Month: December 2009

Resolutions

Posted by Chris Klug – December 31, 2009

5D, Nik Silver Efex

It’s New Year’s Eve, and it’s almost the last post of 2009, and I thought I’d share some of my photographic New Year’s Resolutions for 2010 with you.

  • Become so familiar with George DeWolfe’s ‘B&W Printing’ book that the pages begin to separate from the binding; really understand what he talks about in that tome and APPLY what I’ve learned. I tend to flit from book to book, and I need to focus.
  • Make at least one b&w print (at least 11″ x 17″) that I’m really proud of and could hang in my living room. Ideally this print would have been output either in my traditional wet darkroom OR from a inkjet printer that I own, but it could be from a service bureau. The objective is the image and the print, not the process.
  • Mat, frame and hang that print.
  • Take a b&w workshop, ideally either with John Sexton or George DeWolfe.
  • Get my traditional wet darkroom up, running and producing prints. The only physical obstacle there is to build a table upon which to put the enlarger and trays. Equipment-wise, I need a print washer and someplace to dry the prints. Both of those things are easily obtainable.
  • Go on a photo trip with some or all of my blog friends/readers.
  • Understand Photoshop enough that I know enough to turn use it to do what I need without having to first look up in a book how to do what I need. I don’t need to do everything, just a few things.
  • Only one equipment desire: somehow bring the ability to scan medium format images in-house.
  • Oh, second equipment desire: a working 645e (heh).

I’m trying to focus on b&w in 2010 because I figure if I can become competent in that arena, my color work will get better as a consequence.

Dance Flick

Posted by Chris Klug – December 31, 2009

Mill Ave, April 2009

So, on that last walk-about on Mill in April, still aiming for images and a concept for the SoFoBoMo 2009 book, I thought I had struck gold. A motion picture, about to make its debut called “Dance Flick,” had set up a group of street dancers on Mill that evening, trying to drum up interest. I approached their handler, gave her my business card, and asked her permission to take some pictures. As her job was to promote the film, she was overjoyed, because the PR firm hadn’t provided a photographer and thought I could actually help her out a little. She laughed and said “take all you want, but send me some JPEGs and maybe I’ll use some.”

I shot about a roll-and-a-half, and since I wasn’t trying to be invisible, I could get as close as I wanted. As I worked, all I thought about was how, if these images were good, I could, in theory, have the whole book right here. In addition, I might get them out ‘there’ (wherever ‘there might be). The conditions were ideal, they were on the shadow side of the street, I had another roll in my pocket, I had their permission. I might have a real opportunity on many levels, thought I.

They took a break, I put the rolls in my pocket, thanked their handler and the dancers. But then fate intervened, I didn’t develop the roll until last week, the film pretty much disappeared, and I moved away from the Tempe area to come home.

Two more rolls shot that evening to scan.

Ken Rockwell’s influence is felt

Posted by Chris Klug – December 30, 2009

HP5, Rodinal, Gradient ND filter

I was laughing a bit the last few days as people discussed whether they liked or disliked Ken Rockwell. I take his post with a grain of salt, being aware that his #1 goal is probably to drive people to his site (he’s making a living off of it, after all) and I do agree he likes to stir the pot.

But, as others have expressed, he does know some things. The image above is a result of being reminded by Mr. Rockwell about split-density ND filters to lessen the contrast between sky and foreground. I had one of those filters but it had languished in my closet, forgotten, until a post by Mr. Rockwell reminded me.

That day when Peg and I went to the dry lake bed and worked, I used that split filter and captured many images that would have never worked without it. I have always liked shooting into the sun (or close to it) and this filter helped me salvage something from those images.

That point also reminds me of a lot of reading I’ve done over the holiday regarding finding your voice, photographically. I have spent time looking over my images and find at least a couple themes in images that appeal to me: one, dramatic lighting such as the image above and two, images containing paths or roads. The second theme relates to my work in all media (there’s a play I worked on centered on exactly that theme, even though I didn’t know it when I set out to write it), and it is fascinating to see it in my images.

Regarding the first, I guess I’d better learn how to shoot almost directly into the sun and at the same time minimize flair if I am to get much of anything, keeper-wise. The up side of this is that I believe I’m heading towards a better understanding of what I look for, which is a step in the right direction.

Lastly, just an update of sorts: as a Christmas gift, my wife bought a used Mamiya 645e from KEH. You may remember my adventure with Adorama in an attempt to replace the 645e that fell. This new one arrived, I plopped a battery in it, and took it out in the back yard to shoot a roll to make sure all was well. I am going to California next week and have planned an outing to either Muir Woods or Point Lobos for a day of shooting, and I had just ordered rolls of 120 Pan F for the occasion. I figured better I should be certain the new 645e worked.

