Tag: Tri-X

Myth or Reality or Rowell

Posted by Chris Klug – July 17, 2010

Rio, March 2010, Tri-X

I got myself into a discussion recently about ‘art’ and ‘reality.’ Just to start the discussion off with a clear statement from me, all photography that does not claim to be ‘journalism’ falls squarely (f0r me) into the category of art, and thus the primary function of that photography is convey a feeling first and information (if at all) second. A journalistic photograph, on the other hand, has a responsibility to convey the ‘truth,’ as it is reportage. Whether a 2D artificially framed artifact can convey truth, however, is beyond my ability to judge.

Indeed, though, some photographic art contains ‘true’ information. Whether that goal be striving to convey true color or color temperature, true line or true environments (“don’t move that twig, Nathan, because that’s not how we found it”) is irrelevant. That’s part of the artistic statement, and that’s just fine with me. It’s their art, and I will never judge how anyone goes about their art, because as long as it ‘sings’ to them, that’s perfect by me.

It’s just not my approach, because I live in world of metaphor. I happen to think that symbol and metaphor are more true than any attempt to simulate truth. Students of mine often make a little fun out of this personality quirk I have, but it’s just how I see the world.

I agree 100% with this quote from Gary Winogrand:

“Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed.”

He has a bunch of similar quotes, many of which translate loosely to ‘photographs are not truth, they are just photographs.’

I am so there with ya, Gary.

Galen Rowell

That brings me to the point of this post. I am reading the reprint of ‘Galen Rowell’s Inner Game of Outdoor Photography,’ published by W.W. Norton. Galen was an astoundingly wonderful landscape photographer, famous in part for shooting 35mm slide film but also for getting his Nikons to places other photographers could not (because he was an expert Mountain climber).

In this wonderful book, he says many amazing things, but perhaps nothing more wonderful or amazing than a chapter titled ‘The Doors of Perception.” The chapter, essentially, is an essay about how color is not real, but rather created in our minds. I’ll quote some of his words:

“Today, good color is almost a given in controlled studio situations, but when a whole outdoor shoot rather than the rare successful image is analyzed, perfectly colored photographs are the exception than the rule. Modern science textbooks continue to explain color vision by Newton’s three-color theory. We are taught that the cones of our retina respond to the color of objects, while the rods work in low light and see only black and white. Only a few texts mention in passing an alternative theory by another young genius who also made major discoveries in his 20′s.

Edwin Land’s retinex theory of color vision has remained out of the mainstream both because it challenges basic assumptions about color and because it never directly resulted in a marketable product.

Newtonian color theory falls on its face in outdoor situations. Most conventionally educated cognitive scientists can’t properly explain why we see correct flesh tones under a broad range of lighting conditions yet are unable to correct them in the same way when we look at photographs. [The theories] fail to account for why our vision will adjust to see the proper color of a face under the strong amber bias of tungsten light, but won’t adjust to see that face’s same color in a photograph made on daylight film, no matter what light source we view it in.

.  .  .

Although texts continue to say that the cones in our eyes see color, while the rods only see black and white, Land has turned the tables to make subjects see color strictly with their rods in extremely low light. He has also demonstrated how almost all common colors can be made to appear from information delivered by a triplet of cones that are not responsive to individual colors. In a process somewhat like merging black-and-white negatives made with different filters, the three types of cones deliver colorless responses to broad, overlapping bands of wavelengths, together with all-important lightness information about reflectivity derived by comparison from the triplet of responses. The color is in our heads.“

When I was about eight or nine, I remember sitting in science class when we were talking about color. I remember thinking clearly “how do I know that when I look at something and identify it as being ‘green’ that I am seeing the same thing that you are?” While we were both responding to the same thing and agreeing it was green, how did I know the green that I saw, the shade and chroma, was being seen by my brain the same way your brain was seeing it?

Tri-X toned in Photoshop

I thought, later in my education, that the ‘wavelength’ explanation answered the question. Today I’m back to the same question I asked long ago, with no clear answer.

