We were all there a few months ago.  Back when we thought this Covid-19 threat would lock us up for about a month or so and then life would continue on.  We all thought about the opportunity this would give us to learn something new, or to tackle something that we have been wanting to for some time.  Many of us failed miserably, demanding things of ourselves while we were in the middle of a global pandemic might have been a bit ambitious....

Well I signed up for a photography class on story telling through photography. The principal behind the class was to reduce the dependence on a single image to carry the entire story, and allow the story to unfold through a series of photographs. The class was on-line, and held each Friday night. I was able to get my work done then join the class, or if I missed it, it would be recorded and I could catch up later. 

Lesson 1:
The first project was to shoot 18-24 images of a typical day for us in quarantine. I decided to use my iPhone for this one, as the idea was to capture your daily routine from beginning to end. The iPhone is always with me, and lets be honest, the camera it comes with these days is really amazing. 

But the lesson behind the project was to show us that 18-24 images is SO MANY PICTURES! You would think that in a digital age, it would be easy to snap 18-24 images of your day, but consider that the images would be seen by the entire class, so the message had to be clear, the subject obvious and the composition pleasing. 

With some careful thought and planning, you can tell an intricate story with five or six images. Any real work, beyond this is really an intricate project. 

Lesson 2:
The second lesson was to study some great documentary photographers, starting with the Farm Security Administration. I knew of their work especially that of Dorothea Lange and saw many of their images before but then we were introduced to Jacob Riis work, and I had never seen it before. Photographs of the New York slums really reached out beyond their dusty history and really hit home. 

We were introduced then to Bernd & Hilla Becher, as a way to balance out documentary photographer created to drive social change (as in the FSA and Riis) and move towards a documentary project for the sake of art. This is a German Couple that went around Europe and the US for decades shooting pictures of industrial plants. The created an amazing collection of beautiful images of massive plants and water tanks.

We then went on to see the work of Diego Levy, a photojournalist who created a project around B&W images of scenes where damage has occurred, often with blood. His wide angle, close up shots with flash are reminiscent of Weegee.  

The real lesson here is that different photographers can approach a story from different angles but if a body of work is going to continue dozens of images it requires significant dedication.  The photographers listed above all tackled long term projects and created art but it required time and sacrifice. 

Lesson 3:
We then moved on to Larry Sultan, another long term project but this time in amazing color. This was a radical departure to what we had seen before.  Here he is shooting the retirement of his parents and their life in a very colorful, plastic world. The other documentary images were all in B&W and this one really hit us with its use of color. 

A documentary does not have to fit into a stereotype. It can reach out and grab the viewer and shake them up. This is not necessary, but if wielded correctly, a camera can impact not just through the message (such as FSA) but also through the medium. 

Lesson 4:
We went back over the photographers and we were asked to start listing single words that described them. We began to focus our attention on details and quickly began to notice patterns. These patterns of the images are what collectively make up the photographer's chosen style. The wonderful lesson is that your style can change from one project to the next, but within the project ideally it should stay similar. There must be something beyond subject matter that pulls the images together. If not, you wind up with a group of images that more closely resembles a collage.  

​Lesson 5:
This one is an amazing insight. After studying all the great work, and the sacrifice made by the great photographers we looked at, we were introduced to dozens of contemporary photographers building stories through images using Instagram. The lesson here is that a documentary story can be as simple as a single roll of film loaded into a camera for a trip to the zoo. The only thing it must have is a clear binding element. This can be a timeline, as in taking. a picture just as you are leaving your house, and a final image just as you return. But whatever you choose to do, either a massive project, or a simple story, photography can be a powerful tool used in different ways to transmit a story.

Consider, as a little project, to capture a few images of your kids playing. From when the start to pick out the toys, to the end when the run out of the room leaving the toys on the floor (all kids do it). This can be a simple ten minute project shot on your iPhone.  Or you can decide to shoot it from the toy's vantage point, requiring more complex angles. Or you can take it from your Childs. This can be a simple series or a complicated project requiring days of planning and coordination.  

