Simplicity in Photography

How many times have we as photographers said "I am going back to simple photography"? I think at some point we have all said it.  Lately, I have been thinking about just that theme.

Some of my cameras are extremely simple. They consist of a box to prevent light from affecting the film, a lens and shutter mechanism, this allows me to chose how much light will hit the film and exactly when that will happen. Finally there is a simple mechanism to allow the film to be moved through the camera (I'm talking about 120 roll film here).

More simple still is large format photography. The film is supplied in sheets and is placed in a special frame, in the dark, and has a sliding door that can be removed when the frame is in the camera.

The mathematics involved in film photography can be mind boggling. You need the correct sized aperture, the correct speed shutter and the correct ISO film to all come together in a triangle of exposure to make an exposure on a section of film.

And then there is the problem of exact exposure values. How do we get those?  You can use a light meter. But it turns out that all meters are not created equal!

If you want to simplify things you can use the Sunny f16 rule. Just have a look outside and choose an appropriate value, while applying the Sunny f16 rule.

Exposure is such a minefield. You don't want blown out highlights, or blocked up. You want shadows to have detail and highlights to have detail. You probably also want deep blacks, sharpness, detail. On and on and on it goes.

Eventually you get to the zone system and your mind melts.

Zone System

Sometimes it all gets a bit much! Too much maths, too much kit, too much to think about.

Those who understand the zone system think the rest of us are idiots and us idiots think life is too short for the technical complexity of the zone system and simply want to produce photographs that are interesting and have soul.

Recently I have been studying the work of Don McCullin. Don is a famous photographer who made a career shooting 35mm film using a Nikon F camera, with a 50mm prime lens. His subjects were war, famine and human depravation.

Reading his autobiography,  "Unreasonable Behavior", standing around waving a light meter about to get the best exposure settings was a hazardous occupation. A nearby, and unseen, sniper may take an accurate shot at you, ending your life.  Dons approach seems to have been to get an indicative exp setting, however he could, and then rely on the latitude of the film and his experience of exposure settings. So he could stop down or open up an aperture as he shot.  Often he would push film, Don normally used Kodak Tri-X, to ISO 800 or even 1600 if light was at a premium.

Don McCullin

The resulting negatives are astonishing, they are detailed, gritty, matching the dynamic nature of an ongoing skirmish or battle with arresting black and white photographs.

Don McCullin produced work for the Sunday Times magazine for many years, until someone in charge decided that presenting the horrors of war and famine to Englishmen, while they enjoyed their Sunday breakfast, was not on. Luxury brands complained that their products didn't sit right opposite award winning black and white photographs of dead children.

Another photographer who was disinterested in technical excellence and more interested in photographs that captures moments was Jacques Henri Lartigue. He took photographs throughout his life and built a huge catalogue of work, without being overly concerned with the technical aspects of the craft.

Jacques-henri-lartigue/

So coming back to simplicity in photography, I decided to get my Nikon F75 out, insert new batteries and take some photos.  The camera is a bit more modern than a Nikon F and has a built in light meter. 

My simplicity is to let the camera and film do the heavy lifting and just try to concentrate on producing photographs that are interesting. The photographs in this blog post are all taken on a 400 speed film that was exposed as ISO 800 and was pushed in development to ISO 800.  This is what my simplicity looks like.

As the Rolling Stones once sang, you can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes, you'll find, you get what you need.

Developing Film

Following on from my last blog, regarding my use of Ilford PQ Universal developer (and it's clones), I should perhaps expand upon the reasons why I use the dilution of 1+29.  As I mentioned in the previous blog the dilution of 1+29 allows similar development times to ID-11/D76.  Why is this important?

Firstly dilution. What does 1+29 mean?  With tools like the Massive Dev Chart app, it is easy to use the instructions given to make the development solution. The instructions state that 16.7ml of Developer is added to 483.3ml of plain water at 20 degrees centigrade. The total making 500ml of developing solution; This being the correct amount of developing solution for a roll of 120 film. Easy right?

Well yes and no. the 1+29 means the following;

1 part developer

29 parts water.

To find the correct amount of developer from this the following arithmetic is used.

1+29 = 30

500/30 = 16.7 (the / means divide and the 500 is the amount of developing solution used in milliliters).

The one part is now found in our formula 1+29

To find the 29 parts simply multiply 1 part by 29

16.7*29=483.3 (* means multiply)

so 16.7+483.3=500

Measuring fractions of a milliliter is impossible, and quite frankly unnecessary. I measure 17ml of developer and top up with water to the half liter.

