The bad news is that the sun was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I knew instantly that the uncoated heliar wouldn’t be able to cope with the angle of the light and everything I wanted to photograph had low sun behind it. Double rats.

However…

I loathe photographing stuff like this but I had loaded the film in the camera and for all I know it will rain non-stop for the next two weeks. This one didn’t turn out too badly considering it is a 10.5cm lens handheld at about 1/60 sec.

I also quite liked the spinyness. It’s a Mahonia I think. If I remember, they have yellow flowers with a heavy drop dead gorgeous lily-of-the-valley scent, particularly in the evenings. We’ll have to return soon because I think they flower early in the year.

The light was incredibly harsh and contrasty here and the hanging things looked 3D in the light.

And now for some serious flare

Dark and moody/murky. I’ll have to rig up some sort of homebrew lens hood like James Ravillious did with his Leica. He shot into the sun too and had a large cardboard contraption on his Summicron.

Likewise this one

We met a woman visiting the fields who said she was as old as the camera. She had gone to school round the corner but had moved away. We were looking out over the remains of the dog track above and she hadn’t known about its demise, so long had it been since she left the area.

Ladder

Don’t really know. I suspect it is not the first two because I am happy to fire away on the VB 1, same vintage, same neg size. I think I have lower expectations of the Voigter f/6.3 lens on the VB 1 (not really justified) than the Heliar on the VB RF. The 1936  f/3.5 Heliar on the VB RF is certainly a lens to hold in some awe, partly because it isn’t that common any more and to some is very collectible. I’m a user though and I like using this particular camera. I get the nagging feeling that I’m not doing the lens justice though.

Mirror

This platform down on the beach at Deptford Wharf fairly obviously mirrors the shapes of Canary Wharf in the background. I find myself getting a bit cliched when I start thinking how the platform is a reflection of the inner malaise of the financial centre over the river.

I used to have a recurring dream where I was sitting on the top of Greenwich Park overlooking Canary Wharf when all of a sudden it is engulfed in a mushroom cloud and an explosion of unimaginable violence. What is left (I would imagine, because I woke up at this point in a cold sweat every time) would be very similar to this decayed structure. I haven’t had that dream for a while though. It was pre 9/11 and 7/7 too.

Have I ever said how much I detest the new architecture of Canary Wharf? Unimaginative corporate boxes. We could learn such a lot from the French on this one. Or gag Prince Charles.*

Futurist and forward looking it is not. There are no standout buildings that make me think WOW (like the Lloyds Building or the Gherkin in the City). The whole place is a collection of new, dreary (large scale) pattern-build offices patrolled by an army of private police. For me, the only highlight is invisible because it is underground – the Jubilee Line station is outstanding, especially the escalator ride down into the cavernous interior from the unassuming entrance. But that is nothing to do with Canary Wharf because those wonderful imaginative underground station architectures are replicated throughout the whole of the Jubilee Line extension.

Another mirror

Same idea, though I’ve not not had this dream. Yet… There is a plane flying over the Pepys Estate, for once it isn’t dust on the neg. Could it be a John Betjemin moment

I was able to get these shots because the tide was right out, normally the Thames is lapping around the base of this platform. It was muddy though. Thames mud sticks like the proverbial poo and if you are not careful you will get stuck in it.

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* 17/08/2009: a couple of days go by after writing this when I read this article. What exactly are the architectural and aesthetic qualifications of this unelected meddling philistine? Prince Charles is a dangerous anachronism who still seems to believe in divine right. Presumably this is entirely in keeping with his belief in ‘traditional values’ (what exactly are those values Prince?).

Up against the wall I say, if for nothing else than his crimes against innovative architecture (as well as being a parasitic royal whoring off the UK etc etc etc). What a fuckwit.

On Saturday we went out early because I wanted to photograph a derelict area just below the Orchard Estate in Coldbath Street. Early, because I didn’t really want to meet inquisitive people. It didn’t go to plan…

It is a big space overlooked by several big blocks of flats and I didn’t want the occupants thinking I was pointing a camera at their windows. It isn’t the kind of place to do that. After I took this photo I got the sensation that I was being watched so I looked up. Staring down at me from a balcony were three enormous Pit-bulls. As we made eye-contact they started barking, deeply and with echoing resonance. And of course Gizmo felt obliged to bark back. Friends! That was most peoples Saturday lay in shattered and all hopes of photographing surreptitiously blown away as faces came to windows. Exit pursued by howling…

Just around the corner, some garages. Inverted As or Vs with a line through?

