Damn the Variables – Full Speed Ahead!

I've just about got the Zorki 6 sorted out.  I put a plastic washer on top of the film cartridge and the images showed no tilt in the film gate.  I'm not entirely sure that was the right solution, however.  I noticed that I really also needed to push the film leader firmly downward on the take-up spool.  So, I may just try that next time without the washer.

The film for this quick test shoot was some Gekko MW100 from about a dozen rolls that were given to me some time ago.  I was somewhat skeptical about its capabilities given the 2007 expiration date, but it seemed worth a try given the current cost of film.  I shot it at box speed and gave it an extra minute in Ilfotec DD-X on the theory that it is rebadged Efke.  I was pleased with the outcome in terms of grain and tonal qualities, and I'm looking forward now to using the whole batch.

The Ilfotec DD-X was also a gift from a friend from about a year ago.  I finally got around to trying it out because I noticed that it is one of the developers Ilford recommends for Kentmere, one of my favorites.  So that is on the schedule too.

I used my Jupiter 8 lens on the Zorki 6 on this occasion.  It is a Sonnar copy and maybe the best of the bunch of my Soviet lenses.  I wish it had click stops for the aperture like the Industar 61-LD, but I can't complain otherwise.  My plan is to move next to trying the Zorki 6 with the Jupiter 12 and either the collapsable FED 50 or the Industar-21. Those are both Elmar copies and seem just as sharp to my eyes.

I think the Zorki 6 is handsomely designed.  It is probably not functionally superior to a lot a lot of similar rangefinder cameras, but I think that it incorporates a lot of the best features of the long Soviet Barnack line and it was the last model before the slr takeover. And, last but not least, thirty bucks!

Between Two Worlds

Lee Marmon - ca.1990 - photographer unknown

We went to the Albuquerque Museum this morning to see the Lee Marmon exhibit, Between Two Worlds. There is a small but representative selection of Marmon's work. The narrative commentary at the front of the exhibit is disappointing because it just parrots a tiring, contrived comparison of the work of Marmon to his predecessors, Edward Curtis and Charles Lummis.

There is no arguing the fact that Lee Marmon, a native son of the Laguna Pueblo, had easy access to his Native American subjects which made them comfortable in front of his camera. Contrary to the assertions made in the exhibit, however, there is very little real difference between his photographic approach and techniques and those of Curtis and Lummis.

The exhibit material implies that Curtis and Lummis were condescending toward their Native American subjects, and that they misrepresented them as members of a disappearing race. I  don't recall reading anything said by either that portrayed their subjects with any negativity. Curtis endured great hardship in documenting all the tribal groups he could find and never realized any significant income from his efforts.  Lummis lived in the Isleta Pueblo and clearly enjoyed the trust and affection of his neighbors.

As for the portrayal of the American Indians as in danger of disappearance toward the end of the 19th Century, I think we can cut Curtis and Lummis some slack. The indigenous people of the country had by that time been subjected to a couple centuries of genocidal warfare. Additionally, it has become increasing clear that well into the Twentieth Century there was a concerted effort undertaken jointly by the government and religious organizations to stamp out indigenous languages and cultures by ripping the children away from their families and confining them in prison-like boarding schools. (Marmon ran away from the Albuquerque Indian School.)

The charge that Curtis and Lummis posed their subjects, sometimes using artificial lighting, simply overlooks the realities of 19th Century photography.  Curtis and Lummis made their photographs on glass plates using large and cumbersome view cameras. Spontaneous snapshots of everyday life were not a practical option, though Lummis actually got pretty close to that with some of his cyanotypes. 

Marmon made most of his pictures of Pueblo people in outdoor settings and had no need for artificial lighting.  He did often use a somewhat cumbersome press camera, but it was loaded with film that was vastly more sensitive than those 19th Century glass plates of his predecessors. Marmon used flash for his commercial celebrity portrait work as was the custom in those days.

Curtis certainly did go to some lengths to portray his subjects mostly in traditional regalia which was not often seen outside ceremonial activities. But, guess what; most of Marmon's pictures of his people show them wearing traditional garb and jewelry which they clearly donned for the occasion. Not unsurprisingly, as the exhibit material points out, Marmon never had a negative thing to say about the photographic approaches of Curtis and Lummis. In fact, Marmon was doing his best to emulate the posing conventions of his day which were not all that different from the approaches of Curtis and Lummis.