17+483=500ml.

The time taken for development is critical, up to a point. The Massive Dev Chart app will provide timings for particular films. For example it states that when developing Kentmere 400 in PQ Universal, the development time should be 8 minutes and 15 seconds. Individual timings are unimportant here but any developer and timing that is used should be greater than 5 minutes and less than 10 minutes, as a guideline.

Why should the time be longer than 5 minutes? There are two reasons why this might be so.

• The ratio of neat developer to water to make up the developer solution that will be used, will be higher and there is more chance of uneven development on the resulting negative.
• The timing will be too short to guarantee consistency; A small mistake in timing, for example starting your timer late, can have a large detrimental effect on the negative.

It is worth noting that the above points apply to processing film by hand in a Paterson tank or similar.  Machine developing has been designed to allow short development times, normal contrast and lower dilutions of chemicals.

It is also worth noting that the standard developer, ID-11/D76 from Ilford and Kodak respectively, have timings that are between 7 and 9 minutes, for development using a stock solution, that, in general, is the recommended way .  This is no coincidence! These timings allow for better consistency in negative development by ordinary people. Shorter or longer timings require experience and a well practiced technique.

So to sum up, the importance of a dilution of 1+29 allows timings of between 7 and 9 minutes, or thereabouts, which mitigates any inconsistencies in technique and produces beautiful negatives of a standard contrast.

Image taken on TMAX 400 film and developed in PQ Universal 1+29.

PQ Universal developer.

 It's a funny thing that Ilford sell a liquid developer called PQ Universal, suggesting the developer can be used to develop film and paper, but then go on to state in their datasheet that they don't recommend the developer for 120 or 35mm film use, though sheet film is okay.

This kind of contradiction is the kind of thing that will intrigue my brain and cause me to want to investigate further.

So investigate I have.

Film developers fall into two broad categories.  These are;

1.  MQ (Metol-Hydroquinone) based
2.  PQ (Phenidone-Hydroquinone) based.

The MQ or PQ formula utilises the effect that the two developer agents, Metol and Hydroquinone are "superadditive" when used together. The development process will cause Metol or Phenidone to become oxidised and therefore it's effectiveness as a developer will be reduced.  The addition of Hydroquinone to Metol or Phenidone has a recharging effect on Metol or Phenidone, making the developer much more stable in use.  This will allow more films to be developed in a solution than with a single development agent alone. The superadditive effect also prevent sudden death syndrome in film developers, which was previously an issue, certainly in the commercial processing laboratories.

Examples of MQ developers are ID-11/D76 and Adox FX-39 II. Examples of PQ developers are Ilford DDX, Kodak TMAX developer and Microphen.

The introduction of PQ developers, in general,  in the 1950s was to add stability to developers and reduce development times. The reduction of development times was important to commercial processing laboratories who could then process more films in a day. In the 1950s, normal people had the disposable income to buy a camera and shoot films during family events. During this time most people would drop their film to the chemist who would in turn send the film to a commercial lab via a collection service.

A downside of MQ developers is that Metol is a skin irritant and can cause dermatitis, especially for those poor folk who worked in a commercial lab, processing hundreds of films in a day.  PQ based developers simply do not cause the same skin condition and are seen as a less toxic and safer developer than MQ based ones.

Another point to consider with the rise of commercial processing labs is that the camera film itself would need to be consistent in use, but able to be processed in a batch system.  Labs wouldn't gather, for example, all the Tri-X together and process them all at once, no a developer was required so that you could process all 100 speed films together. If you look at the Massive Dev Chart today you'd think that each film needs different times, different developers etc. To get the best out of each film, this may be true, but to process family snaps and general photography you can get away with being more general.

Ilford PQ Universal was once also sold by a chemical company called May and Baker under the trade name Suprol. May and Baker supplied all of the commercial processing labs in the UK and used to sell Suprol by the drum.

Looking at the instructions for Suprol in machine developing, you can get the time down to a less than two minutes per film and all films can be developed with standard times. They simply don't distinguish between the different ISOs.  

Suprol can also be replenished to keep a tank of chemicals working indefinitely.

With automation, made possible by machinery and electronic timing systems, you can be consistent in processing films and get decent results for all film types, certainly good enough for family snaps.

I should say that hobbyist photographers were likely to shun commercial labs and use a smaller processing lab that could treat their precious film with care and hand develop it according to the instructions provided by the photographer during the 1950s  and 1960s.