Off-balance

Posted by Chris Klug – July 15, 2010

Split toned in Photoshop

This process I’ve been going through has really made me think about what I want out of b&w film. It’s a given that I enjoy the process. There’s a tangible sense of achievement when I do something simple, like develop a roll without dust specks or figure out a better way to scan or get back some skills I used to have, way back when I learned these processes. The next big hurdle (aside from narrowing down how I really want to process film to get the look I want) is my b&w printing. If I had any strength back then, it was being very regular with my steps and choices. FP4, FG7, 7:30 minutes @ 70 degrees (I think), water for stop bath, agitate every 30 seconds, etc. Of the (maybe) 100 rolls I shot over a three-year period from 1975 through 1977, 96 of them was the combination above. Otherwise I shot slides and had them sent out for processing. I think I tried Microphen once, Tri-X once, there were some Beseler developers I remember experimenting with, but not much experimenting. That helped me, and I had the regimen down so where I could take a neg, print it on Ilford RC paper (grade 2) and have a fairly good print for my clients without much fuss. But I don’t think I really knew much about b&w printing.

My home darkroom is close to being finished, so maybe by the fall I’ll begin running some paper through the baths and see what happens. That will be exciting.

Today, I did a rough count of the number of rolls I’ve developed since I started back in the mid-summer of 2008. Two years I’ve been at it, and I’m pretty close to 75 rolls. I believe I know more about film development than I did back then, but since I threw away the negs from that time, I really have nothing to compare the work with.

I made some decisions about my 35mm film kit today. I’m going to sell the F100, even though I really like the camera, because there’s just no way I’m going to be able to keep up with a digital Canon set and a film Nikon set. I don’t have the funds to move to all-Nikon (although if I did have the cash, I believe that’s what I’d do) and my wife and I have an investment in EOS systems (lenses and such). So it makes more sense to sell off the F100. If any readers know anyone who is interested in one, let me know.

I’ll pair back the FD equipment I own, but keep a lens or two just for old-times’ sake.

I’ll keep the Bessa for street shooting, and look over time to add a 50mm to my 35 that I have.

To leverage the investment Peg and I have in EOS lenses, I’m going to get an EOS 3 used from KEH. This will give me more flexibility when I want to shoot film with lenses I don’t have for my Ftb or Bessa, and I can do more in depth comparisons since the lenses will be the same.

By a year from now, my goal is to have a better idea where I’m walking, unlike the people in today’s image.

Final Roll from Rio

Posted by Chris Klug – July 14, 2010

March 2010

Recently developed a few rolls of Tri-X that had been hanging around. One of them was the last roll of images from the trip to Rio. This roll really came out quite nicely. I changed my scanning routine a little, and I think it helped.

What’s Old is New

Posted by Chris Klug – May 12, 2010

Dreamy Tri-X

A while back (over a year, to be exact) I posted some color digital images I captured with my 10D when I visited a construction site in Phoenix where the architect had erected some tent-like structures as thematic accents. Veteran readers might remember those images. That same day I also had with me my trusty Ftb loaded with Tri-X. That roll sat undeveloped until mid-February of this year, and those negs sat unscanned until this weekend. Phew! Long time coming, but I’ll be posting some of them in the upcoming week or so.

Tomorrow I travel to Seattle for business and come the weekend, I’ll be visiting my friend Ray and his home city of Port Townsend, WA. Looking forward to that. I plan during that trip to run a digital/film experiment. We’ll see how that goes.

You need perspective

Posted by Chris Klug – April 7, 2010

Many images from the Rio trip still to post; this roll was captured the last day we were at the conference. The conference we held on a dock near downtown Rio right along side the Bay. To my right in this image were the warehouses in which the exhibits, workshops and conferences were held. To my left was where huge luxury ocean liners docked as they brought their passengers to Rio for a day as they sailed around the Atlantic.

The most interesting thing about the conference were the people. They came from all over the world, and it was really fascinating to spend the week with them.

Overall, I was very happy with Tri-X the whole week. There are two more rolls to scan and show you the images, but I really have to say that I will continue to marry Tri-X with the Zeiss lenses going forward.