It seems to me it should be possible to recognize what is unique and valuable in Marmon's accomplishments without trying to turn Curtis and Lummis into villainous antagonists in a way that Marmon himself never endorsed.

Friday Morning

  I took my Bentzin Primar plate camera to the Plaza Vieja to catch the old cars and a couple of the old car guys.

The roll of Fomapan 400 was processed in HC110b.  I was pleased with image quality from the low-cost Fomapan, but found I was really out of practice in using the plate camera.  Both the wire frame finder and the little reflex viewer provide a somewhat vague idea of where the camera is pointed, and achieving sharp focus by estimation is always tricky at less than the smallest apertures.  It took some careful cropping of the negatives to get some reasonable compositions.

Sorting out the Zorki 6

One-inch strips of black yarn at either end of the top back channel seems to have gotten rid of the light leak that appeared in previous pictures made with the Zorki 6.

Getting some experience with the camera has helped me to avoid pressing the rewind release button instead of the shutter release.

A small vertical misalignment of the rangefinder image was corrected by just slightly tightening the front ring of the rf window.

One issue remains to be corrected.  The film is slightly tilted as it goes over the film gate.  I think the cause of that is the slight height difference between modern 35mm film cartridges and those made in the Soviet Union.  My FED 1g had the same problem, and the fix was to put a narrow plastic washer on top of the film cartridge.

The roll of Kentmere 400 was shot in Albuquerque's Old Town.  I processed the roll in HC110b for six minutes at 22F and got good negative density.

The lens for the Old Town shoot was my Industar 61-L/D; it seems to me to perform about the same as the Industar 26M that came with the camera.  Next, I'll try the Jupiter 8 2/50.

I'm getting a little more comfortable with using VueScan and GIMP-2.10 on my old IMAC, but neither offers the fine-tuned image adjustments formerly available on my XP desktop running Silverfast and Photoshop CS2.

I'm happy so far with the camera.  The controls are nicely placed, the flip-open back is convenient, and the diopter viewfinder adjustment is very welcome to my old right eye.  I don't miss slow speeds and 1/500 is plenty fast for me; plus the thus-simplified shutter is bound to be more reliable.

Chance Encounters

 We went to a backyard jazz concert this evening.  A woman we had not seen in ten years was in the audience.  She was the person who adopted one of the cats who hung out in our backyard at our first home in Albuquerque.  I wrote a tribute to that cat, Spot, when he went off to his new home.  He was just one of quite a few, all of whom were ultimately adopted.  Well, we did keep one, Ruthie, who I have photographed many times.  And, of course, we also came to town with two others, Richard and Rio.  Anyway, it seemed like a good excuse to celebrate all the cat friends in our life.

Spot

Stripey

momma cat

Sister

Rio & Richard

Ruthie

********************************************

Also:

Angelitos Negros - Eartha Kitt - 1953

Retooling

 I have had my eye on the Zorki 6 for a long time.  The flip-open back makes film loading easier than in the previous Barnack-style models, as well as facilitating lens collimation.  Another feature that is particularly attractive to me is the diopter adjustment for the viewfinder.  When an ebay posting came up with a $30 pricetag, there was no hesitation on my part.

I decided to test the camera at the Albuquerque Rail Yards which becomes a farmers and crafts market on the weekends.  Thanks to the generosity of Jim Grey I was able to use a roll of Agent Shadow 400 to get the job done.  The camera seemed to perform faultlessly.  The Industar 26M was smooth in operation and its click-stop aperture is a nice feature.

There was a small light leak apparent in the bottom corners of the images, but I think that will be easily remedied with a small foam strip.  I'm looking forward now to trying some of my other FED, Jupiter and Industar lenses with the camera.

I sat down at my computer to scan the roll of film when we got home from the Rail Yards and discovered that my old Dell Windows XP machine which I have used for years for scanning and image editing would not boot.  A visit to the computer repair shop produced a diagnosis of a dead motherboard.  That came as quite a shock, and I spent the better part of the next day sorting out hardware and software choices.  As it turned out, I was able to connect my Epson 2450 Photo scanner to my old 2010 IMAC.  I tried a MAC-compatible version of Silverfast scanning software, but it seemed impossibly slow and awkward to use.

