Dektol in the Sandbox: I <3 Photography

isnt there just as much intentionality at work in choosing ones gear.

yeah! I mean I largely agree with everything you said. funny as you mention gear as gear IS a shortcut for tlaking about how a photographer works - like leicas are synonymous with street photog, large format cameras with 'serious format.' I swear to god, find me one essay that talks about a large-foramt photographer that doesn't mention how 'measured' and 'slow' and 'intentional' you have to be when using one.

and yeah what I meant about the dangers of ascribing intentionality really just meant the dangers of saying 'this shot came out exactly how the photographer envisioned it.' peoples choices about what to use, where to point the camera at, when to click the shutter definitely ARE intentional acts - but to get at them you can't treat it as discrete instances, but like you said, as accretions, accumulations of choices that were made when the photographer picked up the camera in the first place.

and yeah like cv said those technocratic terms can be used to get at the pith of what a photographer does. like I dunno if you can talk about weston without mentioning...tonality.

Intentionality becomes especially relevant when talking about editing, I think.

editing meaning selecting

i doubt there is any art form where serendipity doesn't exert a strong influence but i feel like maybe overstating its role in photography specifically is about as corrosive as overstating the photographer's ability to determine exact outcomes. that is, i do agree w/ you by and large. nothing will ever be fully accounted for.

Intentionality becomes especially relevant when talking about editing, I think.

yeah see imo editing/selecting is the act from which can derive the most about a photog's "sensibility."

i doubt there is any art form where serendipity doesn't exert a strong influence but i feel like maybe overstating its role in photography specifically is about as corrosive as overstating the photographer's ability to determine exact outcomes. that is, i do agree w/ you by and large. nothing will ever be fully accounted for.

i can't really tell if this is relevant, because it's so loaded with my approach to taking photos - rather than that of someone who does plan, think better, design & compose better - but i feel like such a key part of photography is the magical-mechanical-alchemy, the emulsion-burning that goes on after you frame & click, which you initiate but don't really act in, that it wrestles some of what's happening away from like 'authorial control' or intention, the thing we associate personally with painting or writing or anything else. photography's so collateral, & benefits from the incidental existence of things so much, that there's something that doesn't entirely jive w/intentionality for me. i don't mean because at the last moment a deer could just walk into the frame & enliven your photo, & you couldn't have controlled that, but that even if you are really well prepped for something & expect its results i feel like they're not entirely yours.

this is maybe just born of using nice film & being psyched at what for me is a roll of the dice, re: the tone & character your photo ends up taking on, rather than knowing it, & maybe i am just co-signing "isnt there just as much intentionality at work in choosing ones gear", but i think the result is kinda halfway between where you were & how you prepped, and that's not the same ratio as with other media.

i had dinner at my friend's house a couple of weeks back & took a couple of pictures around the table & at some point looked up at his light fixture & took a photo of it, near the end of the roll, & it came out real nice, so much nicer a photo* than it deserved to be, i mean it's a picture of a light fixture but it's nicely rendered & there's a varied focus and all of these other things. i'm psyched for having bothered to take a photo more than i am proud of having calculated it. this would be different if i knew my film inside out & had loaded up knowing that i was off-setting the light in the picture with my faster shutter-speed, &c - there would be less and less serendipity - but i still think you're outsourcing a big chunk of credit to a machine (which i am totally okay with, i think you get credit for taking your camera with you when you leave the house).

* also i think i have taken a bunch of pictures of light fixtures & never got as far away from "oh i see you like william eggleston, huh".

that ceiling isn't very red

(lol, jk. lovely photo!)

ha ha it is inescapable though. i think he is quite beatles-y, or like canon in d or something, in having just monopolised huge areas of ground one could otherwise cover. like taking photos of anything illuminated by window light on an aeroplane. or any sort of textural detail of the side of the house/the ground/some foliage. can't do it.

i could not compete with his redness though, no.

speaking of no shadow detail

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/black-and-white-and-black-all-over/

also recommended: brassai's paris de nuit

hey CV do you know this guy, feel like you both work the same beat

i have no thoughtful response to the b/w set above other than being okay with absolute blacks in bw phots; i've come to love midtones a lot, & be less into the extremity & pop of high-contrast stuff, but there's still a huge appeal, & i think a particular schematic appreciation for the feel of seeing that kinda thing in newspapers and on screens and in those like fifties-hollywood contexts for forever

http://bremser.tumblr.com/post/14679643980/2011-photo-of-the-year

why is the SJ photo landscape when she is holding the camera portrait

want: http://www.steidlville.com/books/1172-Candlestick-Point.html

Oh yeah, Gus Powell. Part of the In Public scene that I'm inclined to make fun of, but generally I actually really like his pictures. They have that nicely "pulled back" view that I enjoy you know? And he's def on a lot of the same turf I roam around.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7002/6567899747_3e604eb8c7_b.jpg
Hey, she can smile. by celluloidpropaganda, on Flickr

finally opened up 'for now' - gorgeous book! it's big, too

ha the festive update we have all been waiting for, so cool. i'm a little tempted.

