Ingesting Images

On Court, Hasselblad 503CX, Carl Zeiss Planar T* f/2.8 80mm, Kodak T-Max 400

I've added a Plustek Opticfilm 120 to my photographic arsenal. At last I should be able to scan my 6x6 Hasselblad negs with a similar quality I've been used to with my 35mm negatives and Nikon Coolscan.

The Opticfilm 120 is a slow, unwieldy beast. It is paired with the obscurantist scanning software suite called SilverFast. It's German, completely over-engineered and as far away from Dieter Rams as Campbell Newman is from sane and rational. Silverfast successfully adheres to the one immutable law of scanning software user interfaces that it look like it was produced no later than 1998.

I'm not quite sure how to drive it yet, nonetheless I've been able to pull out high-resolution and detailed scans with little effort.

Defence Road, Hasselblad 503CX, Carl Zeiss Planar T* f/2.8 80mm, Fujifilm PRO400H

More to follow...

Retro Done Right

The Fujifilm X-T1

Fujifilm has announced the X-T1, the camera the Nikon Df could have been if Nikon had thought about it for more than 10 minutes (the Df was 4 years in the making, believe it or not). How far the X-system has come in such little time...

Photobook Review: We Make the Path by Walking

Paul Gaffney's We Make the Path by Walking follows the fringes of man's influence on the environment. It follows that proverbial path less taken, but instead of moralising, makes the man-altered world a pleasure to behold. New Topographics, this is not (at least not until the final pages), but it is a sort of curious, lyrical journey with the environment.

The journey follows, strangely enough, the path that is made by walking. Gaffney trekked some 3,500km across the European continent to bring us these images - an achievement in itself. The images he brings back are not purely of the natural environment, nor are they man-made. Each photograph features traces of both, beginning with a dominant natural environment that finally gives way to (or at least shares) the man-altered one.

Like using an electric shaver on a cocker spaniel, the path that has been carved out first by history and then followed by Gaffney is one that has not grown back the same way. This is probably what I like the most about the book - how the images achieve a natural rawness without resorting to a look of isolation and wilderness. In this images, I feel that the sounds of the man-dominated world were never out of earshot.

I went on a walk once. I saw lots of trees, too. They are charming. Couldn't hear lots of cars, but when I did hear one, it sure was loud. I always loved seeing the headlights of cars driving in the state forest at night during cadet camp. The endless shadows played around my senses. But I digress.

I'm sure there are other tracts of art-speak that can be applied to this book, but it's really just a simple, beautiful book that contains lovely lyrical images. And I've run out of adjectives.

It is presented in a printed slipcase and once removed from said case, is lovely and raw. Its binding is rough and visible (of the Smyth type I believe) but more than very fitting for this book. It can even lie flat.

Unfortunately for you, unless you've already a copy, the first self-published print run of 1,000 has sold out. There is apparently a "special edition" to be published soon. The book has been featured on many "top photobook" lists (because without lists, the world ceases to function) and has been nominated for awards and such.

All in all, it's a great little book that perfectly fulfils all the hopes and dreams artists hold for a self-published title. There's probably more to say about the book in art critique mode, but when my reaction to it seems so innate, there's little reason to go on about it.

Highly recommended.

We Make the Path by Walking
Paul Gaffney
Self-published, 2013
ISBN: 9780992600402
Extent: 78pp
Paperback with cardboard slipcase

Photobook Review: The Lost Border

This is the first of two reviews that follow along a similar path. Brian Rose's The Lost Border: The Landscape of the Iron Curtain is a simply elegant book which visually charts that famous geopolitical fault line which existed in one form or another from 1946 until 1989.

Rose chronicles the Inner German Border (innerdeutsche Grenze or simply die Grenze) and eastern borders of Austria and Italy in colour with his 4x5 view camera in a series of photographs captured between 1985 and 1989. Travelling multiple times between New York and Frankfurt, Rose hired a VW van and drove the length of the border, taking photographs as he went.

The resulting images of the stark geopolitical reality would have been unexceptional in the 1980s. In a way, these are images that could have been captured by anyone, but only Rose had the tenacity and sufficient presence of place to do so. The borders, of course, no longer exists as they do in this collection. The few instances where border fortifications remain along the Inner German Border, they do so as a sort of Disneyfied theme park historical attraction. The potency and dread of a border defended regularly with lethal force is somewhat diminished by tourists standing around and gawking at the remnants of a possible flashpoint of World War III.

It is refreshing to view images of the various national borders. All too often discussion of the Cold War focuses on the Berlin Wall, forgetting the borders of death which divided half of Europe. Sadly it's easy to forget the harrowing tales of escape and tragedy along these long borders.

Inner Border Memorial at Hötensleben, with larges pieces of the installation in situ including the notorious death strip

Although the barbed wire, concrete towers and death strips seemed a permanent feature of the eastern European frontier, Rose notes that even in 1985 they seemed crumbling and unwieldy. The top-heavy concrete guard towers (look at the one on the cover) expressive of a still potent regime on the brink of collapse. Rose's images are landscapes first and foremost and they are extremely well crafted. His use of colour helps create a sense of reality, documentary and immediacy that would be sorely missed in monochrome; his 4x5 negatives would be a sight to behold. 

