Tuscany Photography Journal 4

I close the Journal for the Tuscany Trip with these 3 panorama images.

Pisa: Il Torre Pendente (Fotoman 617)

Le Crete (Fotoman 617)

Siena (XPan)

Tuscany Photography Journal 3

Tuscany Photography Journal 2

I continue to show a couple of the Tuscany panoramas. I find the commonly known pictures from this region are getting too trivial, I have a hard time to select something off the beaten track.

With the Agfa Clack in Pisa

"Il torre pendente" (alias leaning tower) is for sure the most photo- graphed place in Pisa, you will see at any given time dozens of people snapping away with all types of cameras (I wonder how many pictures exist of it already). The favourite position is to somehow lean over and try to push or support the tower, its the best thing to observe this for a while! I realized there was no one in sight, for the 2 hours we hang out there, using a film camera (not to talk about a medium format camera). I tooks some shots with 617 and the xpan (people look like I come from a different planet with these ancient looking cameras) and found I dedicate the place to the most simple camera I own:

AGFA CLACK
The AgfaClack was produced from 1953 to 1965 and costed about 20.- SGD (19,50 DM at that time). With fix focus, fix aperture (2 settings, ~11,16) and fix shutter speed (1/30s) it exposes 120 film (6x9 cm). It was dedicated to use a Agfapan DIN 17 (25) film which is no longer available. It makes sense to use a lightmeter to give you a feeling how close you are to the F11-1/30s settings. I used an expired Agfa APX100 for these images (Scanned with Espon V700, minor touchup).

Other Clacks:

Tuscany Photography Journal 1

Tuscany must be one of the most visited places or areas in Italy. The famous landscapes, towns and cities are attracting millions of visitors each year. Most of the famous places are drowned in busloads of people. After this trip I throwed away my travel Guide telling me places like San Gimignano is a tip. Its not, if you go for some serious photography you should avoid places like this. But there is plenty to explore around and there more you get to the countryside the better, you still find places almost "off the beaten track".
My recommendation: Siena, Le Crete, Asciano (tourists but still ok), Go in September or better October.
I focused on my favourite topics: old buildings, details, landscape. The above panorama shows a farm around Le Crete, probably the most photographed place around there. You will find views like this on every second postcard and in every travel book, but not everything looks like that !

Return from Tuscany

Finally found our way back after one week Tuscany. It is a beautiful place and there are plenty of photo opportunities all over. But I didnt expect so many tourists, even end of september. We skipped Florence to focus on the less congested (less expensive) area around Siena and Le Crete. I brought back a number of 120 rolls (617) and 135 (XPan) and now busy scanning my treasures.
I put some images here in the next few days and also give more personal thoughts and tips about travelling to Tuscany.
I brought my 6x6 and even an Agfa Clack along that I purchase drecently for 2 Euro (Lets see what a camera from 1960's with fix aperture and time) can do.

Tuscany

I am heading off to Tuscany for a panoramic trip. First I will meet my good and equally crazy photographic friend Thierry in Zuerich then drive to Siena and Florence. Decided to leave the digital stuff at home and completely focus on 6x17 and XPan equipped with 50 rolls of 120 and 30 rolls bw. Updates in the first week of October.
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Photography as Art

Photography had a hard time to reach the status of an art form. Not talking about press or daily snapshot photographs but fine art photography like classic images by Ansel Adams or Edward Weston. Maybe my statement is not correct, images by Robert Doisneau ("Kiss by the hotel"), which is rather classic street photography reached a level of art as well, at least posthum.
I am selling occasionally prints to collectors or as well to people looking for a nice panorama image. Images that I produced with film cameras and printed on fibre based paper are higher appreciated and people are ready to pay more for a darkroom print than a print that I produce with a large format inkjet printer. Somehow the effect of being able to reproduce or reprint prints any number of times, even stating as limited edition, makes one think its a poster print from the deco shop around the corner.

I like to browse photography magazines, especially issues that are not focsussing on technical details but on portfolios images. I am struggling to appreciate the artistic value of some photographers work showing totally blurred or contentless images, just because of the fact they are either famous or student of someone else famous. Anyway, if you like your own images, blurred or not, thats all that counts.
Reflecting about this I know that at least in this community, we are producing something that endures the banal everyday things that we do day by day.

My 2cents for today.