Suprol is described by May and Baker as a fine grain, high acutance developer.

The thing about the chemical industry is that the formulas used seem to be common knowledge. Hence you get Ilford ID-11 and Kodak D-76 being identical when dilutions and timings are considered and also give identical results (i.e. they are interchangeable).

So it's no surprise that while May and Baker produced industrial quantities of Suprol, Ilford produced an identical product and called it Ilford PQ Universal.  I use Fotospeed PD5, which is identical to Suprol (still sold by a comapny called Champion) and Ilford PQ Universal, but is much lower cost. Even the data sheets are identical, apart from branding.

I use PD5/PQ Universal/Suprol at a dilution of 1+29. This gives me the ability to develop 14 120 films in 250ml of developer, when diluted as a one shot developer for each film.  That means that one litre of undiluted developer will process 56 films.  So from my point of view it's ultra economical.

For me the use of PQ universal is like having all the advantages of Rodinal Acutance, without the grain.  I know some people "Frankenstein" mixtures of Rodinal and D-76 to get similar results.

As far as use is concerned, the dilution of 1+29 gives similar development times to D-76; in fact where no timings are given for PQ Universal, I often use the D-76/ID-11 timings as a starting point.  My agitation scheme is to use Ilford agitation, although I reduce the initial agitation from one minute to 30 seconds and am very gentle with the inversions, we are not trying to emulate a Hotpoint Twin Tub.  Agitation builds contrast fast and so for normal contrast negatives, gently Bentley is the way forward.

PQ Universal can be used to push films, with the associated longer development times.  Lower dilutions of 1+9 or 1+19 have really short development times and standard processing methods will produce high contrast negatives.  This is great for copying documents but not for pictorial uses, unless one is trying to emulate Dido Moriyama.

All photos in this blog were taken by the author and developed in Fotospeed PD5 at 1+29.

A weekend away in Benidorm?

 At my last birthday, my son gave me a birthday card and said your present is inside. I opened the card and there was a piece of A4 saying "Holiday in Benidorm".  Thanks, I said.

Now Benidorm is a destination that carries some baggage with it. It is the destination of choice for those Britains' who really want Blackpool with good weather and even cheaper lager. Benidorm is famed for full English breakfasts, with English sausages and a mug of builders tea. There are plenty of sports bars serving all the English brands of lager, like Stella Artois and San Miguel.  There are also several Irish bars serving genuine Guinness.

There are also the same fast food brands that you'd find in any UK city or town. The ubiquitous golden arches, the chicken from Kentucky, pizzas named after a pub game and more.

Not so much an experience of a different culture, with local fresh food and dancing, more of a home from home. Globalization has much to answer for.

Back in the 1960s, my maternal grandparents were early adopters of the Jet powered package holiday. They had been holidaying abroad before by using the train and ferries and then train again to their final destination. But when air travel became affordable, they jumped at the chance to board a BAC 111, the charter flight aircraft of choice, and arrived in Ibiza to find local fishing villages, fresh seafood and local entertainment (bullfights, flamenco etc) all washed down with plenty of local wine and sherry. This was long before the commercialization of many Spanish holiday destinations, or, as many think, the ruination of these destinations.

It was with trepidation that I, tentatively, looked forward to my weekend in Benidorm.

The weekend got off to a bad start. The post 9/11 paranoia, that still exists at Airports nearly 25 years later, proved to hold us up for longer than necessary. The security operative had clearly used Midnight Express as a training video rather than entertainment.  The delight with which I was asked to accompany him and went through my suitcase and carry on bag, was palpable.  

By the time I wheezed up to the boarding gate, my heart was about to give up the unequal fight with my age and with my painful feet complaining, they shut the gate and wouldn't let us through. Bastards!

This is the downside of modern travel, negotiating the security systems that were put in place for our security but which are intrusive and are designed to make the traveler feel like Billy Hayes.

My son got on the phone later in the day and the holiday company agreed that we could fly the next day, Saturday, and we could return on the Tuesday. A quick email to my boss to ask permission to change my holiday dates, resulted in an enquiry of such depth that it made the Watergate investigation look like a call to directory enquiries. Eventually permission was granted but with the mini lecture that I must be more organized in future.

After all the nonsense of the previous day, The day of the flight went perfectly. We arrived at the airport and, in contrast to the previous day, we were sat in the bar drinking a beer less than an hour after leaving my house.

The flight passed, not exactly pleasantly, but quickly enough that it didn't really matter and we emerged at Alicante airport ready for our transport to our hotel.