i am photographically celebrating the holidays by, having finished a roll of some interesting kodak 100 (xl or xd or something) film, loading up a 24-exposure roll of 400 speed film that you used to get free from the developers with printing which probably expired several years ago & has been yellowing at my folks' place. january is gonna be bleached.

first edition already OOP and selling for $200 from the website. feel like I just slashed my copy's value in half by opening it. oh well, mazel tov!

oh dang, really? i checked rece & saw i could get it for like $50, who knows what edition. but i'm glad you opened it, well-preserved & desirable valuables are truly the possessions of savages imo

there's a picture from a medium format camera in here! wtf, get out :}

wau @ the dali emoticon there. WE branching out

used two Amex gift cards to get 35 rolls of rebranded Tri-X in 35mm and 20 rolls of Portra 400 in 120, along with the steal I got on Neopan 400 ($2.79 a roll for 25 rolls), I should have plenty of film for the forseeable future.

that is a lot. i spent $40 on prob seven or eight rolls of interesting (new) film a couple of weeks ago & that was almost as much as i've ever had planned out. it's running out quick but i get to swing by the place that stockpiles expired stuff next week, so i'll end up with another nine, ten. just out of curiosity, Milo, what's the deal with the stuff you shoot & post here?; it's all scans of film or is any of it digi?

99% digital - either my old D700 or the X100 I'm using now. I've only started shooting film again recently and haven't scanned anything I found very interesting.

My Flickr views have gone way up since I started putting up more photos of my roommate (that's her in the last picture) and my friend Erin (first photo in the thread). Shocking.

yeah i think flickr is pretty gross like that

kinda grosser that they're not even 'sexy' shots

i totally co-sign this ^^^ & think flickr is the ultimate lol for getting 10 drooly photographer guys saying WONDERFUL LIGHTING, REALLY INTERESTING ANGLE at some emo nude shot, BUT, i do think there is some room to allow for it being like a general human response to another human subject, more than always being just a terrible, base urge. there are photos which are photos of people that are appealing for those people; either them existing, or gesturally, or whatever, & i think the tangling of "i am looking at a photo" & "i am looking at a human", to whom we might have a variety of responses (based on attractiveness or aesthetics or w/e), is pretty difficult to divorce. i just found an old flickr account i had for some digi-snacks a couple of years ago & it has photos i've favourited, & a bunch of them are these kinda radiant or colourful pictures that have a guy or a girl in. we are pretty drawn to that sorta thing & i wouldn't have to answer for my gravitation to them in some ways. so seeing the views go up, i can feel that there's obviously a WELL SEX SELLS response to it but i also think that wondering whether the views would be the same, say if the subject were interchanged, is a hard comparison to make.

maybe this is getting sorta pop your top off love i have an idea

i wouldn't want to have to answer for my gravitation to them, rather

it's like i was looking of that picture of giacometti's face. it is a pretty good face.

yeah i mean i like photos of hot guys

Everyone still <3 photography here? Before this thread drops off the bottom of the page I figure I'll revive it in the classic fashion, by posting another picture yet again:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7171/6579139295_d02642ba0c_z.jpg

After a "fertile period" I'm running out of negs to scan though. It is now grey and cold and not as fun to take pictures, though I'll continue giving it a shot when the sun shows its face.

PS is anyone ever able to pick up Fuji Superia 400 in 36 exp rolls? Seems they've been discontinued. Yet another sign of impending doom. Love those film cameras while you still can.

Everyone still <3 photography here?

ha, i had the same thought yesterday & wondered if this previously out-of-control-freight-train of a thread had run out of steam.

i think i occasionally get on top of photos i have to scan, & feel like they're p much done, but i still usually have twenty rolls of undeveloped film in a bag, so they're there for when i have the money to get prints. also i just got a scanner!, an old hand-me down that will diminish the amount of time i spend using the cuff of my sleeve to buff scratches on the library scanners. i'm mainly getting b&w stuff printed, recently, with a two week wait, but i like knowing i have so much old stuff (it's usually like a 12 month backlogue, interrupted by occasionally getting stuff developed after i've shot it).

i also spent a couple of days at my folks' place over the holidays scanning some old photos i took like five years ago in rome, on ilford delta 3200, which i tend to reflexively duck away from now - like it was a hallmark of my earlier attempts at boldness - but which holds up really well, & is more generous w/midtones etc than i remember (here's a couple).

like your photo a lot, the guy's modestly lilac ensemble is nice. that's w/flash, right?

