Bigger than the Beatles?

Another regret is not taking more photographs when I used to spend the summers playing music and recording it with a couple of friends from school and the occasional other 'musician'. But thenit's difficult to photograph something you are doing yourself. Going through my files it's become clear that the pictures I have printed in the past are in worse condition than those I've never, or rarely, printed. Dust, scratches. The works. I am also learning that scanned files are not as easy to process as today's digital raw files. Shadows and highlights can't be recovered as easily. That has to be done at the scanning stage, and is a whole new curve to be learned. or not, in my case. Near enough is close enough for rock'n'roll.

The next three are unusual for their use of a flash gun.

I can't remember who took the next shot. But it's pretty good - apart from the dodgy geezer playing the bass...

I have a dim memory of some pictures of us, including our irregular drummer, setting up in a garage, but they are not in my neatly collated files. Perhaps they are in a box or cupboard somewhere, or perhaps I'm imagining them. One picture I have found which I thought was imaginary is a (rare) colour photo of the village corn mill. The mill has been replaced by houses. Which makes me wonder if I took the photo around the time the mill was to be demolished, knowing it would be gone soon.

There area couple of frames of the mill in black and white which are next on my list for scanning. It's a slow process though. With over 50 sheets of negatives, and a slow scanner which renders the computer unable to do anything else while scanning, it's going to take me a while to digitise all the frames I want to. Even at two per sheet.

The number of shots in portrait orientation continues to surprise me. However I have found one in landscape which I'm liking at least as much as the one in portrait which I have printed in the past.

There is also a picture of Preston market in the same format which I have no memory of at all. I'm guessing I took it with my 50mm lens fitted with my x2 teleconverter judging by the compression of space.

This little project is once again proving that there is more to photography than making stunning pictures. Some are being scanned for nostalgia's sake, some as documents of things no longer around, and a very few because they are good pictures. None of these reasons for making photographs has, to my mind, any greater merit than the rest. 'Just a snap' can turn into something more with the passage of time. It's also pretty clear to me that the 'image quality' is unimportant when the subject matters.

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More old tosh

The tedious scanning process continues. Along the way, as well as finding a surprising number of pictures in portrait orientation,  I'm realising that not only haven't my subjects changed much, neither has my way of framing shots. There's always been a predilection for minimalist geometric compositions alongside photographs of rubbish.

In some instances it's difficult to work out if a picture's appeal (to me) is down to it being a good picture, or because it brings back memories (which are lost on any other viewer). This next one has some interest in that the chap in the picture is Dick Young, who is a noted Liverpool painter among those who know the Liverpool arts scene. 

The subject of the photograph below is not so famous, but I think the picture works because of my cunning use of the reflection. If it were in colour all the glories of the 1970's wallpaper would make it less convincing as an image. I guess black and white has a use after all!

One of the frames I can't remember ever printing is this one of urinals. The idea of the composition is OK, the development and care of the negative less so. The historical context of this picture is that John Lennon may well have pissed in one of those urinals when he was an art student. They are the only place I have seen cockroaches. Those were the days...

Even some of the rubbishy pictures have some interest. I'm fairly sure that I was using a 28mm lens to take this close up of brew time. I still like that focal length for pictures of people doing things. It makes for pictures which take the viewer into the scene, I think. Strangely, I find that being in so close to people they don't imagine you can get shots of them. As a result they don't act up for the camera. 28mm is wide enough for this, yet doesn't distort the edges of the frame as much as a 24mm lens would. Perhaps it is the lack of added drama such distortions bring which makes the 28bb less popular with hobbyists?

From going through the pictures from my student days I am left with a regret that I didn't take shoot much, much more. Not only would it have been an even bigger nostalgia trip, it might have been a good body of documentary work. Still, I do have quite a few pictures of the legendary Sue Lee, life model extraordinaire. Sadly no picture of her going to buy biscuits wearing nothing but slipper and a fur coat. So these will have to do for now!

 

Next up, We Coulda Been Famous.

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Nostalgia fest

It all started when I wanted to find an old picture of moles on barbed wire which I'd taken back in the dark ages.That meant digging out my negative files and searching through them sheet by sheet. Along the way to the moles I started finding pictures I'd forgotten about and some I'd never printed.

The files start in 1977 and run to 1982. With some later files. What surprised me most is how there was a peak of photographing in 1981. After that most of the pictures are fishing related - to illustrate articles in magazines. Sometime in the mid eighties I switched to slide film for the same reason and to do fishing slide shows.

There's a lot of of dross, of course. Some are failed attempts at something interesting. Others are snap shots of friends being daft, or a friend's dog being a dog. But in there is some good stuff. The influences are pretty obvious. What didn't really surprise me is that in many ways my subjects haven't altered much. There are pictures of sheep, pigeons, 'stuff' making geometric designs. And people. Some of the people pictures surprised me. Technically many of them are poor. Badly developed film, dirty negatives and not perfectly sharp. But they're pictures. Looking at the better examples I wonder if I've got any better at this lark or not!