I have heard photographers often talk about their love for Tri-X, and while I am now going to go back and work with HP5 a little while these images are fresh in my brain, the way Tri-X gently handled high contrast situations like this crane image above really impressed me overall.

The other day I visiting the CMU darkroom for the first time. Often I’m kind of a dolt, and the fact that I hadn’t visited the place since my return to the University is kind of amazing. I’ll talk about what I found there in my next post.

Veteran Shopkeeper

Posted by Chris Klug – April 1, 2010

This gent really intrigued me in the Hippie Market. He seemed like an individual I wouldn’t see almost anywhere else I had been before. He and the gent with his back to the camera ran he booth in the background. The market only opens on Sundays, and the booths on the periphery are the most valuable; they both get the most traffic as well as are the easiest to setup / take down as the proprietors can get their cars right up next to them on the street.

The shoppers in the market were all ages.

These three women were haggling very loudly with one booth operator; I didn’t stay around to see how it came out in the end.

More Tri-X from Rio

Posted by Chris Klug – March 30, 2010

Further up that same beach from yesterday’s post.

Leblon's Hippie market

Earlier that same day I captured the images on the beach, we shopped in a marketplace called the ‘Hippie Market.’ The sky was overcast, so I had the advantage of a large softbox. I took lots of images, had the camera to my eye almost the whole time I was there, and no one gave me a second glance. Tri-X and the Zeiss lens yields a nice combo of tones to my eye.

Tri-X on the Beach in Rio

Posted by Chris Klug – March 29, 2010

Is it volleyball or soccer?

I don’t know whether these men have dibs on the next match or whether they are just relaxing in the blistering heat with their Cachaça as they debate the skills on exhibit.

I developed three rolls of Tri-X last night from the trip to Rio. ISO 320, Fg7, 12 minutes at 70 degrees. Throughout the next week or so I’ll be posting images from those rolls.

Just as an opening thought in a series of them from this trip, there was something that really came alive for me using the Bessa rangefinder this time. I took only two cameras (the 5D for color work and the Bessa for b&w). I really wanted to limit myself when I was out walking, and just stick to one camera and one focal length. This really forced me to use the Bessa and the 35mm biogon. I had done this in San Francisco, but this trip I really worked it in the street and at the convention we attended.

I don’t quite know how to describe it, but I crossed some kind of threshold with the rangefinder on this trip. I had always liked using it, but the open rangefinder window with the frame lines had never been as comfortable as an SLR finder to me. This time I began to use the ‘outside the frame line’ area to anticipate the shot, which is THE big advantage of that kind of work. Also, as I walked the streets and especially when I wandered the show and the market we visited, the camera just didn’t attract as much attention as the 5D. The difference was really noticeable, and the size just felt better in terms of the actual work of getting the images. The more responsive shutter also started to feel right to me. I quickly looked at the negatives, and saw many images that I was proud of. I only had a few minutes tonight to scan frames, and the image above was frame #4.

On the flight back, I found myself really considering options I had never before, such as a) selling my Canon FD equipment entirely and putting any cash into a 50mm M-mount lens and/or a second M-mount body (Bessa or Zeiss), then b) selling the Nikon F100 w/lenses and doing the same thing, so that my digital system is centered around the Canon 5D w/ EOS lenses and the 35 mm film system is just M-mount bodies and lenses. (The Mamiya system is on a different level and purpose entirely in my mind).

Considering the history I have with the FD system, that I would even think about this is kinda a big deal for me.

More on this later.

Post #201: Tri-X, Scanning, Silverfast

Posted by Chris Klug – March 7, 2010

Developed in Tmax, exposed with the F100

So many topics in this post . . . First off, while in California last month I exposed a couple rolls of Tri-X, and included in this post are a couple of those images. Funny, when I was young I used to think of Tri-X as very contrasty (probably because most of the Tri-X images I remember from those days were concert shots. Now, when I hang out in the forums of APUG, Tri-X is lauded for its subtle tonality. Who knew? This frame above says that to me in spades. The light was soft, it was just after dawn in La Jolla, cloudy, raining, and the greys here are lovely.