I finally settled on Viewscan for scanning and it seems pretty close to my old Windows version of Silverfast in terms of features and speed.  For image editing I currently only have GIMP-2.10.  That program seems to have all the needed operational features, but in use they are totally unintuitive.  I'll eventually learn enough  about GIMP to get most of what I want from an editor, but I'm going to start looking hard for a version of Photoshop CS2 that will run on the IMAC.  So, while I briefly had some doubts that film photography was going to continue being an option for me, it seems I am still in the game.

Midsummer

 I spent the morning at the Botanical Garden shooting Fomapan 400 in my Mamiya C330.

The Mind's Eye

 I haven't gotten out much to make pictures for some time due to a physical mobility problem.  I hope to get past that soon, but in the meantime I have also been trolling through my posted pictures to identify locations where I might go with my cameras which don't require a lot of walking.  In the process of looking at the pictures I was reminded of an odd mental phenomenon. 

American flags get included in my images periodically, often by chance rather than intention.  The odd thing is that in the monochrome black and white images I often distinctly perceive the actual red, white and blue colors in the flags.  Here are a couple examples:

Ikonta A 520

Kodak 1A Folding Pocket Special

I can look at those two images closely and remind myself that the pictures are completely monochrome, but I cannot seem to banish the perception of color.  

I posted the pictures on our local NM Film Photography group on Facebook, but I think only one person responded that they might see some color in the flags as I do.

In a related oddity, there is one picture of a flag in my Flickr photostream which does not evoke the color response for me.

Leotax Elite

The obvious difference in that image is that the flag is not shown in its entirety and the flattened graphic character of the composition somewhat obscures the identity of the flag object.  

No subject other than the flag in any of my pictures has ever produced a false color impression for me.

On the general topic of flags, I would not describe myself as being particularly patriotic and, while I am most familiar with the U.S. example, I don't think America's flag is more impressive graphically that that of a lot of other countries.

Square Photographs

 I have never been to Indiana, but I have a pretty good idea what it looks like thanks to daily visits to Jim Grey's blog, Down the Road.  Jim posts pictures there about his Home State, as well as those from his frequent road trips around the country.  The photographs are made with a large collection of old film cameras.  Jim has also published a series of books of photos and stories.  I was very pleased recently to receive a copy of the last book; it is entitled Square Photographs.  The pictures, in both color and black and white,  are all made with his Yashica Twin Lens Reflex cameras on medium-format paper-backed roll film.  

If you are mostly used to seeing photographs on the screen of your phone or your computer, looking at the nicely reproduced pictures in Square Photographs will be a somewhat shocking experience.  Even though many of the pictures depict pedestrian subjects they have a level of visual intensity that is hard to explain in words. Part of that impression comes from the large 6x6 cm negatives which can support considerable enlargement, but much of the impact of the photos is attributable to Jim's discerning eye.  I thought he made a particularly nice choice to put a head-on view of an old VW bus on the back cover.

My MAC screen shows a pretty good version of this shot, but it really pales in comparison with the actual cover picture.

Reassembly

 I have over a period of years deposited my thoughts and some images in two blogs.  One is this, about film photography.  The other is explained by the title, Everything Else. My motivation for adding the second blog was in part to have a place to put digital photographs.  While that division has some logic to it, such an approach can lead to a fragmentation of self-presentation that can be somewhat destructive.  My non-photographic blog posts wander through politics, religion, literature, and current events in no particular order, but there are common threads running through it all, and some connect to my film photography.

One such connection I came across recently was an Everything Else blog post, Haiku and Photography, that really seems now like it should be in my film photography blog. That post also seemed a good companion to one about Chaco which is in the photography blog, and which contains some of my own haiku. I suppose one reason the haiku and photography piece ended up where it did was that there are no images to accompany the text.

So, there, I have reconnected some threads with hypertext links. The effort has also got me thinking about how I might blend in some references to the only other form of poetry I have patience for, the Spanish ballads of the 15th and 16th Centuries known as the Romances (and their 20th Century resurrection by García Lorca). Of course, illustrating those is going to be something of a challenge for me, and certainly for readers of my blogs. Maybe some of my flamenco dance shots would work?

So as not to perpetuate a trend toward imageless posts, here is a bit of whimsy from Everything Else:

A fearless bunny

In the Japanese Garden

posed for my cell phone.

digital

Progress

 The density of my negatives is looking better after giving the Kentmere 400 an extra stop of exposure and seven minutes in HC110b.  I'll try the same next with PMK Pyro processing.

