There is no future in retro®
I saw a a gallery of photos in the underground walkway between Hibiya and Ginza station. Not the most glamourous exhibition space I suppose. Nonetheless, the prints were nice to look at (taken on film, printed digitally as it turned out) and I recommend looking at the website. Might be a little difficult to navigate without understanding Japanese, just click on the photo next to the camera for the series. Oh, and don’t bother with the cats.
Fujifilm Acros 8×10, Rodinal 1+25 9m drum processed, Globe portrait lens (1880s), Fuji TONE Gaslight Contact Printing Paper
I was shooting from the footbridge when this lady got curious. I let her look on the GG and eventually asked to have her picture taken. Her mother is ill and she wanted to send this to her. Print on its way (hope I can find the address again). Something that appears like fogging on the leg area…
Fujifilm Acros 8×10, Rodinal 1+25 9m drum processed, Globe portrait lens (1880s), Fuji TONE Gaslight Contact Printing Paper
Unfortunately the negative has a flaw, you will see it looking at the nose area: a vertical stripe. Not sure what caused it, but suspect processing. Focus is not on the eyes, but just about works. Lens to subject distance about 0.5m, made for nice bellows extension (which I forgot to compensate for)… ho hum.
Daido, c’est moi.
I am enjoying this film at the moment. ISO 6 and the high contrast makes some interesting shooting and processing. Full set here.
Finally I found the Fuji TONE WP printing paper for contact printing. I have to add that I have not wet printed for a long time and especially never with the Fuji materials (paper developer today was Fuji Super-Korectol-L).
First things first: it is an RC paper, medium weight and it is glossy. That probably violates several commandments of the fine art photography world. This is probably a disappointment for some people, but not for me. Here’s why:
Like meeting a rude person, what first strikes you is the lack of sensitivity of this paper. My other stock (Fuji Bromide, RC, graded) had exposures between 1-2s with my setup, which is why I have a darkroom timer hooked up to the bulb. With this paper I exposed for 100-150 seconds! Yes, that is very long but I found it gives me amazing precision for exposure (no fractions of seconds to worry about) and even a kitchen timer will do. The lack of sensitivity should also be beneficial for people with makeshift darkrooms that are not totally light tight (within reason).
So for me this paper will become my new standard stock at least for work prints and proofing. It helped me already making better prints because of the longer exposures. You can dodge as much as you want in that time period and really look at the negative in the contact printer while thinking what to do with it.
The prints themselves show a very pleasant tonality as far as I am concerned. Contrast just right for me at grade 3 (a matter of taste and how your negatives look like; I have seen last stocks of grade 2 version, but going forward it will only be made in 3). The image is crisp and blacks are rich and deep where you want them. Overall the grey is nice and neutral. This is a very user-friendly paper for contact printing and I am very pleased with it. Unfortunately I was told earlier this week that Fuji paper prices will go up by 10-20% in summer so I will stock up a bit.
As always, this Japan-only product is on sale in the Megaperls Japan Webshop.
As perhaps the archetypical oyaji camera shop they were certainly never the friendliest, but had a solid selection of used cameras in all formats including large format at reasonable prices. This is like Shinbashi itself. No visit to the area would be complete without a quick browse at Ohba Camera. After 60 years in business, they are no more since 30 Apr 08. What a shame.
I picked up a copy of Commercial Photo Special today in the shop on professional retouching. I flicked through the Photoshop techniques but had trouble identifying the retouching as the images looked perfectly normal. In that moment it became perfectly clear that there is plenty of work for us to do.
Thanks to its lightness, the clamping technique works extremely well with the Chamonix 45N.
Most people will know Andy Summers as the guitarist of The Police, but he has also been an active photographer for many years. This is from an interview in B&W magazine:
There is always a spirit of experimentation with photography. You never settle on one particular way of working, I don’t think.
On digital:
I’m not happy with digital. I think it has been forced upon us. I shot this tour digitally with Canon gear but I was not happy with it at all. I felt like I wasn’t connected to my shots any more. Digital is so disposable and people seem to loose sight of composition and basic camera craft. They become result orientated and not into the moment. Digital is information. Film is nature. It’s the alchemy between light and silver that turns me on. That magic is not there for me with a microchip.
The film vs. digital comments are so distracting by now and you tend to dismiss anything or anyone stating them and you get into the Cd vs. vinyl thing. Also I am always uncomfortable when people over 50 years old make such statements, but I suppose those are experienced folks and the people we should ask for experience, not the 20 year olds.Nonetheless I think he makes some interesting points that resonated with me, especially the first statement and the part about becoming result-orientated. I actually think musicians have a lot of credibility because there are certain commonalities between the media that lets you draw parallels. Also in music they have had digital recording for a long time and get nobody has given up electric guitars for synthesizers (well, they tried in the 80s).