In his exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in 1946, Henri Cartier-Bresson was told by Robert Cappa to not accept the label of a surrealist because that would be the commercial death of him. HCB took his advice but always viewed himself as a surrealist.

So what is surrealism? Why was it so important not to be labeled this in 1946? Why was HCB training all in surrealism? Lets go to the experts at Tate Modern Art Museum for some answers.

The word ‘surrealist’ (suggesting ‘beyond reality’) was coined by the French avant-garde poet Guillaume Apollinaire in a play written in 1903 and performed in 1917. But it was André Breton, leader of a new grouping of poets and artists in Paris, who, in his Surrealist Manifesto (1924), defined surrealism as:

pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.

Typical Tate, always has the perfect answer that just begs for more information. For this Random Moment, lets just say that Surrealism focused on dreams and sub-conscience thought. The goal of the artist was to get out of the way and let their emotional eye take control. 

The single best metaphor of this was how Dali himself approached sleep. He felt sleep was a waste of time, but for his art he needed to let that dream world present itself. He would fall asleep with a key in his hand over a metal plate. As he would drift off into sleep the key would fall and hit the plate waking him and pulling him from his dream world. He would then remember his dream and paint.

This "movement" (an interesting term that we should dive into on some other occasion) was started after World War I in Europe but as with many movements, it seemed to come up in many different ways at the same time. So why would this matter in 1946? Well the truth to that may come from across the ocean and the New World led by Alfred Stieglitz.  

Stieglitz was working to make Photography an art form in its own right and had gotten tired of pictorialism (the movement where the photographer would alter the scene, negative or photograph to make it more about art and less about science) was heralding in Straight Photography (oddly enough it is the abstract nature of straight photography that made it so facinating).  Europe had been dethroned as the leading edge of photographies development and the US, specifically New York had taken over. 

So the world was embracing straight photography and wanted to see what was really their, indicating that there is art and beauty in the real. People were also embracing story telling through photographs, Life Magazine is a fine example of this trend, and wanted a more documentary approach to photography. To be labeled a surrealist was a through back and not what paying advertisers wanted to hear. 

HCB training was largely in surrealism because that is the movement prevalent at the time. As the world adapted to the new order after WWI, surrealism seemed a artistic embrace of the political changes happening. HCB, starting his artistic pursuits in painting, would have been heavily influenced by the contemporary masters of the time.

This is not to say that HCB work was not surrealist, or at least has a heavy element of surrealism in it, it is just to say that HCB had to escape the label and not define himself this way. Definitions in the world of art are not precise, so we often let the artist define themselves. But the truth is that many artists are driven by financial elements and label themselves in a way that will help them financially. Nothing wrong with that, just one way that money influences art, and always has.

But if we take a step back from what the artist says, and look at their work as a whole, we start to see trends which lay beneath the subject matter of a individual picture. Only with a large volume of work, can we start to interpret the artist's work.

The slide show below are images by HCB, many for documentary style magazine layouts. If you look at the images individually, you see the surrealist in him emerge. He was drawn to lines, shapes and geometry which are the linking elements between the dream world and our own. 

"A time of intense difficulty or danger."  This is how a Crisis is defined. But a crisis can mean something different to different people depending on their perspective.  So I ask myself what is my perspective of the Covid-19 crisis?  

I have not gotten sick.  My family and friends are all healthy.  Some family members are scared, others are not worried or even bothered by the thought of this virus. By I had to understand how did I perceive this crisis and what did it really mean for me. 

So I decided upon a documentary photography assignment, to document one single day in lock down.  The day had to be "typical" so I picked an average Wednesday on a average week in this very intense time.  Before I show the images let me put them in a bit of context.  

Buenos Aires Argentina, where I am currently living, took the lock down very seriously.  Everything is closed, no one can roam the streets without a permit aside from a trip to the grocery store or pharmacy.  We have been in lock down 7 weeks when this documentary was made.  There is no telling how long it will last with a minimum of two more weeks before a bit more freedom is considered by the government. 

