Not quite Jupiter. British Museum

British Museum 09/11/2008

The adventure with film and the site is now over one year old, so it was about time.

The photo above was one of the ones that started this project off – Leica IIf RD, Summitar 50 f/2, Delta 100, DD-X 12mins. Obviously in the days when I could afford Ilford DD-X and Ilford Delta! I also rapidly lost interest in both that particular developer and film. I was going for something bombproof at the time and the combo looked good. I now prefer the older emulsions and developers, particularly when using old lenses (The Summitar on the Leica is about 60 years old, the Leica itself a mere 53 years).

Graffers welcome!

Photographing graffiti is just a bit too easy since a straightforward representation of the graf usually becomes derivative art for which the photographer inevitably takes some credit. Just look at all the Banksy ‘art’ rips online. It is too easy and for some reason, grafs are often really enhanced when viewed photographically, especially on a monitor. They have a luminance sometimes lacking in the original. And just for the sake of a counter argument it can work the other way too… see street artist Shepard Fairey filing a lawsuit against AP

Actually I wanted some quick gratification using the Nokton in low light at f/1.2 and as I happened to be in Waterloo I shot a couple of rolls of Delta 400 in the tunnel.

Suicide jesus

Interesting 3D effect, JHC!

The place looks like a set from a first person shooter game and man, is it bright with colour! The place has been graffed and over-graffed so often there is very little of the original walls, floor or ceiling. So first points to me, I’m not shooting colour, so I have to find other interest. Shape & form, content, some difference.

The toolkit

There is some really good stuff down there. Shame Thomas Jefferson can’t give us his opinion now.

The so called war on terror spells the end of privacy. What a fucking irony, hey government?

Presumably Thos J and Mark Twain are turning in their graves at the travesties of justice currently being taken with our civil liberties. Just to help the search bots find this quote a little easier lets have it in plain text, not just an image:

“On the altar of God, I pledge undying hostility to any government restrictions on the free minds of the people.”

Thomas Jefferson – the favored quote at the highest point in the Rotunda at the Jefferson Memorial.

Anyway, moving on but keeping with the surveillance/civil liberties meme, the all seeing eye. If CCTV were like this I’d stop taking drugs.

Surveillance masonic graf style

Leake Street is surprisingly long, this is just one of the side roads off it

And this looks like the exit to a new level in the game

Level completed

So I’m hoping I haven’t just ripped-off some teeny graffer’s art by photographing Leake Street. The wonderful thing is that if I go back next week it will have changed dramatically again as more crews come along and spray over what is there.

Almost unbelievably a group of people were walking along tut-tutting at the ‘mess’. Get a life people. Or walk the long way round the station if it offends you.

I used Ilford Delta Pro 400 and Ilford DD-X because I wanted a fairly ‘crisp’ modern look to these photographs. No need for a retro Rodinal treatment, the subject matter is hardly appropriate. Most of the photos were taken at f/1.2 on the Nokton due to the (lack of) light, and lets face it, because I could hehe.� I’m fairly happy with the results for a first run.� Focusing seems spot on with the Bessa-T too which is a relief with that narrow a depth of field.

So, to put it another way, my Nokton lust been gratified for a day or so.

Finally, here is one I liked, and I think it works well in B&W.

So thanks to all you unknown (to me) graf people…

 

Statement of the bleeding obvious or what…

Lets debunk a couple of things quickly:

<curmudgeon In one day 15 cms of snow achieved what Hitler and the nazis failed to do in the second world war – bring London to a halt. Outrage! />

<analyst We need to know what what the failures were that prevented people from getting to work. />

Just one word. Bollox. Londoners woke up on Monday morning to a fairy-tale winter-wonderland and from personal observation most were embracing not being able to go to work. Those sitting at home grinding their teeth because they couldn’t get in need their heads examined and perhaps ask themselves why they could not participate in one exceptional day.

I understand about loss of pay etc but even people who had lost pay were phoning Radio London in the evening saying that it was worth it. This is Central London. Last time this happened was about 20 years ago. One day lost productivity in 20 years because of snow…?

Get over it.

Stuart Jeffries in The Guardian puts it eloquently:

“For a day at least, Londoners returned to a forgotten innocence. Yesterday the headlines howled about how £2bn would be lost yesterday thanks to public transport disruption. Two words: So. What. We’re in the middle of a credit crunch and £2bn is the sort of money a hedge-fund trader might find in the lining of his Armani suit. Yesterday we stopped measuring our lives in coffee spoons, overdrafts and balance of payments deficits. It felt good.”

Also, much as I loathe Boris Johnson he was amusing in a very British way: “This is not the wrong kind of snow, just the wrong amount of snow”. You have to suffer our shite London transport system to see the nuances of that one.

Phoning sick?

Wonderland:

Greenwich Park is lovely at the worst of times. Today, cloaked in newly fallen snow it was truly beautiful. Not in some crappy Victorian throwback to a false Dickensian winter ideal but in a very modern vibrant way. People were having such fun and not being backward about it. It was noisy and busy, and most of the noise was shrieking laughter and squealing, children and adults.

Antipodean madness:

We were out of the house by about 08:30 and by the time we got to Greenwich Park it looked like most of the borough’s population had the same idea. Blackheath Common, which even on a normal day has an extraordinary sense of space and remoteness despite being bordered by busy roads seemed to stretch forever.