ThePrintSwap first wave kicks off

We gathered 26 photographers from 9 countries to start the first swap. In the next days the email addresses gonna be shuffled and the swap can begin..

Check out ThePrintSwap website and register for the next round in November 2006 !

Update 14th September 2006: The swap pairing is done.

Simple Things andSome Thoughts about Photography

What do I see here ? Nothing you would say. Thats correct, it looks like an empty scene, a street, a wall and a an old parking device. It might be boring or meaningless to you, but its simple and appealing to me.

You ever thought about the number of pictures that are made every day on the world ? With an inifinite (?) number of cameras, digital cameras and mobile phones some millions of images are taken every day. Maybe a million every minute. Pictures taken, deleted or forgotten. How many of them will survice a couple of weeks ? How many will really catch a piece of memory of history ? How many will be considered as art, printed and displayed somewhere ?

The more possibilities we have, the more megapixel and GB of memorycards we use, the more we should focus on essential values. Spend more time on less pictures.

Streets of Hong Kong

Some more sights around Hong Kong. The usual backlog of images, already more than 2 weeks passed since visiting the city the 5th time this year. There is so muchmore to explore. From the main city centre to the islands ! I will go there for another time for sure. Just avoid the hot season and book hotel early enough.
The bird market. A huge variety of small birds in even smaller cages. Spiced with some tourists wearing the SARS and birdflue masks !

Streets of Singapore

Our recent outing exploring the streets of Singapore finding areas that still look un-renovated. On the road with Xpan and Hasselblad Arca.

Fotoman 617

A long dream came true. Years of staring at Linhofs and Fujis are over ! We flew to Hong Kong last weekend and picked up the 617 camera from Paul (Fotoman Camera). Much bigger than the XPan (of course), its using a large format lens (Super Angulon XL 90mm) and exposing on 120 medium format film. Its a great tool, I just love it from the first moment. Shot couple of slides and bw in Hong Kong.

Here you find larger versions (Streets of Hong Kong I, Streets of Hong Kong II)
Why buy a film camera in the 21st century ? Get your hands on it and you know !

Cemetery

The cristian cemetery in Georgetown (Penang). A very special place, hardly renovated and not dominated by any tourist signboards and shops. The final resting place of some of the early european pioneers including Francis Light, several early governors, Stamford Raffles' brother-in-law Quintin Dick Thomas.
I feel attracted and the same time still feel respect, even the people are burried more than 100 years. You find this place in Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah.

The Print Swap

Do you want to get your hands on other photographers prints ? Then go for the ThePrintSwap project running at the panorama gallery.
Check out ThePrintSwap website and join !

Square Format

So far I was completely focusing on the panoramic format on this page, but I wont start a separate page for 6x6 ! I will share some of the Penang 6x6 images with you.

Penang Pans

Finally made it to scan the xpan shots, most of them done with APX100 bw film.
Great place to go, would fly there anytime again. OK, no more words about it:

Penang Trip

Last weekend we spent 2 days in Penang, probably the most famous island of Malaysia, situated on the northwestern coast. It is very intersting mixture of nature, beaches and its colonial history in Georgetown. I shot with 6x6 and XPan, mainly black and white, especially the old shophouses (you find plenty of them) give a feeling like Singapore might have look like 20 years ago.
Penang continoulsy upgrade and clean up the place, so if you want to go for the ruins and the rindown stuff, better go soon. But even the upgraded version looks very nice (they dont try to create the mickymouse history style like other places do). Not to forget about the food, which is just too good !

One story not to miss:
On the last day we were going around until 6pm (flight back at 9.10pm), finally went for dinner at 6.30pm. Because we had all our stuff in the car boot I decided to leave the 6x6 there (not Hasselblad) and bring my "green" bag along. I even decided to put the already exposed films (about 10x 120 and 135) into it and bring it along to the dinnerplace in case the car would get robbed, then at least I still would have the films and the XPan. You know what happened ?!
Suddenly heavy winds came up and parts of the foodcourt flew around us, so we decided to finish dinner quickly to make our way to the airport ! At the airport: what was missing ? The green bag with the xpan and the films !!! Jaw dropping, sweating, heat, heart beats faster, apocalypse, all gone, gonna cry,..
My wife was more conscious and asked me to drive back (45min), ok-ok, during driving back try to call the handphone which was also in the green bag, and ...... someone pick up after a couple of attempts, the boss of the coffeeshop. Relief no.1.
Coming there pick up the bag (relief no.2), giving the honest guy (thank you!) a rewards and head back towards the airport, 8pm by now (at this time the normal traveller and passenger is checked-in already) ! I saw us already in a nearby hotel waiting for the next days flight, but we can try, nothing to loose ! We drive (Penang style!), drop the rental, run to check-in ! The checkin lady was about to close the counter, we checkin, go to the gate and get our flight (relief no.3) !!! Time to relax.....
First time ever I was on the edge to loose equipment ! Now the green bag is glued to me.