I took a bike ride of about a mile to the Tingley ponds.  The Leica IIIa is a nice lightweight companion for such an outing.

I like the collapsable Elmar 3.5/50 lens for its compactness and sharpness.  I'm not sure it is actually a better performer than the similar Soviet lenses, but it is nice to have a complete Leica outfit.

Confessions of the Frugal Photographer

 

I stopped in at a local thrift store recently for the purpose of getting change for a twenty.  I plucked a book off the shelf and took it to the counter.

"Just the book?, said the cashier.

"Yes."

"Thirty-five cents."

"!!!"

I probably should have bought the CS2 manual thirteen years ago when I first acquired the program.  Instead I muddled through as I often do, relying on what information I could scrape up from the web.  Of course, I might have had to pay double for book then, but it still would obviously have been quite a bargain.  Also, the CS2 version of Photoshop cost me nothing as the company for about ten days allowed free downloads as a new version had gone on the market.

I probably have about the same number of books about photography as I do old film cameras.  Most have been acquired from used book stores at bargain prices.  Some favorites I have enjoyed going back to recently include Ilse Bing: Photography Through the Looking Glass,  Paul Strand: An American Vision,  and A Shadow Falls by Nick Brandt.

All of which leads to the confession part of this missive.  While it is difficult to quantify,  I think it not unreasonable to posit that about half of my enjoyment of film photography derives from the fun of hunting for bargains in old analogue photography cameras and accessories.  The majority of my collection came from ebay, but I have also picked up quite a few from junk stores and yard sales.  Here is a small sampling from the ninety-nine cents to ten dollar category:

The Nikon EM was found at a neighbor's yard sale and cost $10.  The five-dollar Hikari came from the Savers thrift store in Albuquerque.  Both have mounts that accept some of the finest lenses ever made.  I picked up several of the much-in-demand Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim at junk stores; none cost more than five bucks and the last one I found had a "99 cents" price tag.

Well, you know what is coming: Cheap is good, Free is better.  Dedicated photographers over the years find themselves in possession of fine cameras which have been superseded by other fine cameras.  Asking for money in exchange for a camera that has produced treasured photos seems a bit like selling a friend, so one goes looking for an enthusiast who will treasure the surplus camera and use it as intended.  I like to consider myself in that category as I have always to some extent justified my possession of more than a few cameras with the idea that I have made pictures with (nearly) every one.  And, thus, I have ended up with some very fine cameras thanks mostly to the generosity of friends who I have known only through my connection to the Internet.

Not all the donations have been of the extraordinary quality apparent in the above examples,  and there are times when a perfectly useable camera just does not seem to fit the current work flow.  So, I have passed on quite a few cameras to others.

The prices on old cameras have gotten a bit weird lately.  I often see examples that are neither uncommon nor unique in their capacities selling for hundreds of dollars.  Still, there are bargains to be found even if it takes some dedicated searching.  Somewhat surprising is the fact that I still find myself on a daily basis doing just that, even though the likelihood of buying yet another camera is presently miniscule.  It takes about ten minutes to troll through the auction listings on ebay in four-hour chunks, skipping past the details of grossly over-priced cameras, while examining the particulars of those which come closer to my traditional target upper limit of thirty-five bucks.  It reminds me of my youth in downtown Seattle, window shopping with my grandfather in front of First Avenue pawnshops and sporting goods stores.

Kentmere 400

 I have had nice results in the past shooting Kentmere film and processing in both HC-110 and PMK Pyro.   Recently, though, my negatives end up looking a stop or two underexposed.  I bought a new beaker and a syringe for measuring and mixing the developer, thinking that the problem could be contamination of the processing equipment.  That made no difference in the outcome, however.  I still had to compensate for the thin negatives with Photoshop adjustments.  So, my plan now is to shoot the film at a stop slower and accept that it is not going to produce what I want at the rated box speed.

It is tempting to theorize some manufacturing fault, but I haven't seen any reports on the issue elsewhere , including from the people who have inspired me to use the film at Photonet and Rangefinder Forum.  On the up side, the fact that I can get a reasonable outcome from the weak negatives speaks to the fundamental excellence of the film in regard to exposure latitude and fine grain.