2008 PAW 26
I’m not real sure why I keep doing this. I’ll be updating past weeks shortly. I haven’t quit, I’ve just not uploaded anything.
I don’t do it to prove anything. I do it because I have a need to do it. This week’s need was do subdue sorrow:
It doesn’t really get much easier, even as time goes by.
A walk in Göteborg:
I didn’t feel at home or at rest:
To sit alone with my thoughts was not an option:
Just walked around:
Met up with Ewa and we ate:
Ewa
Sussi
There’s some more in the shoebox, but not much:
All b/w with a Leica M3 and a 35mm or 90mm (Elmar).
Daniel
Your photography is inspiring,
I have in the last 18 months walked away from digital photography and gone back to film. Nikon F4 first and now a Leica M3. You work really is beutiful and motivates the hell out of me to get out there and use the tool I have at my disposal to get the most out of it. I am very interested how you meter your shots as the exposures are just so good. Also wondering what film you use too, that would be a good addition to the details you add to your entries.
I hope you keep writing your blog and expression your feelings as I think you will get through this rough patch better if you do.
Truly, all the best.
Tony
Comment by Tony Cosentino — July 2, 2008 @ 12:12 am
Thanks Tony. It was nice to read your comment.
My technique is very traditional. All the black and white shots this week were taken with an M3 and Kodak Tmax-400 developed in D76 1:1.
My exposure … well, I’ve been doing this so long and so often (every day), that I just know exposures. I used to get thrown off by bright over-cast conditions, but not any more.
I worked up to this experience by using a Gossen Digiflash lightmeter. It fits in your pocket. Mine has been in my pocket so long that all of the numbers have been polished off.
It doesn’t matter, because I think in EV scales anyway. EV 13 is 1/250 @ 5.6 and I work from there. EV 15 (most of those in this series) is 1/250 @ 8, or 1/500 @ 5.6 or 1/1000 @ 4.
I use the meter in incident mode, always. I never measure reflected light. That is why I can look at light conditions only and remember what the EV values was. Various objects reflect different amounts of light, but the light falling on them is what I go by.
If it is overcast, I’ll add a value: 13 > 14, for example. There aren’t any shadows so I like to thin things out to give me some contrast to work with afterwards.
A lot of the tonality comes from my agitation technique, I think. The trick is, make sure you agitate enough. I really don’t think you can agitate too much, even if you try. But you can agitate too little.
Too much gives higher contrast, so you short development times. Too little gives you uneven development across the frame and there’s nothing you can do about that afterwards.
I fill a 4 reel tank with two reels loaded with film on the bottom and two empty reels on the top. I put in enough developer to cover the two reels on the bottom and then just agitate normally. The developer washes off of the the bottom two reels when I invert and then fresh developer flows back over them when I return to normal position.
I do 2 inversions every 30 seconds and just follow the times recommended by Kodak (shortening 12 1/2 minutes at 60 degrees (20 C) to 12 minutes.
Hope that helps as a start.
Comment by daniel — July 2, 2008 @ 11:54 am