Well, we drank coffee in Blackheath and around noon when the sun was overhead I grabbed these shadows in the playground

Spot the dog part 1

We needed no excuse to clamber down and get totally filthy in the sticky Thames mud. God knows what would have happened if I’d dropped the cameras.

Waiting for Canute?

Paydirt! It was worth getting filthy for the photo of that chair. Below Tate & Lyles (or whatever it is called now) the wharves revealed interesting shapes.

What holds the factory up

These blocks are covered in seaweed and river muck and it is very atmospheric down there. I was keeping in mind the 5 meter tidal reach (I don’t know if it is 5m but it sticks in my mind somewhere) and had my eye on the river. The whole thing is usually submerged at high tide.

Underneath

Above and below

Above

Tons and tons of concrete. Kate couldn’t find out where the hopper emptied its contents though.

Obviously there is a strong nautical theme here too. The photos below are of the old:

Focus was on the Ragged Robin plant growing up through the boat

Nice anchor…

And this is the (slightly) newer:

Compared to the past, the Thames is as empty of shipping as my bathtub. If you ever have a chance look at some of the Port of London Authority’s historical DVDs of the docks. And cry How times have changed.

The beach revealed some interesting items and shapes

Spot the dog part 2…

Spooky huh? Looks like a Staffie/Pit skull too judging by the teeth and shape (bottom left corner)

I just liked the shapes here and think they fit 6×6 very well.

Finally, WTF is this?

Seems too elaborate for a flagpole. Could it be for semaphore?

I took the Voigtlander Bessa RF and the Zeiss Super Ikonta. Tis obvious which took the pix, 6×6 and 6×9. The huge negs from the Voigtander are amazing to look at and it perfoms very well for a camera that is approaching its 80th birthday. The Ikonta is a mere stripling in its 50′s. I’ve yet to get the scanning of these medium format negs sorted out. I may have to adjust the height of the film holder by a millimeter.

The film was FP4+ at box speed souped in Rodinal 1+50 for 15 minutes. Now I’ve run out of Rodinal…

Some of my photography books and a view put of the window – at once! The railway bisects the bookcase neatly, I couldn’t have done this if I had tried.

Sometimes I like these mistakes, but with only eight 6×9 negs on a roll, I’d rather not do them. This was a test roll anyway.

The camera is perfectly usable with no light leaks in the bellows, clear and fungus free lens, shutter speeds working as they should and it barely has that slightly musty smell I associate with older cameras. Cosmetically it isn’t too shabby either and looks to have been well cared for through its long life. It is without doubt a sturdy camera.

It takes 120 roll film and can produce playing-card sized 6×9 negatives or 6×4.5 with a mask (and it has the original mask). Folded, it will fit is a (largish) pocket.

So how is it to shoot?

The eagle eyed will spot two things:

(a) This is not 6×9 and (b) it is a double exposure…

I ran two rolls of FP4+ (at box speed) through the camera not realising that I had left the 6×4.5 mask in place so I only got the left half of each frame. Duh, no 6×9 luvvin on this shoot. There is no double exposure lock <hubris>I don’t need no stinking exposure lock!!!</hubris> and in my eagerness to shoot I forgot to wind the film on a couple of times on each roll. Surprisingly, I like the results!

Cool! I wish I always made mistakes like that

With a f/6.3 maximum aperture and a relatively slow film you need good light to successfully shoot handheld, especially with the 10.5cm lens, otherwise camera shake will be apparent. The shutter release is very mechanical and introduces vibration so I used a cable release and a minimum speed of 1/60 second. That was enough to be able to use f/11 and f/16 since it was a (rare) sunny morning (it is summer in London FFS, I want the sun back).

The sharpness of the lens seems pretty acceptable to me

This would be slightly more critical ‘wide open’ (yeah at f/6.3!) because you have to guess the distance and set it before you shoot. One quirk of this camera is that you need to set the distance holding the camera in portrait mode because that is where the marker on the distance scale is located as you look down. It is easy to forget this in portrait mode and of course the distance is out by 1/4 of a turn.