Hidden behind my daily routine is a resentment of the limitation of my personal freedoms. Oh I understand the necessity and respect the rules but I still resent it. My individual freedoms are being sacrificed for the greater good. I thought I would be comfortable with that but I am not.

Finally, I am working while on lockdown.  In fact, I am working more now than before the lockdown. Reviewing emergency response plans, complex discussions with concerned customers and keeping up with coworker's mental health have all been added to the typical job's tasks.

A few weeks ago, the term lock down was a rather vague concept of a building being locked in to keep bad people inside.  Today marks the 28th day of being locked in our house. Lock down is not about capturing evil people, it is about protecting people, both inside and out. We have stayed home with only three trips out, to restock our refrigerator.

For a Photographer, staying home does not have to be a bad thing.  We can take pictures of anything, from still life to macro shots.  But finding the inspiration can be tough after such a long period of time.  But I did indeed find some inspiration, my muse if you will. 

This time my muse came in the form of a red pepper.  A perfectly imperfect red pepper. For those who have seen my blog before, you know that I have a long standing admiration for Edward Weston's Pepper #30 and have spoken about it many times. 

But this pepper was not my muse. I had long dreamt of taking a wonderful picture of a pepper and tried so many times, digital, film, pinhole, large format, medium format and 35mm.  I tried it all and failed each and every time.  It was not the pepper's fault, it was mine. I was unable to reproduce what was so very clear in my mind eye.

Then I saw her.  A perfectly imperfect pepper. She had the personality, the curves and the magical X quality that makes an object more than an object. Again the pepper was perfect, but my limitation was still the same, my own lack of talent.

But since I was in a lock down mode, with little to distract me on a long weekend, I decided to have a go.  In my mind I saw an image that was different than Weston's. Copying a master teaches you a great deal but never will live up to the original and often only serves to highlight the oceanic gulf between my own abilities and theirs.  My photograph, yet untaken, was a pepper that would disappear into a dark background. In my mind's eye, the pepper would melt into the background making it hard to know where the pepper began or ended.

First challenge was to select a camera, I was down to two options.  A Pentacon Six with extension tubes and a Mamiya C220.  This would allow me to get close enough to the pepper to fill the frame and still give me the large negative needed to make a wonderful print. I ultimately decided on the Mamiya.

Next was the film. I wanted something predictable, with little grain. Something with a low reciprocity failure because previous peppers had taught me that they reflect light like a mirror which would force me to use little light or wrist it being completely blown out.

Weston understood this, which is why no part of his pepper is blown out.  The light was carefully managed by a very long exposure and placing the pepper in a metal funnel that helped balance the light. The Pepper seems lighted from different areas, and this is the sun moving around the room lighting different parts of it.

I decided on Ilford Delta 100.  I knew I would shoot all 12 exposures of the pepper and I would move the pepper around to find its most photogenic side. 

I chose the location carefully, in front of a window but far back enough to control the light. I placed the paper on a black sheet with a bowl under the sheet. This helped keep the pepper upright, which allowing the sheet to cradle the pepper.

I used an external light meter to meter the pepper and calculated the exposure setting.  I opted for 1 second exposure at f/4.  I would bracket my shot with one slightly higher exposure.

Over the next hour, I took 12 images of my pepper, turning it around slowly.  Below is the contact print.  

I selected the second pepper shot and set it up in the enlarger. I then made a test strip and opted for filter grade 2 and 5.  With a 20 second exposure on grade 2 and a 15 second on grade 5 seemed to work.  I printed it and put it in the developer, stop and fixer. After 2 minutes in fixer I turned on the light...I had my pepper!  It was what I had imagined, a pepper that melted into the background. The negative is perfect, no dust particles or anything. 

I made a few tweaks to the print and had my perfect print.  I printed it on FB paper in 8x10.  I will now take it to a larger print.  

