The place is full of old containers. I’m assuming they contain something. Or somebody.

The boats seem nowhere near the sea, and some probably wouldn’t get far if they were launched.

I like the sharpness.

The day was spectacularly bright and sunny and warm and there is a real sense of dislocation from busy deptford just around the corner

Obviously you have to get past the Guardian of Point Hill first

Gizmo looking fierce

Once up there we can enjoy the view

From Point Hill we usually walk through Greenwich Park. Today was particularly good because somebody was playing the saxophone at the top of the hill

I recognised the music, I’ve heard John Coltrane playing it many times but I can’t remember what the title is. These guys didn’t speak a word of English either which made it difficult to find out. It could have been Naima. Whatever, it was haunting and beautiful, one of my all time favourite sounds

Sometimes I see unexpected things such as this junction box looking festooned and gorgeous

Or these leaves catching the light in a really horrible brick alley

This table fascinates me and I’ve photographed it before. It is in the garden of a derelict house but looks ready to be laid for a meal.

Following this, we went up to Parliament Square to photograph the Tamil independence demo (below)

Some people leaving the demo

Which left me with a shedload of films to develop…

Oh well, time to go out again, tis another sunny day in London hehe

Last time I photographed Blackheath Fair I think I had a Nikon D200 coupled with the Nikkor 85/1.4 AFD. I used absurdly high shutter speeds to keep the aperture as wide open as possible because I really like the quality of the out-of-focus areas areas produced by this lens  (ie bokeh, a qualitative term that doesn’t just reference the areas not in focus, but has more to do with how they are rendered). Used wide open the Nikkor 85/1.4 has absurdly smooth and creamy bokeh. The depth of field is only millimetres wide at f/1.4 and demands accurate focusing. At the time I left it to the D200′s autofocus and motordrive and wasn’t unhappy with the results. Lazy lazy… Looking back, the photos were a bit gimmicky and not a little cliched. The usual kind of shots that you take because you can with that superb lens. It is after all one of its main reasons for being in existence.

So this year we went along to the fair at dusk with the M6, the CV 35/1.2 and a roll of T-Max P3200 pulled to 1600. No autofocus, no colour, no motordrive and an even faster lens than the 85/1.4, the CV 35/1.2 Nokton with an even shallower depth of field. Looking back, I was asking for problems.

The T-Max P3200 film is new to me. Silverprint, my film shop of choice reckons Neopan 1600, my fast film of choice, is no longer being produced. Which is a shame ‘cos I was just beginning to learn how to get to grips with it. Time to move on. I’ve got 5 rolls of Neopan in the fridge which I’ll use while I get my head around the T-Max.

I had great expectations anyway. I love fairgrounds. Particularly the lights and movement and this is what I set out to capture. It didn’t happen though, for a variety reasons. The rides I wanted to photograph move very fast so I had to prefocus the M6 on the point I anticipated that I wanted to shoot. Since the rides seemed to be flying past at about 100kph, pressing the shutter at the right moment (ie before the subject arrived in the viewfinder) is kind of critical with such narrow depths of field. I know now that I really need to practice this… which is one positive.

The ‘defining moment’ flew past too fast each and every time… having an 8fps motordrive on the SLR has spoiled my technique badly. It is just so easy with the D300 to gobble 100 frames very quickly and track the subject. The shot above isn’t even anywhere near wide open either, I found it too difficult

Ho hum, back to skool.

I wasn’t the only one taking photos. Look at the background in the photo above and you can see another fairground ‘attraction’. Yes, the boys from the Met had a gigantic mobile CCTV rig and a large presence. How reassuring. Not.

Another ‘problem’ was that despite (or because of) following Kodak’s development instructions I overdeveloped the film. The recommendations for T-Max P3200 @ EI1600 is 8.5 mins at 20C with 5-7 agitations for 5 seconds every 30 seconds. Seemed like a lot of agitation to me and I seriously think it was too much in this case. My initial feeling was right. I’ll reduce the agitation next time and hopefully the results will be less muddy. It also looks like the optimum results could be gained by developing at 24C rather than 20C with a shorter dev time. 24C is what The Massive Dev Chart recommends.

This one was a bit easier because they weren’t flying past me so fast… Likewise the chef

So all in all, a bit of a learning experience. For the dog too. I was expecting some problems because I’d expect a fairground to cause some confusion for a dog. Looks like Gizmo is fairly bombproof though.

Greenwich Park

The day before, we’d been walking the dog in the park (he loves it, we love it, win win). The magnolia trees are flowering and they are simply gorgeous. The M6 was loaded with Tri-X and souped in T-Max.

