Dektol in the Sandbox: I <3 Photography

yeah love Jeff Wall.
image flatness is just actually literally getting the negative to be flat, rather than bowing or curving etc. I think some scanners sandwich it between glass, and drum scanners seal it with water maybe? but mine just holds the edges so if it's a fresh roll and very curved, it'll show a bit. can be flattened eventually though if I roll it in the opposite direction for a while.

the colors are half "what seems correct based on what I remember" and half "what looks nice." like I'll broadly try to move sliders until it looks "right" but will then move them a little more. in real life I never see cyan tinted shadows, but because its something that film does that can look appealing I'll maybe bring it out a bit on some shots. or warm the photo with yellow in the shadows, sharpen it with magenta, etc. that kinda thing.

I haven't gotten prints in ages, by the way, and when going through old photos back home in San Jose recently was reminded how nice even quick prints from a point-and-shoot could once look. got some new ones for a roll a week or so ago and the magic is gone! I think a lot of labs do digital prints now, even from negatives, and they automatically bump up contrast and do weird things with the color balance. didn't look good at all.

I need to get in the habit of making contact sheets of all my negatives ($.39 8x10s at Walgreen's!), my old negative binders have lost most of the contact sheets and there's no organization to them at all. Thankfully it's mostly B&W and I can still 'read' negatives without a contact pretty well. Color neg, not so much.

It looks to me like 12x12 or even 15x15 prints from medium-format are doable from the V700 (or the equivalent in 6x7/6x9), which makes me happy. 35mm scanning isn't going as well, but I can't tell yet if I was just feeding it less-than-sharp negatives.

have you adjusted the height? do they sharpen up in post?

two tests:
parents' dog on Provia, girl I was dating, both circa 2002

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7170/6437225867_5c0d8263ee_z.jpg
Scan-111130-0002-2.jpg by celluloidpropaganda, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7017/6437223359_f67a14d13b_z.jpg
Scan-111130-0009.jpg by celluloidpropaganda, on Flickr

From what I can tell the + setting (3.5mm) is sharpest for my scanner. MF sharpens up well, but 35mm still iffy. Need to try some grainier films and try to base it on grain resolution. (moderately bitter that my professors pushed TMax 100 & 400 back then - so much harder to work with in general than Tri-X or HP5)

Also need to spring for Photoshop while I get student prices from my university - the Lightroom sharpening function does not seem as scanner friendly as the usual PS methods.

what does a full-size crop of a 35mm scan look like? I'm used to them never looking *temendously* sharp at 100%, but still fine for printing in a medium size.

I displayed this in an earlier thread, but this is what a 100% scan looks like before dealing with color noise etc. for me:

http://altairnouveau.com/fullsize.jpg

black and white negs generally were sharper on the V700 than color negs, for me at least

and for a sense of scale, this is the full image:

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6048/6245993615_ccc45e735b_z.jpg

but sharpness was never a big concern for me - I think that's one area where digital is always going to have 35mm beat. I prefer the 'roundness' of scanned 35mm - sharpness is not the only way to evaluate a photo!

otm

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7015/6436709227_69c0d0b806_z.jpg
Untitled by celluloidpropaganda, on Flickr

found a negative that was unquestionably sharp (which is what happens when you use 400 ISO film midday at the Grand Canyon). boring picture, but it scans well (so much Tri-X grain!)
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7010/6439186909_18e719c9fa_z.jpg
Grand Canyon, Tri-X, 2002-3 by celluloidpropaganda, on Flickr

i dunno, if you cropped below the horizon it could be a cool ambient/noize LP cover

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7004/6443719557_599b94ff69_z.jpg
Cabless by celluloidpropaganda, on Flickr

http://www.retronaut.co/2011/11/new-york-1940s-by-stanley-kubrick/

damn, although i wish they'd left us with a sweeter shot to carry home

he hung out w/ a lot of bangin chicks

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7019/6469640077_e86f147079_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7175/6463613999_f8a573e3d0_z.jpg

Second one is from high school... picked up old negatives when in CA.

btw, by dirty secret is that I *do* actually read the rest of ilx

"my"

damn! CV, they're both awesome. second one is so interesting. what was the aftermath of you shooting the first, the guy just crankily looking at you for invading his personal zone? (i am not a v in-yr-face photographer but the times i am i find i can usually get away with seeming to just be fucking with my camera or photographing something else).

really psyched to go back to my folks' place for the holidays because imma scan some old photos, everything i've looked at since i've been scanning stuff being from the past three, four years. that high school landscape is dope tho.

this also booming btw: http://www.flickr.com/photos/altairnouveau/6373831907/sizes/l/in/photostream/

the aftermath was just that I kept walking and so did he. I hardly ever have any trouble at all. if people even notice they just kinda look momentarily confused but rarely even slow down aside from some notable times that I could count on two hands. dunno if I'd have similar reactions in other cities or what...
the thing about the high school photo is I dunno if it would even look so good if I shot it now! like the framing was probably even accidental! the point and shoot I was using is so imprecise that there's no way I was really intentionally lining up the sign like that.

ha, sure. there are ten zillion things that go into why a photo is good so it isn't like all the credit goes to your framing expertise anyway. it's great.

looking at those, the first one especially (which seems so like 'contemporary new york', to me, & which you would kinda hope will richen w/age), i just wondered about going back to the idea of presenting photos, do you-all ever think of collecting your stuff? i just mean broadly, what your thoughts are; it was inspiring to me to see grady's book/pamphlet (online, i haven't bought one yet, it'll happen), & part of me thought i should make some kind of something full of mine (i think i eventually decided against this because they look good enough online & i don't think are neatly cohesive enough to necessarily form a book or w/e). & none of this necessarily relates to like kickstarted attempts to raise $20000 for printing at Peru's finest press or anything; i just mean on any scale. do you guys, ILP in exile, consider it?

