Long-live Rollei!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything (again…). The exhibition plans are on hold indefinitely. At least till the time I can gather a good quality film portfolio. Digital photos just seemed to disconnected and no longer have that appeal in my head. Plus, I’m practicing darkroom printing these days and I want to exhibit all hand printed photographs.

Anyway, a friend gave me a roll of Rollei Retro 400s to try out. Having not tried any of the non-mainstream films (Portra, HP5, TMAX, Tri-x, etc.) I didn’t want to risk blowing it on something that I put a bit of effort in. Loaded it in my tiny Oly MJU II and took a few snapshots.

I have to say, I am really impressed by this film. It’s exactly what I need. The rich blacks, fine grain and high contrast make it absolutely brilliant. Sadly, as far as I can tell, it’s not that easy to come by (at least in Melbourne). And the places that do stock it, charge insane prices. I’m probably just going to stick with Tri-x and/or TMAX for now.

The photos below are untouched scans from my Canon 5600F (except for some cropping and TIFF to JPEG conversion). Developed in Rodinal for about 10 minutes at the usual 20 degrees and fixed in Ilford Hypam.

Enjoy!

Gearing up

I’ve been wanting to hold an exhibition of my work for quite sometime. Not with the intention of making any money off of it but just to show it to people in the hope that they will appreciate it. Of course I wouldn’t mind selling a few prints. Finally I have decided to go through with it.

Now that I’ve committed myself to hold an exhibition, I soon realised that it’s much easier said than done. The main thing, the venue.

I rang around the local galleries and few cafes, all we’re charging well over the estimates I had in my head. Not that I’m being cheap or anything, but I can’t seem to justify spending close to $1K (in most cases) for a 7 day exhibition when I don’t make any money from my photography in the first place. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place, or maybe I just need someone to bear the costs with me. That said, I don’t have any photographer friends and I’m not that active on photography forums etc. Besides, if I have an exhibition in collaboration with someone I don’t know, there is a high possibility that it may lead to disaster. So, that option is out (not completely though).

I was sitting at my favourite cafe and having a chat with the owner (who’s a close friend) and expressed my interest on having an exhibition without realising that I hadn’t asked him if I could have it at his cafe. In the middle of my droning speech about how disappointed I was, he slaps me on the head and tells me that I can have it at his cafe. I asked him how much he would charge me…another slap on the head. That’s settled. A free venue. What more could I want.

Next thing I need to address is the number of photographs I want to display, the theme (if any), how to display them (framed or unframed), what sizes will be effective, etc. etc. I haven’t yet decided on the number of photographs, but I have decided that I want all the photographs in black and white (you may have noticed my obsession with black and white photographs). But I have a problem with that decision; I don’t have that many ‘exhibition-worthy’ photographs in black and white (why do I want to hold an exhibition again?). Now I have two options:

1. I can take new photographs with the theme of the exhibition I have in mind or;

2. Make sets of related photographs.

The second option gives me a bit of flexibility as well. This removes the limit of ‘only black and white’ that I have set for myself. That said, I am leaning towards the first option of taking more photographs. But that will, inevitably, delay the exhibition since I only have time till the end of February till my university break ends. Lots to think and plan about.

Then is the question: “to frame, or not to frame.” I am on a budget so The best option right now (financially) is to go with the no frame approach. But that leads to more problems. Firstly it’s not that kind of a venue. And secondly, this is my first exhibition so I have to make a good impression. I’m thinking of hitting up a certain Swedish furniture store to see if I can get something cheap in price and not quality.

Then is the issue of the overall presentation of the exhibition. It is a very busy cafe and I don’t want it to seem that the cafe owner has just put up some new wall art. So I need to make sure that my marketing is spot on and started well in advance (about a week should be enough I think. Anymore and it could have an adverse effect). I need to design leaflets and posters, and do the usual social networking hype.

Website…need to make one.

Black and white can be considered a theme but if the pictures are completely random, they simply won’t make any sense and would kill the mood of the exhibition. If I go with more than one theme and organise them in sets, I will need more photographs and their size will be smaller i.e. won’t attract that much attention.

What paper to go for? Black and white looks amazing on metallic paper. I like the shinny 3Dish feel you get from it in the light.

You can probably judge my level of confusion by the randomness of this post. I just hope I can get everything sorted in time and don’t let my impatience get in the way of me holding a decent exhibition.

Would love any suggestions or tips anyone can give me. I’ll keep updating my progress on my blog and make a dedicated page here with all the info regarding the exhibition once I start promoting it.

Here are a few pictures I took of the venue. I would appreciate any ideas that anyone can give me regarding placing and size of the photographs.