I have a slight backlog with scanning slides and bw neagtives, so gonna upload some pans soon.

Alsace

Finally some pans from Alsace 2 weeks ago. Follow the "Deutsche Weinstrasse" southwards and cross the border near Lauterbourg and find the town Wissembourg. You will find a laidback french small town which is not as tourist packed as Strassbourg. My recommendation in general: Go there during the week !
Just realized there is no color pan in the XPan blog yet, so lets put in some color.

The Photographic Journey

My life and way of seeing changed when I started photography once. It is a continous stream of experiences, impressions and challenges. You find new areas, as well you are thrown back sometimes. I worked in color and black&white, with rangefinder, medium format, digital equipment, 6x6 and panorama cameras, experienced from basic press work, wedding photography to artistic works. I enjoyed each step and always find back to my favourite - panorama photography and classic black and white. It is like my hometown where I always return to, but always starting expeditions to venture into the other areas.

Starting with film, moving to digital and now after many years returning to film, allow me to revisit places and topics again. Find new angles in interpretation and view points.

The biggest satisfaction and happiness I find in a mounted and framed print, the next step is starting a book project (prices for printing getting more reasonable nowadays).

I met many photographer and people around the world, I dont want to miss the chats and exchange of expierences and ideas.

Hope there is much more on the way ! Keep the eyes open and the mind free !

Some old US Pans

Whilst waiting for the latest films to get developped.
This panoramas I shot with ETRS and a panoback 4 years ago driving around California and Nevada, US.

Photographic Gear

Did you realize that the equipment that you bring along and use influences the way you see and work, as well the people see you and interact with you ?

THE BIG STUFF (DIGITAL)
With the DSLR equipment with big lenses I tend to shoot more, make 2..3 images sometimes of a certain subject always in mind "there is plenty of memory that I brought along!". Using zoom lenses I am used to select a viewpoint but then do the rest with the zoom.
People tend to consider you as professional, you get chased of faster by security guards. In some places people seem to hope to make a dollar out of your shooting, always thinking it is for commercial purpose.

THE RANGEFINDER
The old fashioned way of photographing makes me think twice, also trying to look ahead. Appreciating the value of film and not snapping away. It puts more passion into my work and people seem to sense this when you work on the street. I get more out of the rangefinder working with people than with the DSLR which makes you look like a press photographer.

THE BIG STUFF (MEDIUM FORMAT)
The serious stuff to use when doing stills, studio portraits or landscapes. You cant snap, but you select, prepare, measure, check before making one of 12 (to 15) images on a 120 roll.

THE SNAPPER
Bringing the tiny digicam along, I am rather in the snapshot mode, making shots of my familiy or anything that crosses my way. Knowing with the results I will extend our huge photo wallpaper at home but not do any large format prints for the agencies.

THE SPACE STUFF
I have a selection of panorama cameras including a mirror extension which requires shooting upwards into a mirror that looks a bit like gigantic soup spoon. The same applies to a full spheric camera which slowly turns around itself mounted on a tripod. This is a very scientific way of working, not very artistic. People think you are nuts looking in the sky for extraterrestial life or doing some spy stuff.

I always enjoy working with my equipment,hardly go anywhere without at least the tiny cam or the rangefinder. The more stuff you bring along, the less flexible you get. Normally I bring a big selection of camera stuff to an overseas trip, but on a day to day base on location I try to select and dont bring everything. It is distracting and it takes much too long to fiddle around with the truckload of lenses and cameras.

Mini Excursion to France

Made a trip (1 day) to Alsace in France, driving through the countryside between the german-french border and Strassbourg. My recommendation: Wissembourg, only few people/tourist there, a wonderful old town with beautiful renovated houses mixed with some rundown looking buildings.
Will share some pans next week.