After I wandered out on the beach, I turned around and took this image back over the roof of the hotel. This is kinda what I used to think of when I thought of Tri-X.

Same camera, roll and developer

I guess this image also exemplifies what people also say about Tri-X; how flexible it is. Anyhoo, these two images bring me to the next topic. Scanning.

I love film. I love thinking about the options it gives me (like I’ve said before, it’s like buying a different sensor for your camera every time). I know I process images captured on film a lot less than digital files to get the look I want, and I get the bonus of playing with the chemicals and the additional surprise of seeing what’s on the roll after I develop it. All good things.

But I hate scanning. Well, not scanning so much, exactly. I have a Nikon 4000, it scans very well, it’s easy to use, I get into a sort of meditative mindset when scanning, etc. But there are two things about scanning that make me nuts. The first is the dust and watermarks on the film. I’ve tried just about everything to minimize this bug-a-boo, and still it haunts me. Whether I use Lightroom to get rid of the dust specks or off-load the image to Photoshop, I still have to go over the image bit by bit to get rid of them. Here’s a screen capture of part of the first image above showing about 1/8th of he image and all the specs I’ve removed:

The Circles show the specs I've removed

And, just to prove my point, you can still see some speckles in the lower part of the frame I’ve yet to remove. They look pure white. The way you minimize these dust specs is during the film drying step, and I’ve tried everything: I use distilled water in all steps of development, humidifying the bathroom by turning the shower on before I hang the film, not turning the shower on, adding photoflo to the last wash, NOT using Photoflo and using the Edwal wetting agent instead, adding isopropyl alcohol to the last wash to make it dry faster, using a sponge squeegee to get rid of the water, using a rubber squeegee to get rid of the water, using no squeegee at all and just using my fingers (the way I was trained years ago). Nothing seems to work. It almost makes me want to stop shooting film, I’ll be honest. I’ve got to figure out something, I tell ya. I’m seriously considering a drying cabinet at this point.

The second issue is the software I use to scan. This last roll, the one at La Jolla beach, was just frustrating even beyond the dust. The roll was flat, contrast-wise, and I just didn’t think the software was giving me good scans. So, I downloaded a demo of Silverfast. This software is kinda the rolls-royce of scanner software if you’re not using an Imacon or something crazy-expensive. It’s expensive by itself and, above that, each copy is licensed for only one type of scanner. So, if you have, say a flatbed and a dedicated film scanner (like I’m considering for my medium-format work) you need to license TWO copies of the software. Yikes!

But those who use it swear by it. The main contender is Vuescan, which I have been using. So, just as quick test I pulled out a yet-to-be scanned roll, and, using the demo, scanned some frames. This is the first one to come up on the screen:

You can see the overwrite saying it's a demo

This was just the default settings, and that image, the contrast, the detail, etc, really made me sit up. (It’s Tri-X, btw, developed in Tmax). Ok, let’s try another, and then I’ll try that neg in Vuescan as well. Here’s the two:

Scanned in Silverfast

Vuescan

Well, I think even at this resolution you can see the Silverfast version has more bite. I’m not sure if you can really tell from these JPEGs, but using Silverfast seems to extract a little more out of the neg than Vuescan does. I really have to look into this a little more, I don’t want to leap to conclusions. One thing I might really do is send out a favorite neg of mine or two to a service bureau that does drum scans and see how much of a difference that makes. I know one film shooter who took out a loan to get himself an Imacon to scan his HP5 negs because he couldn’t stand the mediocre quality of his Nikon. In this image, I’ll let you figure out the Silverfast version.

Lastly, this post is #201. Amazing. Thanks so much for showing up and seeing what I’m up to. I’m gonna do more of these walk-throughs during the rest of the year. I head back to SF next week, so I’ll capturing more images in downtown SF. If you’re there and you see some idiot walking the streets with two cameras hanging from his neck, it’s me.

Just a Quick Portrait

Posted by Chris Klug – October 1, 2009

A friend

A friend