35mm

If you have been reading my blog recently, you’ll know that I spotted a mint condition Minolta on eBay after searching for almost 2 weeks for a cheap semi-automated rangefinder. It was listed for $65 plus $10 for postage. I asked the few usual questions from the seller regarding light leaks, lens fungus or dirt, rangefinder, shutter and light meter accuracy, and was told that “it seems to be working fine but since this camera hasn’t been film tested, I cannot say for sure. However, I can offer you a 2 week trial period in which you can test the camera out as much as you want and if there are any issues – full refund.” Sold.

Since the camera was located in Melbourne, I asked the seller if I could pick it up instead. He agreed and the very next morning I was at his place doing a final inspection. It wasn’t cleaned and had a bit of mould on the leather and around the areas one would normally grip it and the focus ring was extremely stiff (I had to hold it like a bottle top to make it move!). Using these non-issues, I thought I would haggle a bit and see where it gets me. I started at $30. He said $60. I said $35. He said $50. I said $40. He said “done”. Just like that, it was mine.

Giddy with excitement, I left his home and went straight to a camera store and bought a Kodak 400CN (I usually set my ISO at 400 when street shooting with my D90 so figured that would be a good starting point for me) black and white film ($13 – same film on eBay: $3-$5). Loaded it and hoped on the train to the CBD (see what I was on about in the previous post about me not being patient). I kept fiddling with the focus ring and slowly it did become a tad bit loose but not loose enough to be used for fast paced street shooting (the lubricant in the focus ring was all sticky due to lack of use). Also, I was a bit uncertain about the selenium light meter and it’s accuracy. Then again, this was supposed to be a test run for the camera to see if everything worked the way it’s supposed to.

On the train, I really started to inspect it and see what controls I had at my disposal. There were two switches on the lens marked ‘X’ and ‘M’. And another marked ‘V’, which I soon figured out, was for the self-timer. The ‘X’ and the ‘M’ switch…no idea whatsoever! There is a flash guide table on the back of the camera that sort of explained what I had to do with that switch. Don’t know what I derived from that table but I switched it from ‘X’ to ‘M’ and left it there. Then there was the issue of the aperture ring (as this is an Aperture Priority camera, there are no dials available for shutter speed adjustments). There is a ring that controlled the exposure (I know that because it moved a needle in the light meter), but it doesn’t have any aperture values. Instead, it has a ‘B’ (‘Bulb’ mode obviously) and then numbers from 6 to 18 in normal succession. I figured these were the EV values instead of f-stops (my hunch was right since I finally found some info on the camera which confirmed it). With this unconfirmed understanding of the camera, I got out the train and immediately started shooting.

Focusing was a pain because of the stiff focus ring and, tiny as it may be, there is quite a bit of viewfinder blockage because of the 45mm prime lens. I know all RF cameras have this problem, but this was the first time I was shooting with it so it felt distracting. Along with that, I kept forgetting to check the light meter that is situated on the top of camera instead of the ‘in-viewfinder’ info I’m used to. It is quite a heavy camera for it’s size and it’s built like a tank – solid metal. Not a single bit made out of plastic. So without a wrist strap, it was proving to be a challenge to handle. The ergonomics are decent – it was the weight without a proper grip that was the issue.

As you can probably tell, it wasn’t exactly a good experience. All that uncertainty and the newness of film didn’t leave me in a comfortable situation. I know it was a test run, but I still wanted some assurance that I’ll get at least one half decent photograph! And to top it all off, I kept looking at the back of the camera to look at the result (bad habits die hard)! After taking a few shots, I just put it back in my bag and went to the State Library and sulked for a bit. Disappointed at myself for buying something without doing much research into the subject the camera addressed – film photography.

After spending 15 – 20 minutes in the same corner, I saw a guy in the library with an old Olympus OM film SLR dangling around his neck. I followed him with the intention of catching up to him and having a chat about film photography thinking maybe he could give me an idea about what I was doing wrong (he seemed to carry it with confidence which led me to believe that he may be experienced in the film area). But before I could catch up to him, he went straight into the ‘Arts’ section which was a silent area. I followed him and instantly saw a whole sea of book shelves on photography immediately towards my right. Weirdly enough, I had never been to this part of the library before (all I’ve ever done in the library before this was study for my exams). I looked through the countless amazing books on everything from glamour, to fine art, to commercial, to portrait, to this, to that photography. It felt like heaven! Thankfully, I realised I was drooling before it overflowed.