I like the bokeh from the Summarit 35/2.5

The petals are falling and covering the ground

This photo of the Rangers House at the top of the park shows (to me) some of the old school qualities of the Summarit. I like the slightly ‘timeless’ feel of this shot as well as the textures and lines.

The weather

Well you have to laugh really. After two weeks of really great weather, the Easter weekend (so far) has been pretty crap. Murky, cloudy, warm and wet (in London anyway). I don’t think it has even been warm on the coast. In recession Britain The Guardian newspaper has been extolling the value of a traditional English seaside break including caravans, camping, canvas etc to save the pennies. Presumably the previous two weeks have lulled the sunseekers into a false sense of security because now the chattering classes are probably shivering in their campsites wondering why the fuck they didn’t go to Morocco after all. I can’t remember an Easter weekend that has had good weather to be honest although I’m sure that isn’t true. It just seems that way.

How English.

On the way there we pass this plant pot behind bars. Rob had clocked its feet on a previous walk. They look uncannily like Gizmo’s large paws and they make me laugh every time I pass them. There is even what looks like a puddle of pee behind this very sociable pot.

You follow a small track to reach the park and at this point you could perhaps be forgiven for thinking that you are not in the city. It has a primeval feel to it and this part is surreal.

Rounding the corner, these steps lead up to the park itself.

Spot the dog…

The steps lead up to, ahem, the ‘point’ of the park. One of my top 3 London views is the approach to the Royal Observatory from the Blackheath Common direction and the sudden jaw dropping view across London that reveals itself. Well, IMHO, Point Hill is up there too because when you get to the top of the steps the view is very similar. But you first have to turn around at the top of the steps – and there it is in front of you, the view over London. More of a sudden impact than the Observatory view. An added bonus is that you are alone (at least when I have been there) and not surrounded by 1000′s of tourists (literally). It is a far more private space and almost feels like a well kept secret.

Almost. I am sure it is not such a great secret. The cans of White Ace cider and Skol Extra Strength lager by the benches and in the bins (responsible drinkers…) attest to the fact that some drinking clubs are improving their topographical aesthetic too…

No, I didn’t take a photo of the view, just the metadata about how to enjoy it. Pompous lol. Although it was a sunny day there was a great deal of haze. The 35mm lens wouldn’t have done it justice either. Maybe I’ll try after rain with the CV 21/4 which is a surprisingly sharp little lens. Or maybe I’ll just keep it to myself.

Used Tri-X at box speed souped in T-Max Dev for 6.5 mins which is currently my fave combination. The Summarit 35/2.5 is showing signs of being the sharpest lens I’ve used on a rangefinder and despite its modernity has the signature of Leica’s older lenses which I use on the LTMs. Which for me is a very good thing

The rest of the photos

So I photographed it… I haven’t quite got it right yet, but I like the visual pun. Both Rob and I thought that it looked like a sticky-backed manhole that was peeling away. The sun was right, shining on the metal cover and the tree shadow adds interest.

These steps are nondescript but from a low angle they promise something. The brickwork is full of receding perspectives and conflicting lines. The only thing missing is somebody going up the steps. Maybe next time, we walk past them often.

This highlight is on the Greenwich magazine lying in the doorway of the disused building behind the Magistrates Court. I can’t believe anybody has been reading them. Who reads the council’s freebies?

But they do look like they have been left there. I’d expect more if they had been dumped, and less tidily placed. Perhaps somebody has been reading them.

RIP Guildford Arms

Looks like a gravestone or two. Or breasts. Or I am twisted.

On the other side of the road is the piercing place where they replaced the ball in my pinna piercing for nothing. Nice people.

Not wishing to go on about Lee Friedlander’s self-portraits, but here is another one of mine.

This is a photograph I will return to. I’m not sure the 35mm lens does it justice. The Catholic church rises above the steep slope with the benches facing the view. The sun was out and the steeple looked far more imposing. I haven’t been able to it justice

Next time I’ll get the steeple between the benches and try to get an even lower perspective. And wait for the sun. And people sitting on the benches. And and and and… luckily, with the dog I have the excuse. This time I couldn’t move to where I wanted because it was full of people soaking up the sun. Gizmo raced over to some women as his wont and then saw a previous girlfiend who was really a boyfriend (large staffie). Then it became difficult to use the camera.

The common denominator here is Tri-X. The reels were developed in T-Max Dev and Rodinal. The Rodinal photos were over-developed and suffered slightly with grain, the T-Max worked well – I’m a fan. I’ve replaced the CV 35/2.5 with the Leica Summarit 35/2.5 with no regrets. Both are small lenses.