I am proud of my pepper.  I ate it that night in a. wonderful salad.  

I love film. I love the time it takes, the tiny imperfections that always pop up and the end result when properly done. When I shoot digital, I shoot in RAW to give me the most latitude when working on the image in post. So imagine my joy at discovering a new world, albeit a smaller one.

Reading a blog post I encountered a comment that the JPG B&W images created by the Leica M9 were perfect to this one photographer's eye. This is obviously something very subjective, but since I had some free time I wanted to take a look at them myself. Never wanting to settle for the simple, I decided to compare a couple of shots in JPF B&W setting between my M10 and M9 (in reality it is an ME which sold for 1500 USD less than the M9 but was essentially the same camera).

During the test I discovered a few things worth noting. The first is that I loved both renditions of the Leica JPG B&W.  The second is that they bring in a certain imperfection that brings me back to my film memories.

So why the interest in rediscovering JPG potential? I love my M10 but also shoot my ME a great deal.  There are a variety of reasons for this which I won't go into but lets say that I take my ME out a great deal.  The ME has an 18 mp sensor which is plenty for my shooting but has two substantial draw backs.  The first is that the back screen is crap. It was on the M9 as well. It is barely good enough to check composition and not much else. Nothing to be done about that. The second is that it is slow. Recording images in RAW even with a fast card causes a bit of a delay. Shooting in JPG solves the second issue completely allowing me to take out the Leica ME on JPG mode in B&W and avoid time consuming conversions.

There are low light performance issues with the older sensor of the ME but coming from film, grain does not bother me.  JPG have limitations as we are not given all the data to be able to alter much.  Again, coming from film, this is normal for me. I don't like pictorializing my digital or film images.

This is another reason for me to pull out my trusty ME and capture some nice images straight out of camera. They will not be perfect, they will have their small issues but this is something that I love in film, so why not embrace in digital as well. Limitations and overcoming them is part of what pushes our creativity.  

The shot above was taken with a Leica M10 using a Zeiss 50mm f/2 Planar lens (old design with modern construction makes this one of my all time favorite lenses).  This is straight out of the camera with no adjustments made. 

For comparisons, below is the same scene taken with the ME and the same lens. 

Like most of todays converts to darkroom printing, I learned most of what I know via YouTube videos and helpful chatrooms.  I then upgraded my education through a friend with vastly more experience than I have.  This helped push my darkroom printing up a notch. 

Last week I decided to pay for a full day class on printing taught by Alejandro Gulminelli who is quickly developing a name for himself in the analog photography world of Buenos Aires.  He has traveled extensively and been taught by some amazing people in the US.  He is very approachable and has an easy manner about him.  I had purchased a enlarger from him a few months ago and decided to return to see about a private class.

Alejandro is a very good photographer and a great guy to learn from. He is patient and walks you through his methods giving you ample opportunity to try different things. I really enjoyed the class so lets jump into it!

It was a full day affair at his business/darkroom.  We started with a quick chat about photography, what I was working on and what I wanted to accomplish that day.  I explained that I knew a bit about darkroom work but wanted to see another person's workflow to see how they did it.

I selected a medium format negative (I took several sheets to pick from) and we started working.  Below are a few things that I learned and an overall take away from the class.  

Notes:

1. Alejandro has a very efficient workflow. Paper is expensive in Argentina (roughly twice that of the US) which has pushed him to be careful with waste. I will explain one method I picked up from him below.

2. Alejandro is methodical especially when it comes to bath times and temperature. Development is 2 minutes with Stop baths being about 30 seconds and development being another 2 minutes.  

3. Alejandro has a very good eye for composition so this part of the print process is second nature to him. I took a bit of time to understand why he would compose things a certain way and was very pleased with his selections. This is more intuitive for him and was fun to watch.

4. Alejandro spends a great deal of time nailing the whites on his images. Once the white has the least amount of detail he nails this down before moving to getting his blacks. His blacks he seemed a little less concerned about, ensuring a true black somewhere on the image and running with it.