Forth frame, the shutter stuck open. With the shutter open, the film winder, of course, is locked. I called KEH this morning and their reaction was “uh-oh.” They will repair it and ship it back, but I won’t have the camera for the trip to California.

I admit to being a little frustrated. While the 5D will give me wonderful images, I’m sure, the opportunity to capture those images on both medium-format film and digital was something I was looking forward to. Oh well, packing is certainly simplified.

Me out of Focus

Posted by Chris Klug – December 29, 2009

This is kind of a funny image, taken the same evening as the previous street image. As I was wandering Mill Ave that night, a guy sitting at a restaurant on the street called out to me and said “Hey, instead of you taking my picture, how about I take yours?” I was a little nervous just handing over the camera to this guy (as you can see, there was this little matter of the fence separating him and his buddies from me). I also figured he’d never handled a manual SLR in his life, so the odds of it coming out were slim. After the waitress had served them some drinks and witnessed the discussion, I figured if I had any trouble with the guy, I could come back and the waitress would back up my story. And, last but not least, if I humored this guy, maybe some of his buddies would allow me to capture them. I handed over the camera and smiled.

I stood there, he clicked, and then I got distracted by something else, wandered off, and by the time I returned, they had left. At least there is this record of me, in my Tempe street-shooting garb, wrist strap on, in need of a haircut, slightly out-of-focus, in April 2009.

Humbled

Posted by Chris Klug – December 29, 2009

Ok, I’m not even gonna put up an image to go with this post. I wouldn’t dare. I know a little bit about the creative process, had my share of successes and failures at that particular game in my life. It takes more than just a little bit to knock me off my feet. This afternoon, I was knocked flat.

I came across this link. I knew of this gentleman’s work, certainly, had seen some of the images, admired them, but not all of them, not all at once, not one after the other like this.

Well, holy smoke. The people. The thought. The craft. The work.

I’m just amazed and stunned.

Back on the Street

Posted by Chris Klug – December 29, 2009

HP5, ISO 1600, Microphen

I developed three rolls I captured last April when I was working on the SoFoMoBo book (you know, the one I never finished). I was trying to find the ideal film/ISO speed combo, and these three rolls I exposed at ISO 1600,pushing the HP5 (as opposed to ‘pulling’ the Delta 3200 to 1600 — I have two of those rolls to develop yet). Then my plan was to compare the two methods, choose one, and then shoot the book.

Stuff at work happened, and I never finished. Since then, a few people have recommended Fuji Neopan 1600 as a good alternative in this arena.

I bought some Microphen to develop those rolls, and finally got around to mixing it and doing the work.

Result? Lots of grain (I certainly wouldn’t want to print these bigger than 8 x 10), a very ‘gritty’ look, but not too bad. I’ll post a few more images from these rolls in the next few days as I scan them.

Oh, the lens flare was an accident.

Time Passages

Posted by Chris Klug – December 28, 2009

Sunset reflected in dry lake bed

It was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was going down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
————————————-
Al Stewart

This song was bouncing around in my head all day today. It’s probably the end of the year that’s doing it to me. So, tonight I looked through some recent scans that echoed that sentiment. It’s approaching one year that I’ve been blogging, and I’m going to comment a little on that in the next week or so.

Dry Lake Bed

Posted by Chris Klug – December 26, 2009

HP5, Rodinal 1:50

They are draining the local lake in order to dredge it. Peg and I were there one afternoon to try and capture how it looked.

Quite a fix

Posted by Chris Klug – December 21, 2009

From the roll developed in Rodinal that curls too much

From the roll that curls too much

Digital has at least one big advantage over film. At least in Lightroom, that is. All processing in Lightroom is non-destructive processing. B&W conversion, lightening, darkening, whatever, leaves the RAW file untouched. Once the file reaches my hard drive and is backed up, unless I really try hard to screw up, I will always have that original file to go back to.

Not so much in film processing; there, you CAN make irrecoverable errors.

This is not a story of such an error, but rather of a fixable  error that I made last week on the first rolls I developed in Rodinal (an image from that roll is above on this page). An error that made me very conscious of how close I can come to really making an irrecoverable error in processing unless I’m more careful.

First, some basics. Film processing goes like this: put film in tank in dark, put cover on tank, turn lights on, develop, stop, fix, wash, hang to dry. There are three steps before the wash: Develop brings forth the latent image on the film; Stop ceases that development; Fix removes the undeveloped silver from the film as well as ‘fixing’ the image to the film in a more permanent fashion. Washing (three washes) removes the fix from the film (if you don’t do this, film or paper will turn brown; you are trying to remove all the fix from the film that you can).

In preparation, I first fill three beakers with these chemicals: one with 600ml of developer (mixing/diluting it first); then 600ml of water (distilled), then 600ml of fix (from a bottle of pre-mixed fixer). The developer and water are thrown away after use, while the fix is poured back into the fixer bottle as that solution can be used over and over again (it eventually depletes and must be thrown away). The developer is almost clear (it has a slight purplish or beige tinge — depending on which developer it is) and developer is pretty close to odorless; the water is, well, water, and the fix is clear but has a peculiar biting odor to it.