Less than five years after Rose started this project, the political divisions of Germany would be formally ended with the physical ones crumbling away shortly thereafter. Europe would charge headlong into an ill-advised political and economic union that essentially amounted to a Bundesrepublik takeover of the entire continent - what they couldn't achieve through warfare, they achieved economically. Meanwhile, ethnic tensions began to boil over in the Balkans... 

Rose's images of a frontier long-gone act as a memento mori; motivation to go out and capture the world that exists now before it is changed forever. All it takes is a VW van, a camera and some balls.

The Lost Border: The Landscape of the Iron Curtain 

Brian Rose

Published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2004

Developing Photographs of a Time Past

iPhone 5 with VSCOcam

I visited the site of the Lal Lal blast furnace yesterday. I made sure to get there nice and early to make the most of the limited angled light before the bright and brash Summer sun made its presence felt perpendicular everything.

I shot my Hasselblad loaded with Ilford FP4+. I look forward to seeing how it turns out. It's easy to forget Victoria has a rich heritage hidden away in its forests, the rusting husks of industry lying idle waiting to be discovered.

Hasselblad Helpers

Who buys a single roll of 120 film any more?

Oh, you did? Well I guess there's always one, but did it come in an individual box? Probably not. There seems to be a severe shortage these days of individually boxed single rolls of film. It is cheaper for camera stores and most of us to buy pro packs of 5 rolls. The problem is that this usually means there are no tear-off tabs to stick in the holder on the back of yer Back to remind you what film is in the camera.

Consider this PDF a service to the film photography community. I call it a "Hasselblad Helper" although may be compatible with other 120 and/or 35mm cameras. The good quality tabs were extracted from official PDFs, the less quality ones were traced from scans. The Ektar one is just plain shitty. Apologies for that. At least it's the same as the emulsion. Also there's no Velvia 50 as I couldn't find a suitable box. Soz.

You might have magical powers of memory magic and always remember by way of some mnemonic device which back contains what film, but if you've ever shot a roll of Provia 100F thinking you were shooting Tri-X 400, you make sure you tab your back correctly.

Download the Hasselblad Helper here.

It's Hip to be Square

Yes, that's a Kodak coaster

A little while ago I bought a Hasselblad 503cx after an initial foray into medium format courtesy of James Ruff. Unfortunately I didn't have the funds for a lens and even though I attempted to purchase a single Zeiss 80mm f/2.8 from whatever 500 kit I came across, none seller was willing to separate lens and body lest the other get lonely.

Eventually I came across a BGN grade 80mm C T* on KEH.com and I bit the bullet. And what a delicious bullet it was, none of that licorice shit, just good old-fashioned West German know-how.

Notwithstanding its BGN grading, it is a beautiful lens free from optical imperfections and showing very little wear on the barrel. I can even see the white shutter speeds and red exposure values inked on the front ring. Obviously Carl Zeiss was having a bit of trouble with the engraver during the entirety of the C T* production, perfectly willing to engrave the aperture values but unable to do the same with the shutter values.

Still, the whole thing is wonderfully over-engineered and still leaves me wondering who the hell thought the union of the shutter speed and the aperture as one was a good idea. I don't think I've ever used it the way it is engineered. If you don't know what I'm talking about, when you set an aperture value and shutter speed, the two and then linked when you rotate the rings. You change the values separately by pushing on a little silver tab and then moving the ring. It's designed so you can change your depth of field while keeping the same exposure value. I'm sure someone on Whirlpool will have some idea why...no I joke. They only have an idea about every item except the one you're asking about. LOLs. JKS. Film is totes rad. Pentax is better than Nikon etc.

But I digress. It's a beautiful piece of kit. Now I just have to work out how the hell I'm going to scan the negatives, considering I gunned for a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED instead of its bigger 120-capable brother, the Coolscan 9000ED back in 2009. Even though I consider them brothers, they don't particularly look alike. It's as if they came from different times, different fathers perhaps. Same colour skin, different features. For today's discerning photographer (aren't we all?) Plustek offers the very nice Opticfilm 120 at a reasonable price...

A big thanks to James and Chris Zissiadis (urbanlight) for stoking my medium format fire until I got my shit together.

Short Shadows; Long Days

Photography can be a frustrating hobby at the best of times. Motivation to get out and take images ebbs and flows. The harsh Australian summer sun makes for the perfect photo mood-killer. Where the northerly winter sun makes it presence felt from a distance, casting long shadows all day, the summer sun is as subtle as an American tourist visiting China. While shadow play is one of my favourite photographic games, summer effectively kills it, leaving me to think about annoying things like composition.

Daytime shadows look like they've been rendered by a Nintendo 64, leaving people looking like NPCs in Goldeneye 007 - a vague hint of a darkened circle underneath their feet standing in for a more complex shadow.

Trent Parke seems to somehow make a living out of harsh Australia light. Good luck to him.

Sure, there are sometimes longish shadows, but they are usually a feature of diminishing light between 7-8:30am or 6-7pm. Then the mosquitoes come out.

Still, I'm told it's "nice" weather.

Bring on winter.