I was surprised at how good the contrast was. I jacked it slightly in Lightroom for the above shots but the one below is straight out of the camera

Gizmo & ‘handler’ in top left of frame.

Souped the FP4+ in Rodinal 1+50 for 15 minutes. I did two gentle inversions every 30 seconds, I might try three next time for this camera.

I’ll continue to use this Voigtander. Once the methodolgy is sorted it is surprisingly easy to use and whisper quiet. I really like it. And most importantly, it still produces good images. People’s reactions to it are amusing too.

The playground holds a particular fascination for me not least because there are usually no children playing there which is curious. It is right next to an estate, but perhaps there are more appealing playgrounds, particularly with the new developments around Old Pearson Street. I’m grateful that it is empty because I wouldn’t be able to photograph it if it was full of kids.

The geometries and shadows are what interests me, together with the slight feeling of alienation created by having a playground surrounded by slabs of gravestones. Some of the equipment is a bit grimy too. I wanted to bring this across in the photos so I used Tri-X at EI 320 (possibly 300, tis difficult to work out the scale on the Bessa-T) and developed them in HC-110 Dilution ‘H’ (1+63) for 12 minutes. I could have done with 13 mins but I got wary after the previous kites shoot which was slightly overcooked, mainly I think cos the developer went above 20C, it was such a warm day.

I used the CV 21/4 with a yellow 022 filter on the Bessa-T. The CV 21 is a fairly contrasty modern lens, wide and sharp and I tried to have foregrounds emphasised. The shapes of the playground equipment and their bases help frame the subjects. The shadows caused by the overhead sun are nicely foreshortened.

Yes it was around midday, usually a crap time for shooting but I wanted the shadows just like they are since they are such an important component. One side effect of using the Bessa-T is that everytime I used the magnificently magnified rangefinder the overhead viewfinder steamed up and got covered with sweaty suncream gunk from my forehead… yuk, enough already. A practical drawback none the less when shooting on a hot day. I may wear a scarf on my head with the Bessa-T in these conditions.

There is one picnic table next to the playground, usually surrounded by the remains of spliffs and cans of White Ace but it is a good place to drink coffee and eat honey and almond cake from the cafe round the corner (and to smoke a spliff & drink White Ace obviously). Sadly not coffee and cake from the Beehive which is also round the corner but has ceased to be a cafe.

Gizmo has dug deep holes around the base of the picnic table exposing the concrete foundations and it is obviously an ongoing project. He makes a beeline for the holes each time we go there. There must be relays of dogs working on these holes, some have become very deep, others have obviously been (temporarily) filled in by the parkies. I think the dogs will win this one. Gizmo is a supreme digger, I’m glad we haven’t got a garden. He’s probably have emerged in Wellington, New Zealand by now.

And talking of dogs, St Alfeges probably has the highest concentration of Pit-Bulls and Staffs we’ve met, including Winston Churchill, a venerable 12 year old Staff of some gravitas and girth. We have yet to meet ‘Munch’ (best name ever!) but we’ve talked to his enthusiastic owner.

Scary self portrait…

I’m pleased with these photos, I got exactly what I set out to achieve.

First a bricked up arch containing a bricked up door covered with an entrance to the fouth dimension in Millwall Park on the Isle of Dogs. Looks like sci-fi to me anyway.

Second, a child’s broken trolley abandoned on Point Hill

Third, a tree in Greenwich Park

Kind of random.

We watched a fabulous cricket match in the park. No pads, gloves, helmets etc but excellent skills. Also saw some Tamworth pigs in the Mudchute City Farm.

Point Hill is surrounded by bars, the spiky sort.

And in most shots, with the angle of this lens being so wide, these spikes intrude.

This rope hanging from this tree is vaguely ominous, it was more obvious in ‘real life’. Gizmo had dug a large hole under the bench. Tis a work in progress since he makes a beeline for it when we walk past each time

And finally… somewhere to kickback and watch the rope

Tri-X box speed, souped in T-Max Dev for 6.5 mins. Yay, there has been plenty of sun this week but here am I shooting ISO 400. So shoot me…

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…

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