As I prep, I also fill beakers with water for the wash. So, when development commences, I have lined up the following beakers left to right: developer, water, fix, water.

Just to reiterate: I develop, throw that away. I stop, throw that away, I fix, pour that back into the bottle in which I store fix, I wash (three separate washes).

In that order.

Let’s talk about fix: you should fix the film for twice the amount of time it takes for a piece of undeveloped film to clear of unexposed silver once you place it in the fix. If fixer is fresh, this is about two minutes (taking about one minute to clear). As fix loses it potency, you’ll be fixing five minutes or even six.

In my normal process, I don’t look at the negs until after I wash for the last time. Then I pull the film off the reels and hang it up.

So, Thursday night I developed my first rolls of FP4 in Rodinal. Friday night I scanned some of those images. Saturday night I developed my second set of rolls (this time some HP5).

Everything was going great Saturday night until I pulled the negs out after the final wash and I snuck a peek. THERE WAS STILL UNDEVELOPED SILVER ON THE NEGS IN ADDITION TO THE DEVELOPED IMAGE. THE ROLLS HAD NOT BEEN FIXED!

Full stop. I put the rolls back into the tank and put the cover back on. I slowly backed up, step by step. I took a whiff of the fix bottle (which, of course, was full since I had poured the fix back in after doing the rolls). Yup smelled like fix. I had left the film in the fixer for the right time, check. I had mixed a new batch only six rolls ago, so I knew I hadn’t gone bad yet.

I went back to my training, where I learned the ‘twice as long as it takes an undeveloped piece of film to clear’ rule. I found the leader I had snipped off the roll. Poured some fixer in a clean beaker. Threw the leader in, and began the timer. It cleared after six minutes. SIX MINUTES instead of one minute. This batch of fixer had somehow become diluted, severely diluted.

Lots of images flashed through my head. The only conclusion I could come to was somehow, on Thursday night, I had poured WATER into the tank when I thought I was pouring FIXER (remember, they look the same: clear). Then returned that solution into the bottle of remaining fixer. That would dilute the fixer. I must’ve poured water into the tank thinking I was pouring fixer. I grabbed the wrong beaker from the ones sitting on the table.

Then, somehow, during one of the wash cycles (I do three), I guessed the first wash cycle, I filled the tank with FIX (wrong beaker again), not water (remember these beakers look the same, clear liquid), vigorously agitated 15-20 times (as you do when you’re using water in your tank to wash), and then poured the FIX down the drain.

The film cleared probably because the FIX was in the tank for 45-60 seconds (most of that vigorously agitated, mind you) but the fixing action is probably not complete, because the film wasn’t immersed in the fix long enough (twice as long as it takes to clear, remember?)

I had to have poured fix into the tank sometime, because the film looked fixed. But water had replaced the fix in the fix storage bottle to dilute it.

So, I have two rolls of FP4, cut up and placed in neg carriers, only partially fixed and ALSO not completely washed (because I used FIX instead of WATER for one ‘wash’ remember)? Sigh.

Then another thing came into my mind. These two rolls (the two rolls not-quite-fixed, not-quite-washed) have been giving me the devil of the time curling. If I pull a six-neg strip from these reels out of the neg sleeve, it curls right up. Doesn’t want to lay straight on the neg carrier in the scanner. No other roll ever gave me this kind of trouble. This is yet another sign that these pieces of film didn’t spend enough time in the fix.

And who knows what subtle damage the images on those rolls of FP4 have taken being half-fixed. Maybe none, maybe some.

Double sigh.

To fix the rolls I developed Saturday night, I poured in the diluted fixer and fixed them for 12 minutes (twice the time it took to clear). Then I washed them. They seem fine.

This mistake is recoverable. But obviously I need to be much more careful in my process and PROBABLY LABEL THE BEAKERS so I don’t do this again.

So, I need to a) buy more Fix; b) re-fix these strips of film (how I don’t know yet); c) re-wash these pieces of film (ditto; all my fix-and-wash methods involve the film being ON the reels, but these cut-up pieces of film won’t go back on the reels).

The images on those two rolls look interesting; one was a roll of street shots I took while walking around NYC with Kevin Allen, and the other is of the lake near my home in Gibsonia.

Another day, another lesson learned.

New developer

Posted by Chris Klug – December 18, 2009

FP4, Rodinal, 9min, 68 degrees

FP4, Rodinal, 9min, 68 degrees

Tried a new developer on some of the old rolls last night. Still in the experimental stage, I think. This image was shot almost a year ago, and I had forgotten a lot of the images on it. I’ll post a few more tomorrow.