As much as I wanted to read all the books in those shelves, I grabbed the two that attracted me the most. A biography on Ansel Adams and another one that was published by Magnum Photos. Even though that Magnum Photos book was more related to the style I wanted to peruse, I couldn’t pass reading on the absolute genius that was the great Ansel Adams. I read and I read. Before I knew it, I had spent nearly 5 hours in the library. A small pile of books had formed on my table, all related to film photography.

After reading all those books, I realised I was looking at film photography all wrong. I was still in my overshooting digital mindset i.e. not emotionally involved in the process of capturing the photographs; not feeling the composition; there was no soul in my photographs. Film photography is an art form and black and white gives it character.

I left all my frustration with those amazing books in the library and headed back out. I kept telling myself to be patient. Wait for the shot to come to you. But it never did and I went back home without taking a single shot.

The next day my wife and I had to go watch a cricket match with a few friends and instead of taking my (comparatively) big D90, I thought I would take the Minolta with me. I didn’t have any intention of taking any pictures of the cricket match so I figured just the Minolta would do me fine.

Still getting used to the field of view. It would have looked a lot better if I was closer.

I had all the things I had read about in the books and on the blogs circling in my mind and was determined not to get impatient and ruin my chances of getting a good shot this time. Surprisingly, my wife didn’t mind this time when I kept pausing and waiting whenever I saw an interesting composition while we were walking from the train station to the stadium (she usually snatches the camera away from me when I do this with my D90). I was having trouble framing since the frame lines in the viewfinder aren’t that bright and I hadn’t, as yet, gotten used to the field of view I get with the 45mm f2.8 Rokkor. Even with all this waiting, I couldn’t get a decent shot (in my head at least). It came down to the point that my wife and I found a bench in front of a multilevel walkway just outside the stadium that made up a nice composition. And then we waited. She played games on her iPhone and I preset my focus and exposure. We waited around 10 minutes when I finally got what I wanted and I quickly took the shot. As soon as I pressed the shutter release, I felt strangely satisfied and I knew this was the one. With a smile on my face, I looked at the exposure counter. That was the last one.

I was so excited to see that picture that I went to the closest 1 hour photo lab at around 9 am and dropped off the film for developing and rushed off to do my other chores for the day as quickly as possible. 9:42 and I was free. The last 18 minutes were torturous (partly because the excitement was killing me and partly because I spent those 18 minutes looking at the clock on the dashboard of my car). I couldn’t take it any longer. It was exactly 10 am and I still hadn’t received the call letting me know that I could pick up the prints. I walked into the photo lab and they tell me they’re just printing them and it’ll take another minute or so. I can swear I heard the ticking of seconds in my head.

The minute passed and I finally had the prints from my first roll of film in my hands. I paid them and rushed back into the car and ripped open the bag. Crap…crap…crap…crap…not bad…meh…*17 prints later*…..

(just a big ass smile)

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Take 2

It has been very long since I’ve posted anything (minus my last post – after almost 7 months!), to say the least. I really don’t know why that happened even when I had so much going on, photography wise. But before that, I was completely neglecting photography. I literally had to blow dust off my poor D90.

Soon after writing the 7 month old post, I just sort of stopped using my camera. I hardly had time to get out and shoot. And when I did have the time, I would watch television or play Call Of Duty instead of using my camera. It didn’t matter to me at first. I sort of gave up on photography. But, out of nowhere, I became extremely frustrated with myself for letting my passion die.

The first thing I tried doing was to change my style a bit. Event photography and all that commercial nonsense that I wanted to get into just stopped appealing to me. Fine art and street photography gained my interest and I tried to get more technical with my camera instead of Photoshop or Lightroom (that said, I did make a few serious attempts at HDR photography – not in the usual overdone, unrealistic fashion but more with the idea of what the human eye would see). I also started to try and frame the photograph as well as I could within the camera instead of cropping it later. I realised how little I paid attention to the overall composition of the photograph and forcing myself to stop cropping has really started to help me create much better composed photographs than I did before (in my opinion). Although with the D90, always getting the right composition isn’t always possible since it doesn’t have a 100% viewfinder and I’m still getting used to the viewfinder crop (these little changes in my shooting style have made me start from scratch, which is a good thing).

A picture from my first real attempt at street photography

So, with my new angle towards photography, I started paying more attention to the photograph I was about to take. Along with really thinking about my composition, I tried to evaluate the exposure (even with the correct metering, there’s, more often than not, some fault) as accurately as possible so that the picture was ready to be shown with very little or no post adjustments at all. All this thinking and planning also stopped me from over shooting, which I used to do a lot (I’m sure both my camera and computer thank me for that).