Arrival at the Hotel Olympia, in Benidorm Old Town, was a real delight. The hotel has an old world charm. The quiet entrance is in a street off of the main pedestrianised area. You step into the reception area and are greeted by a member of staff who welcomes you to the hotel and efficiently does the admin to check you into your room without looking myopically at a computer screen for half an hour.

We dropped our bags in our room and ventured out to find some dinner. Time was moving on and it was about 10pm, but we found a lovely little family run restaurant where a simple meal of Spaghetti Bolognese for myself and a freshly cooked  pizza for my son. From out table we could watch the kitchen staff spark into life and cook our food,  The food was delicious and reasonable price at 35 Euros for both of us, include a couple of beers each.  This was a venue that we'd return to during our brief stay in Benidorm.

We then repaired to a bar and sat outside enjoying a drink and a chat.

The next day we ventured out early following an enjoyable breakfast. I'd brought along a Polaroid Flip camera and four packs of film. Getting the film through the security at the UK airport was a nightmare as it can't be X-Rayed or CT Scanned. At £17.99 a pack, you don't want the film ruined!  So I'd calculated on using 2 packs a day during our stay.

Now I have to say that Benidorm Old Town is relatively unspoiled and lacks the gaudy, noisy, dreadful attack on the senses that you get a couple of hundred yards down the coast. The streets are a great place to take contemplative stroll post breakfast and the early morning air is fresh and welcome.  The shops are a mixture of local crafts, butchers, bakers, and shoe shops.

The Benidorm castle is easily accessible but there are only foundations still to be seen and a modern viewing area is built over the top, with perspex windows to allow viewing of medieval foundations and stonework.  The view of the coast and sea is at it's best here.

The early morning light was excellent and a contrast to the dull, dark conditions at home.  I pulled out the Polaroid Flip and shot some pictures,

The Flip is a beautifully simple camera. I borrowed the Flip from Dave Whenham (@daveinelland) and he has borrowed my Polaroid I-2.  The I-2 has lots of features and can be a bit complex to navigate.  The Flip is much simpler and works better for it.  I quickly shot the first film and reloaded.

In the Old Town there are plenty of subjects to shoot, but my preference is for double exposures and I was not left wanting. We walked and walked until it was lunch time and a delicious luncheon was enjoyed, again in a street bar.  The temperature at the end of January is 18 degrees Celsius and so the ability to walk around as it it were a cooler summers day in the UK was possible.

More walking in the afternoon took us along the coast toward the opposite end of the beach. There wasn't much along here but the walk was pleasant and we popped into a bar about 3pm for a restorative beer.

By the time we wandered back to the Hotel, I'd shot all the film for the day.

Following another meal at the restaurant we'd been in the previous night, we had a final drink in a lovely little bar about a 100 yards from the Olympia, sitting out until about 1am.

The next day, and nursing a bit of a hangover, we had a chilled day that included 3 meals, beer and more Polaroid photography.

We were collected at 06:20 (am) the following morning for our flight home.

I was surprised and delighted by Benidorm Old Town and I think that it was well worth a visit and made a nice weekend break.

Mind Your Own Business

Why is one photographic  process more valid than another? 

Digital photography may have many benefits but for whom? 

Undoubtedly the commercial photographer can reduce costs and overheads and get images to market quickly by using digital cameras and computers. 

Most of us are not commercial photographers.

How I shoot is, ultimately,  my business.  I earn my money honestly and no one has the right to tell me how to spend it.

If I want to use a cheap plastic cameras from Hong Kong, that's my business. No one else's.

If I share my work and others enjoy my work,  and they do, who is to say my photography is invalid in some way?

Anyone who has views like those suggested are usually trying to validate their own decisions for spending lots of money on Digital equipment. 

Ultimately its the final image that counts not how it was made.

For the hobbyist photographer, more involvement in the photography process gives more personal satisfaction than simply pressing a button will ever do.

If your digital camera takes superb photographs (and they do),  then why worry about what others do?

That you have a process that works for you, does not give you the right to criticise the process others might use. Mind your own business and create work that you are happy with.

The problem with digital cameras is that people often confuse "technically excellent" photographs with the lack of personal satisfaction of having made that image. Digital photos that are boring or dont engage the audience can be blamed on equipment rather than a lack of personal skill or artistry.

So often this situation results in more equipment being purchased without a resulting improvement in the ratio of keepers to those which can be binned. Cheap storage just means that terrabytes of crap are being stored. 