I have been really impressed with (and inspired by) the photography of Missy Prince of late

http://lpvmagazine.com/2011/07/missy-prince/

Came across her quite randomly and wonder what you photography types think!

Funnily enough, that first photo reminds me of Lelant Saltings in Hale, Cornwall.

yeah they're real nice, FT. & interesting. obv the colours are very good but the angles seem kinda unusual too.

interesting that she mentions wenders' photography; I can only think of one WW photo i've seen, which I liked a bunch & hadn't ever followed up on

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-smbhN1h_fFg/Tkr1QR3peYI/AAAAAAAACR4/Zh8DhLInVBk/s1600/wenders.coke.jpg, fwiw)

also just skipping the interim detailing of how i looked up wenders and found nice photos he took, does anyone have any experience w/HORIZON CAMERAS?, the panoramic originally russian now maybe lomo-fied (lomotomised?, lol) ones? they look fun

& none of this necessarily relates to like kickstarted attempts to raise $20000 for printing at Peru's finest press or anything; i just mean on any scale. do you guys, ILP in exile, consider it?

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2689556

oh that's neat; lol at some of the photos also. that's a nice idea. i mean, you know when you get ex-libris titles in which plates have been stuck or glued? i kinda wonder whether that's an option, too; i mean there's a line between crumply photo album & ~book~ but i feel like even hand-making an edition of one w/photographic prints would be neat in a lot of ways

the idea of putting together some sort of book is appealing, but I just don't know how I'd have the time?
I don't even have any meaningful prints really. if I put in most of my editing work on the computer, then I don't know what makes sense... dig out the negatives and get them enlarged someplace? print from the digital scans? somehow that feels wrong.

ctein over at top is an advocate of printing from scans for negatives - you have much more control over the printing process and editing than you would in a traditional darkroom

huh.. guess I figured I'd be losing out on "the magic" or something. nice to know that it isn't considered a dead end!

well you get much more precise control over stuff like tonality and gradation and color shifts etc. you control more variables

and since you have a dedicated 35mm I imagine it's no slouch!

it's not bad, although prob not the best in the world. I need to get my hands on a decent printer so I can sink further into the photography time hole.

Stephen Shore has also gone entirely to digital output. I liked printing color in a darkroom, but it's hard to beat the control and archival qualities of a good inkjet print.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/alex-webbs-dialogue-with-the-streets/

xp yeah, I gotta think that digital printing works best with color prints

Those Alex Webb pictures are stellar.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7004/6457815743_fa0f685285.jpg
miners by dysign, on Flickr

woot!

oh - it did work. disregard previous woot.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7017/6457818407_f589976dac_b.jpg

huh. sorry that is so big.

10 more pix

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7010/6484935243_c675119bd0_z.jpg

http://ihardlyknowher.com/idiotcervantes/big

dayo, is there actually such a pervasive sense of quiet, anomic despair on the streets in HK, or do you shelve the photos of people going about not seemingly contemplating their insignificance? yr photz are so good & they have such a strong feeling to them. sorta like tsai ming-liang's taiwan

aw thanks schlump! no there are tons of happy people in HK I just don't take pictures of them :< I keep thinking about this idea that I read in a gerry badger book that he got from somebody else prob that photography is a medium best suited for melancholy and I wonder how true that is

ha that's interesting. i saw Geoff Dyer give a talk about photography recently & he was maybe slightly mythically talking about the photographers in the '60s & '70s loving the empty streets, or the "built environment" "haunted" by "lone figures", which you can obv bring a lot of evidence for (i'm not good w/names but obv there are a few of those classic NY guys shooting outta their windows). all of which seems to feed an idea of melancholia - the people faceless & far away & made Keaton-ishly small by the dominance of the city &c&c&c. i think it is def a poignant thing - a kinda break or paradox or something - to be able to get on film, cf Frank's elevator girl maybe.

the idea of putting together some sort of book is appealing, but I just don't know how I'd have the time?

but china you LOVE SCANNING, c'mon throw yourself into it. i know what you mean. i have been so pleased w/how things have looked on screen that the impetus to do much with physical prints has become smaller, but i can see the kind of 'cohesive' / 'physical object' appeal of a book. i think i have less of a priority of things looking their best than you guys (i guess bc my photography is so much better?, & i am sorta a more original visual thinker?, & bad facsimiles of my photos are still superior to well-rendered representations of allay'all's? no idk i just mean i don't go that extra mile re: good scans), but just making an object even if it were sorta hand-made would still mean something to me, i think.

here is another tangent: has anyone ever really fucked w/their negatives, much? the violence of it can be so striking & disarming, seeing it in (again) Frank's later work, it is a wild thing to me. i wish there were more crossover between a couple of the ilx filmmakers & the ilp cru bc i feel like i've read some super-eighters talk about the physicality of celluloid interestingly before

lol I was going to post about how frank's elevator girl is maybe my most favorite photograph ever but I see you got there first!

ha. i can't even choose that way. i know i posted this maybe a while ago, re: discussion of crowds vs emptiness, but my reflex pick for fav photo is this b/w eggleston, which actually sorta seems relevant to the same point of like, 'dislocation in built environments', &c. for frank jeez who could choose, i always liked the guy hugging the girl but it could be one of a million. & yeah the elevator girl is allllll time.

also fond of this photo of christina carter by Benoit Chaput ("after bagels & coffee, 2004")

http://www.manybreaths.com/images/photos/45.jpg

& a photo of my grandparents that i don't have a scan of.

can I just

http://i.imgur.com/QtXfu.jpg

<3

I think dumb fashion collaborations have reached a new low:
http://www.rubyhornet.com/carhartt-x-powershovelqblackbird-fly-camera/