Like I said before, I’ve also gained quite a bit of interest in street photography. The thought of capturing that “decisive moment”, that one moment in daily life that will never occur again, was just too good to pass up without a serious attempt. So, after reading up on the basics concepts and ideas of street photography from various blogs like www.erickimphotography.com  and www.85mm.ch (by the way, if you’re into street photography even a little bit or just want to see what the fuss is all about, be sure to check out both these sites. Both, Thomas Leuthard (85mm) and Eric Kim are geniuses behind the camera and also very generous guys who share their knowledge for free and through workshops. Plus Thomas Leuthard has got excellent ebooks for free download on his site – get them by clicking here), I grabbed my D90, slapped on a 28mm f/2.8D prime on it and went into the streets of Melbourne‘s CBD without any real idea of what I was going to shoot. I did that deliberately just so that I could get a feel of what I was up against. And to be honest, the streets intimidated me like anything before. But I started shooting anyway. I was shooting random people. With hardly any thought given to composition or anything else other than the exposure. Needless to say, all the 150ish photographs were absolutely crap.

Patience is not a trait found in my personality. And it was because of this that I decided to hit the streets after reading only a few blog posts. Little did I know that street shooting was far less complicated that I had imagined it to be. As far as the camera settings are concerned, just set it in Aperture priority, set a mid range-ish aperture, set the ISO depending on the light (or leave that in ‘Auto’ as well) and you’re set. I had my camera on manual the first time and spent almost the first 45 minutes trying to figure out the right settings since the light is almost always different in different places. I was too worried about the exposure setting than anything else. In street shooting, composition is key. Let the camera worry about everything else.

Coming back to the matter of patience, you need bucket loads of it in street shooting. I’ve realised that now – somedays you may get 5 or 6 amazing shots, other days, you may not get even one. One needs to be patient and wait for it to come to you. You will never get the composition you want when you hunt for it.

The other thing that I’ve derived from my, now, massive library of ebooks and documentaries on street shooting is that almost everyone says something or the other that is loosely or directly related to the quote by legendary photojournalist, Robert Capa, “If your photos aren’t good enough, then you’re not close enough.” While that may be true around 80% of the time, one doesn’t always need to get in their subjects’ face. I will admit, getting as close as Robert Capa requires some major cojones and does yield some spectacular results, I just simply can’t get that close (for now). Now, look at the guy who practically invented street shooting, Henri Cartier – Bresson (nothing even remotely related to street shooting is complete without the mention of his name). He did get close but when he talks about street shooting, he talks about geometry. And that’s the style I want to develop. I know it’s not very original of me, but at least I have a direction till the time I try out different things and determine my personal style.

To force myself to be patient and not over-shoot, I got a smaller memory card for the D90 (I normally have a 16gb card but I opted for a 2gb card for this exercise). I did stop but I still took a few useless images that I simply deleted when I ran out of memory. To completely cure myself of the impatience, I shelved my D90 again and recently bought a 52 year old Minolta Uniomat 35 rangefinder camera. Mainly because I’ve wanted to try a rangefinder system for a very long time and also because you can’t review/delete your pictures when shooting film. You have make every shot count. I haven’t done much street shooting with the Minolta as yet but the number of times that I have been out with it, I’ve only had the roll that was already inside it and, to make things even more challenging, never carried any extra film.

This all said, I have been using my D90 for other stuff that’s beginning to interest me; star trails and time-lapse photography. I’ve done two attempts at this till now (mainly because we haven’t had a clear night sky for over a month here in Melbourne. Clouds just have to show up at the wrong time!).

My first attempt at star trail photography.

Anyway, this has been a concise version of what I have been up to lately. I concentrating more on film photography, so my next post is going to be focused on my first few attempts at film photography (rangefinder and film, both are firsts for me).

Stay tuned!

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(Almost)Back in the game

It’s been a while since I’ve written/edited/taken pictures of/updated/uploaded anything. My desktop became the development land for new spider housing societies, and my beloved camera gathered dust (so much dust that when I cleaned it, my allergies kicked in). My overpriced education is to blame for this (exams etc.).

Anyway. Haven’t taken any new pictures but I did discover a stash of untouched photographs in my aperture library. They were a few random street shots and some of the ‘Royal Melbourne Show‘ I went to a few months back (for those of you who don’t know, it’s an absurdly overpriced carnival). Edited a few. Went a bit crazy with high contrast b&w though. Wasn’t feeling comfortable with the software. Not quite happy with the editing. 2 months of nothing taking a toll on me I guess.

Please take the time to check out my sad little flickr page at www.flickr.com/hasanibrahim (poor thing gets half a visit a month).