Think about this, AI is being trained on that crap...

The Polaroid I-2 - Multiple Exposures

 I will caveat this post by saying that I am by no means a Polaroid Multiple Exposure expert, but I dabble.  There are others on the 'net that are much more into Polaroid cameras and all the good and interesting things that the cameras do. There is a chap called Will Malone who has made multiple exposures a real art form and tried, with some success, to formalise this with some science. It is this kind of geekery that really interests me.

I am not going to reproduce the formalisation here, but, as we all stand on the shoulders of giants, I shall, and have been, be using his work as inspiration for my own.

A multiple exposure is, as I'm sure you will know, the practice of making two or more exposures within one frame and the result will be two pictures (if you take two exposures), somehow mixed together by the universe in a way that is not entirely predictable. The result is random, chaotic even, but wholly unpredictable.

This photo, for example, shows two pictures that have blended in a way that relies on the unpredictability of the film, the camera and the scenery.

Now it is possible to reduce chaos, impose some structure or form and end up with something reasonably intentional.

This was created (Ha Ha!) by taking the first exposure normally then turning the camera through 180 degrees and taking the second image of the same subject as the first.  This technique introduces symmetry, while retaining a level of randomness that is pleasing to the eye. Or at least my eye.

This picture was created  using a technique of taking an exposure of something in shadow (here the tree) and then the second exposure will appear to be bounded in the trees form.  It's weird and random but pleasing nonetheless.

On balance the multiple exposure offers much for the creative photographer. The ability to experiment, see the results "on site" and able to try again if needed really does make for an enjoyable experience.

And after all that is what it's all about, experience.

The Polaroid I-2, more discussion

In the last post about the Polaroid I-2, I discussed the frustrations that I had with the camera and the film. 

I suppose that I should say that the Polaroid I-2 is the flagship camera for Polaroid and is the most expensive and feature laden camera that is currently available. The camera alone is £500 and then there is film on top of that.  The Polaroid Now+ camera at the time I purchased the I-2 was the second most expensive Polaroid camera at £149. Other Polaroid cameras, for example the flip that came out this year, are £200. 

"This camera is the replacement for the SX-70!", they exclaimed.

The I-2 is more expensive by a huge margin and so expectations from this camera were high.

Initial use of the camera produced results that were not in line with expectations set by the high price and cornucopia of features. I shot a pack or three in the camera, each with increasing frustration until I discovered a forum for the I-2 that suggested the firmware might be out of date.  Now call me "Mr Old Fashioned" but surely a newly manufactured and shipped camera should be delivered with the latest firmware. But no! More to the point the camera hadn't been on the market for long so a major firmware update being available was a surprise to say the least.

I connected the Polaroid 'phone app to the I-2 and blow me if the app didn't say the firmware was out of date.  The app does the download of firmware from the 'net and pushes that firmware to the camera for installation.  Bit of a faff but now I had the latest firmware installed on the camera. Now I could be the best Instant photographer in the world!

But hold on, not so fast. This is where the inconsistent film (remember that from last time?) chucks a huge nut loosening tool into the mix. So another couple of packs of film later (at £17.99 this is getting expensive) and I'm beginning to suspect that someone at Polaroid is laughing at me. As Johnny Rotten asked the audience at the last Sex Pistols gig in America in 1978, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?". Well yes Polaroid, I do.

I am not a new photographer where either normal negative film or Instant film, in the form of Instax Wide, are concerned. My Chroma Snapshot, Instant Edition with LomoGraflok back is a completely manual camera. This requires me to take a meter reading after entering the ISO of the film into the meter, transfer the aperture and shutter speed to the camera and take the photo.  And Instax Wide is consistent and the ISO is the ISO!

See what I mean? Nothing wrong with my ability.  

It is absolutely infuriating to have an expensive camera, and even more expensive film, not behaving itself. You question yourself "Is it me?". Your confidence slips. It's not nice at all!

So having watched every YouTube video about the I-2 and it's, alleged, capabilities, I decided to have a break from worrying and being frustrated and decided to try some double exposures.  When you put the I-2 into multi exposure mode the camera does everything automatically, so if auto doesn't work then I'm writing a stiff letter to Polaroid in the land of the Dyke.

Well, left to it's own devices the camera did a sterling job of being an automatic camera.  At this juncture in proceedings, strong oaths were sworn, Anglo Saxon phrases used in public and the parentage of the designer of the camera firmware was brought into question in no uncertain terms! Still I had a working camera, so lets consider this turn of events a win!