them to those taken with the 73 year old from last week. The Automat Model 1 is probably older than many of the residents. The 2.8F is a mere 34 years old but it does have a f/2.8 Planar lens which should theoretically blow the socks off the f/3.5Tessar in terms of quality, corner sharpness etc etc – but not necessarily signature.
I am fascinated by this angel, I’ve photographed it before and it can be seen below in a previous post ‘Angel Dog’. Sadly, the chief photo-tart wasn’t playing today so we have it to ourselves.
It is hard to photograph corroded and broken statuary sharply, the stone surfaces look ‘soft’ because they are eaten away by pollutants, but this is probably as good as I’ll get it.
This has to be one of the most imploring angels I’ve come across, and I’ve known a few having suffered a very religious upbringing. I carried the anger and guilt for a long while until I was able to discard it, but the artistic legacy is huge and I appreciate that more now that I know how to disassociate religion from faith and spirituality.
One of the obvious differences between the lenses is that there is background bokeh madness wide-open, and, the f/2.8 is usable wide open!
The last two times we’ve been to Nunhead Cemetery people have come up to me and said “Is that a Rolleiflex?” (I love that!). Yesterday, it turns out the guy who asked had toured the factory in the early 1960s (swoon), was quite knowledgeable about them and regretted not having one. Curiously though, he wasn’t a photographer but an engineer and liked them as objects. I’m in both camps, it gives me a thrill to photograph with these cameras but I like to frotilise them too hehe. One of mine is on my desk more often than not because they are such a pleasure to view! Maybe you have to have one to appreciate that…
And here is a crucified angel. Like so much of Nunhead Cemetery you are left to imagine where this once was.
Of course, the cemetery is not just chock full of angels.
There are complicated graves and simple ones
I wonder who ‘Harry Boy’ was.
The impression you get when walking through this cemetery is that the Victorians had money and spent a large proportion of it on their memorials/afterlife. These are the memorials of people who thought they were worth remembering and they display ostentation even when dead. The costs of some of these marble monuments must have been staggering.
Personally, I think not. I can’t even be bothered by the ‘celebrity’ graves either. So what? Most of them are suburban pyramids and the irony is that nobody cares for them now. It is the tumbledown chaos that is interesting to me, not the names on the gravestones and I’m guessing the Victorians could not have believed they wouldn’t be here forever.
If you read Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor (the classic study of the culture of poverty and the criminal classes in the 1840′s) you will know where most Victorians ended up. Not with a monument in Nunhead Cemetery. Most likely vertically in a 6+ paupers’ grave with no memorial. I bear this in mind when getting too excited about Nunhead, it is a very narrow legacy and not at all representative.
More like it! The cemetery is also filled with more ordinary graves, some even simpler than this.
For the record, I don’t know where any of my family is buried/interred/scattered/whatever.
Yes, the Planar on the 2.8F is ‘better’ in terms of IQ and the ability to use it at f/2.8. The viewing screen is superb, but, but… I get a real kick out of using the Automat Model 1!
If only I could find a lens cover for it though! Difficult because there is no bayonet on the viewing lens. Most of the covers seem to have been broken or discarded and the Automat Model 1 is the only Rollei with no bayonet on the viewing lens and there aren’t that many left today.
Why stag beetles? The first photo is of a stag beetle colony. Looks more like the grave I would like to be buried in though
by skinnyvoice
show hide 2 comments
I’ve been out shooting churches & churchyards the last couple of days. Unfortunately I’ve not come across anything like the angels you find.
I may even try some Rodinal now that it’s arrived when I finish the roll of FP4.
P.S Where’s Gizmo?
I think Nunhead Cemetery is a rich source of angels. London has seven of these cemeteries known as the ‘magnificent seven’. Highgate is even more atmospheric but is closed most of the time. Abney Park in Stoke Newington is good too but less ramshackle.
Gizmo was pinching another dog’s ball when I was photographing the imploring angel. Because I like to shoot from a low viewpoint his usual trick is to appear directly in front of the camera and obscure everything just as I’m ready to press the shutter. Too regularly for it to be chance…
With the Rodinal, I’d recommend 1+50 and whatever time suits the EI you shot the FP4 at. I’m not sure of the benefits of stand developing 35mm. The 1+50 will give you a baseline to compare other methods should you want to try them. Rodinal needs *gentle* inversion to avoid excessive contrast and grain. I do 2 careful inversions every 30 seconds following 30 seconds (not particularly gentle) initial agitation. Less is definitely more with Rodinal and I wish I had taken more notice of this advice when I started.
It is worth doing a search for ‘acutance’ (edge contrast) too if you are not familiar with it. Rodinal excels since it is a high acutance developer.
Hope that helps!