5. Alejandro has had a great deal of equipment built for him. One item of note is a steel stand to put the wet prints up on in order to squeegee them dry and study them.  It had some LED lights up top to make it easier to see and a collection tray below for the water.

6. Alejandro will try everything else before moving to dodging and burning. He believes it is hard to get a proper dodge or burn without telltale signs of it being done.

7. Alejandro builds his own frames and even installs lighting in them.  

Overall:

My main lessons learned from Alejandro is one of efficient paper use and careful time management. I used to use half a sheet to do my filter tests at 0 and at 5.  This would kill one entire sheet of paper giving me on bright white and a true black. But it did not show me what they looked like together.

Alejandro taught me to take a smaller strip and get the whites right. So lets say we selected a Grade 2 filter at 10 seconds. He then exposes the next strip for the full 10 seconds before applying the Grade 5 filter and working on the true blacks. This saves time and paper.

I am now timing the amount of time my print sits in the developer, stop and fixer. This coupled with a monitoring of the temperature of the baths (I give myself 20-22 degrees C as a range) will give me more consistent results.

You can see Alejandro's Instagram feed here.

@alejandro.gulminelli

It was a rainy weekend, so I dived into my darkroom to have some fun.  Saturday I developed a roll of 120 and 35mm film that I had taken a few months ago.  The 120 was shot with the Mamiya 220 Pro and the 35mm taken by a Nikon F2.  For the darkroom worked, I selected three 120 shots that I liked.  

The one above is a shot of a jawbone (cow or horse).  I loved the cracked enamel and took advantage of the Mamiya 220 close up function.  I am amazed with the lenses on the 220.  It provides amazing detail and the contrast makes all the shots have a three dimensional look.  I have found that a Pearl Semi-Gloss paper really brings it out nicely.

For the darkroom I opted to use the deep dynamic range that was captured. The teeth and bone were bright white (not blown out but just under).  This allowed me to overexpose the negative dropping the background into a deep black.  There was no need for filters as the contrast with this lens is sufficient for almost any image.  This is in an 8x10 image.

The second was shot on the same paper and is also an 8x10 image.  This is an empty wasp hive that we found around the ranch.  It was rather large (about the size of a baseball) and the honeycomb structure was very appealing.  Again there was sufficient contrast to avoid using the filters.  

The third shot is my favorite.  It is a portrait of my father sitting at his ranch. He has this calm serenity in this image but behind those eyes is a highly intelligent man who never stops thinking and solving problems. I am happy with the portrait because it captured a wonderful afternoon and really carries his personality through.  

Again no need for filters.  I did burn his sweater a bit as well as his hat to bring out a bit more detail.  

​

There is something special about picking up the perfect tool. Not compromising, not having to adjust or make do. Like when you pick up the right sized screwdriver which fits perfectly in the screws slots, no play, no give, just a perfect fit.  This is what I experience every time I pick up a Nikon F2.  

It is a hefty camera but it fits right into my big hands. It is robust yet precise. There are no bells or whistles, there is just an aperture ring, shutter speed dial and a shutter button.  The metering offered by the DP-1 is a simple spot metering that just works. It won't take the picture for you, it will just tell you when the center spot is exposed properly given your selected film speed and camera settings.  

Since taking Sover Wong's CLA class for the Nikon F2, I have worked on a bunch of cameras and every time I open one up I marvel at the ingenuity of Nikon.  The mechanism works, pure and simple.  

To do a proper CLA take a solid two days and is not a simple process.  Aside from the course by Sover, I have done a great deal of research into different greases, oils and light sealing material.  I have brought my engineering degree to good use in understanding the effect of temperature and time on grease and oils. I have done all this to leave a perfect tool in the best possible condition possible.  

​Every time I put a Nikon F2 into my calibration rig I am impressed that after 40 years it is still as accurate as it is.  Sure it does require some adjustments to bring it back to factory specifications but this camera has been used and abused for 40 years!  It should be far off the mark.  