i am p sure i can still get superia 400 (am in the uk), i'm not crazy about it though. you oughtta stockpile :/

God I can't even imagine that kind of backlog anymore. It is really kind of nice though, knowing that there's just a lot of stuff you've shot that's waiting to be seen. When I was broke for awhile I just didn't develop anything, and it was a lot of fun catching up at first. Until I started to recognize that I was catching up with my "lazy period" and then I couldn't get through it fast enough.
Yeah that photo's with a flash, and I just realized it's a little odd to have put that up while complaining about the weather and lack of light outside.
Those shots from Rome look great. And you're not kidding about the decent mids. Love the second one especially!
I can get Superia 400 in 24 rolls still, but it's not as $$ efficient. Didn't used to like it, but now that I'm home scanning I can get it to look nice. And it's got finer grain than the cheap kodak stuff. And stockpiling is right. I think Fuji is quietly discontinuing stuff left and right. I bet they get out of film sooner rather than later.

Ha, I have the same tie as the old guy in that photo, pretty sure.

I have not taken a photo in days. Had almost three weeks of intermittent rain that was just a beatdown.

The Fort Worth stock show is coming up in January, I think I'm going to try to make several trips to that to see what I can get.

God I can't even imagine that kind of backlog anymore. It is really kind of nice though, knowing that there's just a lot of stuff you've shot that's waiting to be seen.

yes. for sure. i mean i forget what's on there (i only started even labeling film w/time periods a while back), so there's this weird gulf between taking and getting, which is generally v true of (film) photography anyway. i think having had a few unspooled roll disasters recently (they're piling up, but i'm going to just start really being thorough, now, & accepting 36 shots a roll instead of a plucky but risky 39; i am outsourcing some of the blame for this on OM-1s, though probably carry more myself) has forced me into accepting a weird serendipity about what i even manage to catch; i'm sad when things don't appear, or if i've shot ten photos inside on a day when i was using 100 speed film & all i got was muted shapes, but maybe buffering the time between shooting & seeing relaxes me about a specific shot having been lost to time. i def think one of the more profound things about photography is the time capsule element, so i almost think you improve 'lazy period' photos by seeing them six months after the fact.

here is another rome pic, it's so funny looking at these because i don't really take anything on this scale anymore, but it's just almost gratuitously easy to get something in somewhere so picturesque, just collaterally, it's like if you take a picture of grass & are satisfied that your camera bothered to render each blade.

i just hit up my exposed film place & they hardly had anything - i bought a single role of konica slide film, which is fun at least (idk if i posted thanksgiving-porn.jpg from a couple of weeks back). so i went around the corner & bought some weird fuji colour 160 pro film to tide me over for awhile. i might try an expired ebay lot.

i would love a photo-geek response re: why all expired film all seems to reside in israel btw, ebay search is throwing up mysteries

my skills are pretty amateur compared to you folks, i have a panasonic lumix, a holga, and an old canon 35mm, and i don't photograph nearly enough i'm afraid.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7165/6595276693_64152bb01e_b.jpg

ha that's nice!, i am amateur as fuck, represent.
what did you take it with? i was saying before about avoiding & then embracing midtones, i think i like more blacks in a b&w photo but it's a nice shot.
i think photographing enough is just taking your camera w/you when you leave the house

yeah i have a few rolls that i should get developed.

this one was taken w/my panasonic lumix (model # escapes me.) i prefer it mostly for B&W, the color is nice for random family gathering pics but not spectacular.

I like that son

i'm trying to develop my tech abilities a little more, which is tough since i've never been particularly tech-savvy. always been fine w/composition, which occasionally makes up for it.

I like that son

using the 'amateur' thing to play the pro huh

re: spooling disasters etc., I now have a fair number of, say, misloaded rolls, or rolls where I set the flash sync speed wrong, shots that were just way off (focus, etc.) and these things all used to just KILL ME, but by now it's not really much sweat. Having thought I shot a roll on a trip some months back only to realize the camera was empty, it just kind of didn't even matter much to me anymore. If the film isn't loaded, or I ruin a roll somehow (oh yeah, also through disastrous processing at some local shops a while back!) it's almost like no big deal. I never saw the thing anyway so I've got nothing to miss. If a beloved negative went missing or something though that would be different. I guess I figure all of my shots might as well be disasters until I actually get them scanned.
Plus I get really used to discovering that all of the OMG CAN'T BELIEVE I GOT THAT AMAZING SHOT pictures are generally nothing to write home about, with some exceptions.

PS NICE MIDS!!

thx riv and schlump~

using the 'amateur' thing to play the pro huh

― Never translate German (schlump), Thursday, December 29, 2011 12:21 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

ha, i deliberately didn't put a comma in there to avoid this