By this time both of us had been reduced to a childlike state when faced with the snowfall. Some of us were even behaving like we’d never seen snows before

More from the park:

Around and about:

Quaggy centre

Blackheath Common

Early morning (approx 07:00:

These were views from the window

Colour! WTF? Just to prove some trains were running…

My one regret for the day is that I did not photograph the dogs in Greenwich Park. Two particularly. First, an Airedale with a floor length jacket. All you could see was that long Airedale snout poking out at the front and tail at the back.  Second was a Highland Terrier with a mackintosh and hood. Really bizarre. All of the dogs were having immense fun. White dogs on snow are the best!

The majority of these photos were shot on the Bessa-R with the CV 28/1.9 Ultron using FP4+ rated at ISO 100. Because of the snow, I deliberately overexposed +2 or +3 stops to compensate. Don’t rely on meters in the snow. Developed the film in APH09 (Rodinal) 1+40 for 11 minutes, 10 seconds initial agitation, 2 gentle inversions every 30 seconds subsequently. I’m getting gentler & gentler with the rodinal and I think the results are showing in improved grain and sharpness.

The B&W images from the flat were taken on the Nikon F4S with the Nikkor 35-70/2.8 plus mid yellow filter, using up a roll of Neopan 1600 developed in DD-X 1+4 for 5 mins.

Colour photos are from the Nikon D300, Nikkor 24-70/2.8, ISO 200

Full gallery (note, several pages!)

I was expecting fairly crappy results (from the development , not the photos, natch) but Ilford DD-X and Neopan 1600 seems a really good combination considering the potential for grain. I’ll be using these two again.

The unexpected:

Banners:

Crowd:

Used the Bessa with the Leitz Summitar 50/2. Could have done with a wider lens and the Summitar is prone to flares without the big bucket hood. I’m using up the Delta Pro 100 & Ilford DD-X. When it has gone I’ll stick to FP4+ for ISO 100 film and use the wonderful Rodinal for developing the negs, a combination I am more happy with. Cheaper too…

King of rubbish:

This ‘beach’ is seriously blighted by rubbish. It looks like a tip. I’m trying to remember what was on this site before, some kind of warehouse or a wharf for recycling? Lots of crap left over after the demolition anyway. Copious quantities of trainers too. All washed twice a day by the tide.

Lord of light:

Lots of evidence of flare here because the sun was low and the Summitar is not at its best pointing in the direction of the light source. However, the bench glows and there is a slight air of mystery.

Embedded:

More seating

These had sunk deep. The chair looks like it has fallen from a great height.

Sad Diner:

Another broken chair here. We had coffee at the ‘London Diner’ at the Dome. Another tea-hut with a grandiose name with a woman serving coffee who has strong opnions on americano and esspresso coffee a la anglaise. I agree with her and have a filter coffee instead. The crap they call esspresso from the machine they have there is unspeakably bad.

Boneyard toys:

Fisher-Price. Indestructible. Looks like a dinosaur pelvis to me.

More Fisher-price crap. It is having a laugh. You can see the rubbish behind…

Meta-trash:

A trash-can in a trash heap. Recursive or what. It wasn’t the only one. Where do you throw the trash cans?

And finally, da da da:

There is only one caption for this.

Fuck..

Full gallery

These are contrasty, which I like. First time with FP4+. Didn’t have the nerve to do the roll in Rodinal, perhaps next time!

More:

No benches…

Full gallery

It was very dank and overcast but good for graveyards. Also empty…

Some of the negs have spots on them, like dust, only lots speckles. I’m wondering if the yellow filter is contributing. Could be I blew cigarette smoke/ash over them, or borked the agitation somehow, or let bubbles form in the tank, or the scanner’s mirror is dusty. Who knows. Hopefully it isn’t indicative of shutter problems However, I’ve included them because I like the compositions and textures.

The shots were underexposed because I forgot to compensate for the yellow filter, factor 1… doh. However, exposure is improving, as is zone focussing and guessing distance. Thank God for hyperfocal distance and its margin for error as you stop down.

Textures, tones and shapes

I really like this on of the ‘street’ of graves/tombs

The walls of the graveyard are lined with  gravestones like this. Lined up to die. errrr, dead already

Finally, no shoot would be complete without the obligarory bench/seat/chair etc. Except this one is pukka, not abandoned. I just like the perspective. The empty beer bottle may indicate one use for this graveyard. It ain’t mine either…

See the full gallery here

I shot two rolls of Tri-X at box speed and developed one  in APH09 1+40, 12 mins, 30 seconds gentle inversions followed by two every 60 seconds, the other in DD-X 1+4, 8 minutes, standard Ilford recommended agitation. Used the Nikon F4s, 35-70 f/2.8, yellow filter for contrast. This camera is a beast at the best of times, but compared to the Leica If is is a behemoth.

Two comparable shots taken within minutes of each other, end of one roll, beginning of the other. DD-X top, Rodinal bottom:

The Rodinal show more grain, but I have yet to nail the development technique. I got so scared of overdeveloping I erred on the cautious side and probably underdeveloped. One more, showing grain and sharpness.

The DD-X shows (to me anyway) pleasing light and dark

The Rodinal highlights textures

I most definately LIKE Tri-X. It may well become the film of choice, dunno why I haven’t joined the herd before.

• More images from the roll developed in DD-X
• More images from the roll developed in Rodinal