My procedure for doing a CLA is always the same.  I set up my work bench with plenty of light. I do a detailed visual inspection of the camera...and I mean detailed. Magnifying glass in hand I am looking to see any signs that might give me a clue as to how it was used or cared for. Paint rubbed off is not an indication of misuse. Even a dent can be overlooked as they rarely cause internal damage and are easy to bang out. The purpose is to get to know the camera well before I start to look at her parts.

I then take the camera to my shutter speed calibration rig and I test all shutter speeds. I also test the light meter to see how accurate it is. Once done I will open the camera up, which is not as straightforward as it sounds. You see to properly take her apart there are certain steps that need to be done in order to avoid stressing some parts. I have seen many videos on YouTube that do it wrong and in one you can see the result with a broken retaining spring. When done properly, it comes apart easily without stressing any internal parts and without any use of force.

I then remove all old light seal material.  There are pieces inside the camera that dry out and turn to dust. I remove all these pieces and use a strong blower to clean out the camera from dust. I then use some alcohol to clean out gears, hinges and areas of rubbing.  

I then turn my attention to the electronics, which are simple on this camera. I repair the battery compartment (almost always broken as it is one of the few weaknesses in design) and ensure that all wires are clean and the solder is still shinny (dull solder can be an indication of battery leak).  

This ends my first day working with the F2.  I put the camera aside, to allow all parts to properly dry.  The following day I oil or grease the needed components with a very high quality oil and grease.  This is important as a generic lithium based grease will work perfectly but will start to dry out after a handful of years. This would require another CLA. There are greases with very long shelf life available for very specific applications that work extremely well.  They have a wide temperature range and do not dry out. I have this flown in as it only requires a very minute amount of grease and oil. 

Once fully lubricated, I replace all light seals. I use a special light seal that uses acid free glue to avoid damaging the body of the camera. Once this is done I partially reassemble and then put it on my calibration rig again to test it.

Many times the camera becomes more accurate after the lubrication making it simpler to calibrate. But sometimes I must fix what a less qualified repairman has done.  I calibrate the slow and fast shutter speed and ensure that the 1/2000 of a second is correct as well. This requires measuring shutter curtain speed and separation and is an iterative process to get right. 

Once firing within factory specifications, I reassemble the camera and do a final test of all functions.  The camera at this stage looks perfectly clean. The shutter button moves freely and the advance lever is smooth.  

Every time I get an old F2 back to factory conditions I can't help but admire the camera. I have plenty of F3 cameras as well, but the mechanical perfection that the Nikon F2 achieved still amazes me. 

I love B&W images.  They speak to me on a level that color simply cannot and for a long while I wondered why.  A few years ago, after reading Susan Sontag "On Photography" book I began to realize what it was.  Photography for me has nothing to do with reality so the B&W abstract interpretation of our world appeals to me. 

But there are times when a color rendition can be just as abstract. The film has to be right, as does the development and the light has to be just so but it does happen.  And these, abstract representation of the world, draw me in and tap into an emotional memory that can be more powerful than a B&W image.

The picture above, with its obvious location, was shot on Portra 400 film.  This was taken early int he morning and the sun was coming up.  The sky was a blue grey while the sun coming up was bouncing off the stone architecture that was all around me.  I shot this image and the colors are obviously nothing like what I was seeing.  But what I was seeing was not nearly as beautiful as this image.  

As I think back on the day, my memory has slowly changed to match this abstract view of it.  It was a wonderful day, a day I took off from work, took a bunch of film and a couple of cameras and dedicated myself to a photography walk around London.  Most of my favorite images of that wonderful city comes from this walk.  

These colorful shots, processed with slightly expired chemicals, give me the abstract interpretation of the world that I love.  Digital continues to improve and the quality of images, the details that can be captured and the perfection of the cameras themselves continue to surprise me.  But the natural film rendering of a scene, when properly captured transmits more emotion then the perfection of those digital cameras.