Although I think I took more time over framing shots, you might imagine to avoid wasting expensive film, I still exposed loads of frames which make me wonder why I bothered. There was plenty of waste. Quite a lot of poor exposures too.

After two and a half hours I got my temperamental film scanner working and put a few frames through. I'm not sure what possessed me to put black borders around the pictures, but I noticed that so doing magically improved them. They looked like 'real' pictures you see in books of forty year old black and white photography! Which has given me the idea of pulling out the best pictures and making one or two A5 zine type books of them. At that size the technical imperfections won't be so noticeable!

Being stuck with current projects this is something I can get on with quite easily. Apart from dealing with the moods of the scanner.

As Lightroom can not only put borders round pictures it can add captions, I'm doing that too. After years of avoiding titling pictures I'm coming to realise that in some instances captions (which are not quite the same thing) have their place.

More of this old tosh to follow....

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I give up

It was a tough call where to go yesterday with two auctions and a sheepdog trial to consider. I plumped for the livestock auction of rare breeds - mostly sheep. This proved to be interesting from a seeing unusual breeds point of view, but depressing photographically. Maybe it was a lack of 'action', my mood, or possibly a realisation that there I can't find a way to photograph auctions which isn't the same as the way everyone else does it. Perhaps that's because I've seen too many pictures of auctions? Spending more time might lead me to seeing more unusual stuff. There's always something that catches my eye, even if it doesn't say 'auction'.

Closing in on details like lot number tags could be the way forward. That brings technical challenges of selecting the right lens to use in the inevitably gloomy light.

Close ups of 'characters' is a trope of this sort of event. I try to include them as elements of a bigger scene. My ideal is people and animals in the same frame doing interesting stuff, or making interesting shapes, which add up to a picture which works. Mostly I either fail or mess up.

Every now and then I get an idea with some promise. And as usual fail to make it work.

Because I couldn't get in the groove I left early and took a circuitous route home. Along the way I spotted a roadside hogg hole to add to the slowly growing collection.

I stopped at a couple of places for a wander and found something interesting at one of my stop-off points. The pictures didn't work out any better than those I took of sheep on the hills. After taking a hasty right turn on seeing a Welcome to Yorkshire sign ahead I found myself passing the very sight I thought had died out. Moles strung out on barbed wire. A few not so good shots had to be made.

So that was it. Back home to delete most of the photos I'd taken as the end to a rather dispiriting day following an evening of enthusiasm planning the auction mart project.

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Let there be rain...

It couldn't last, and it didn't. Fearing the worst I decided to go fishing on Friday night as there was rain due over the weekend. The fishing was poor so I messed about with my fishing cameras when the sun began to rise. Both have good features and bad. The one with the zoom has great controls but is sluggish to focus and has poor low light performance. The one with the fixed lens has a great sensor but poor controls and is equally slow to focus. If only there was a compact camera which did everything right. But then the manufacturers would never sell any top end DSLRs.

Every time I make a landscape picture I like I can't help but think that 99% of the task is being in the right place at the right time. The technicalities are pretty darned basic. The subject ain't going anywhere so there's plenty of time to get them right.

Nice as they are to look at the majority of landscapes are little more than wallpaper. The shot above is currently my computer screen's desktop picture. I'll be tired of it soon enough and swap it for something similarly vacuous.

Sunday was sunnier for longer than predicted and I managed to find some sheep in the evening. The clouds soon rolled in and put paid to the photography though. So not much was gained from the exercise.

I did manage to find a mule which posed quite patiently for me while the sun was out. As per usual out of the many exposures I made the frame which had the most satisfying was the only one which was slightly out of focus. The next best is below. Strangely, after looking at it one and off for a few days it seems to have improved. Or maybe I've forgotten what the better one looked like?

Apart from the evening light helping the picture I was able to get into a perfect position without having to either bend my knees or lay on the ground. Shooting from slightly below sheep, and no doubt other animals, makes them look more impressive. As this one was stood on top of a flood bank my task was easy. This viewpoint also tends to put the sky as background, which is good for 'portraits' when it is blue, and because it is far away the clouds go pretty much out of focus no matter how small the aperture of the lens is. Lots of the sheep in focus and much less of the background. Another bonus.

Whether or not a picture of a sheep dropping with dung flies on it will prove useful for inclusion in a sheep project, I'm not sure. But I have one now!

Sure enough the sunny spell didn't last and rain returned after the weekend. Today I got the urge to make some prints, which necessitated a trip to town to pick up some ink. I didn't hang around but the X100T got a damp outing. There were few dogs being walked, but plenty of umbrellas getting an airing. Every once in a blue moon I get lucky, and the shot I see forming before me gets 'spoiled' by something better. Maybe not much better, but people's faces are more interesting in photographs than the backs of their heads. Although it was the umbrella which had initially caught my eye the woman stopping and turning just as I clicked the shutter and the passing cyclist made something more interesting happen. At least it suits my ideas of loose compositions in street photography having more life than the cleverly composed shots which a lot of people aim for - go in search of even.

And finally... After a winter when it was hardly fit to visit the beach I've abandoned my Beach Life project. I might pick it up again later in the year, but I doubt it. So this is about it.

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