I’ve tried two methods so far. First, box speed, 1+80, with stand development for 60 minutes. Minimal agitation for 10 seconds to start, then nothing more. Because of the dilution, I did this in a 450 ml tank to get the right amount of developer (ie 5mls of Rodinal in 395mls of water) sloshing around the film, with one filled and one empty spiral. The 250 ml tank wouldn’t have had enough developer in the solution from what I read. The results were interesting:

I like this image, it seems sharp (and to me, paradoxically dreamy) and I can live with the grain. However, the light was poor and I had to use the Summaron fairly wide open at around f/4 or f/5.6 with a slowish shutter speed. I was wildly guessing exposure too, since sunny f/16 seems a distant memory.

Today, after more torrential rain, the sun unexpectedly put his hat on and came out to play. I took the opportunity to wander down the Southbank since it is always good for photos (and I am beginning to feel like a stalker around the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich where I shoot most of my test rolls).

The light was bright when it wasn’t obscured by clouds – sudden and dramatic changes in lighting were the norm. I wanted to get the exposure right so I would know that wasn’t a factor if the results were crap, so I took along the little Sekonic L208 as an aide.

There were some great subjects, particularly the sculpted, brutalist and dramatically sunlit architecure of the Royal Festival Hall. The sun and shadows on the concrete reminded me of some rock climbs, the edges were really well defined, looked ‘imposing’ and I thought ‘jackpot’.

Hubris 101… I only had Fomapan 400 with me and it was a little too bright for it. Top shutter speed of the If is 1/500 so I shot the roll pulled at EI 200. I’ve read that Fomapan is not a true ISO 400 film anyway.

How to develop? Despite everything, some pixie in me fancied the APH09 (from now on I’ll call it Rodinal), so I hunted the net for stuff on pulled Fomapan 400 and found 16-18 minutes with minimal 2 inversions every 5 minutes. This was appealing. Unfortunately the results turned out to be somewhat underwhelming.  Overdeveloped, lumpy and grainy. Some of the subject matter was suited to this though.

Here is a selection of the photos:

This works OK for me. The grain etc works well in this context and it seems sharp.

These two appeal to me too, interesting light and dark.

However, this one below would benefit from less visible grain I think (and a lens slightly wider than 3.5cms). The light was working really well on it but it isn’t immediately obvious. And the person walking behind should jump out at the viewer a bit more to scale the composition.

However, the ones that got away were a bit heartbreaking. There was a lovely shot  of a chef smoking a cigarette, framed nicely in the skateboard park (what I used to call Cardboard City where the homeless people lived in the 1980s) – he was oblivious to me taking the shot and it was a great candid portrait. However, it looked like a 100% enlargement from a much bigger image, the pointillist grain just destroyed it. Scream…

The pictures of the RfH were muddy as hell and simply don’t look good, I couldn’t even bring myself to scan them. Sculpturally they were gorgeous and for some reason there was nobody there. The big sheer faces of the concrete weren’t defined well enough even though the light and shadow really threw them into relief. A lost opportunity I think, but soooo close.

Bottom line is that I don’t really quite know what to expect being new to this etc etc (grrrr…). What is acceptable? How personal is what is acceptable? Is what I’m doing achievable with this combo?  Are my neophyte developing skills militating against good results, and so on?  Do I have unrealistic expectations of a ISO 400 film? I haven’t enough experience to compare except by looking at results from other people and that is doing my head in. Most people obviously only post images they are fairly happy with and proud of – we don’t usually get to see the real dogs. And I believe HCB himself had a few of those. He certainly cocked-up his coverage of the 1968 Paris student riots.

However, for some subject matter, both the stand-development, and the longer agitated development, the grain works well (IMHO) in the photos shown above, I like the grittyness of the latter and the slight dreamy quality of the former. But I’ll have to experiment more. I found the results from the Foma 100 with Rodinal just what I was looking for (images a few posts below).

2nd bottom line – I’m getting to know what to expect from this developer/film combo so I know what to concentrate on in future. However, the Foma 400 has nearly run out and I’ve replaced it with Tri-X for a new experience. And I’ve read a great deal about Rodinal with this venerable old film. Some hate it, others (usually high ranking cadres of the High Church of Rodinal) love it. I’m really hoping I’ll be in the latter group

Once I’ve found the combo I like I will stick with it. At this stage I’d be mad to ignore the sweetie box, who knows what I might be missing. Fomapan is cheap and worth experimenting with although relatively little data is available. Tri-X has something like 50 years on the clock, so there is lots of data and a huge number of photos available.

<Rubbing hands with anticipation />