Heading back now from germany to Singapore with 10 rolls to develop and my new AGFA stock. After comparing the prices here, it seems color slides are much cheaper in Singapore. Only the remaining stock of AGFA film is really cheap here. In future I will completely focus on FUJI Velvia and PROVIA for color and Ilford Delta for bw.

Significance

What am I doing ? I take photographs.
Why ? It is more than the pleasure I have to work with projects, themes and subjects. It means something to me, it is a way for me to make a creative footstep. After getting so digital we tend to loose the significance in our work. Restricted only by the number of gigabyte of memory that we carry around, we are snapping away and with some luck, there should be a good one ?

Get yourself a simple film camera or at least take a 128MB card (max and shoot raw) (no other storage) with you, get out there and start seeing again !It is a controversial statement, I know. I dont ask a professional press photographer to do that, but everyone who want to go through a creative process !
Why photographers shoot and immediately look at the screen to verify if they were lucky enough and made a good one ? A test shot - ok - like a pola. But observe photographers that you see everywhere: Snap, hold ,look,snap again without changing anythingfor each shot they do.

I recently read the announcement of an exhibition: "After returning from his one week trip to xyz he returned with 20.000 images and now he share with us his best shots."
Crap ! Even a chimp will have some 20 good shots when you give him a camera and let him snap away.

There is so much to see and explore wherever you are ! Explore it on the spot, not on your harddisk after returning.

My 2 cents for today.

Renaissance of film ?!

I wonder how far in the future film might disappear completely ? Will it ? Maybe there is a small renaissance, I definetively have one. I didnt touch any film for the last 2 years, but in the last 4 weeks I shot about 20 rolls 35mm and 2 rolls 120. If you check ebay there are still plenty of cameras and film offers, and it is not easy to get your fingers on good stuff for little money. Just checkout the Leica, Hasselblad, Mamyia section !

What are the major players in the film manufacturing industry ? Fuji, Kodak, Ilford and some minor producers like FORTEPAN.
AGFA is gone. I loved their films and especially their paper. Its gone, can't change it. One of the most famous (film-market founding) companies disappeared. AGFA as company is still there, just not producing any film stuff anymore. Maybe they missed the point in time to jump on the digital bandwagon like Ilford (producing inkjet paper as well).
Anyway, I will travel home next week and bring back a big box with 150x APX100 + 100x RSX200 for my 6x17 project on 120 rollfilm, that should be enough supply for a while.
I hope I will not see the day when there is no more film at all and we are forced to manually create silverhalide stuff ?!
Lets see what the future gonna bring us....

The full frame

Making the final composition on the spot, means what you see in the viewfinder is what you gonna print later, no cropping no cutting. Some fineart printers use the negative frame as part of their printed work.
Xpan image you recognize with the cutout at the right top corner.

Capitol Theatre Singapore

Direct in the city centre waiting for his uncertain future. Seems they not gonna tear it down but maybe convert into some pinky blinky artscentre or museum ?
Al least could get a pano showing its current charme !

Bali in black&white

A collection of bw panos from Bali.

Remark: I think we will return to Bali, try to see the place from a different prospective. Seems after 2002 and 2003 the tourism went down pretty bad.

Back from Bali Excursion

After coming back I rushed to send the films for development. Great, normally used to return and just starting to check megabytes of raw images.
Anyway most of the bw negatives and slides are good. Interesting that shooting people in bw got more punch !
Some remarks about Bali: The main business on Bali is tourism, so be prepared of the standard tourist stuff everywhere. Try to get off the beaten track ! There is much more to discover than Kintamani, Ubud and Tana Lot.

More thoughts about darkroom

Somehow I miss the darkroom sessions. Setting up the enlarger, preparing the developer and fixer, doing test stripes until the result is pleasing, making a final fibrebased paper print, press it, mount it.
It takes time, seems thats the only thing you cant buy !Beside that I dont have the space for a darkroom currently. So I found back to film, but do the prints with large format printer with the scanned images.
At the end of the day, it is about pictures, not really the process how you produce it.

It reminds me of our favourite discussion with Ian and Alan about film vs. digital and if digital can reach the same level as film, not in terms of resolution, but the "feeling" thing.

Toning - Digital Touchup vs Darkroom

I like this slight sepia tone.
What is allowed ? First of all: Everything, I need to like my pictures, I dont need to please someones specific requirements for film vs. digital. Do what you want !
But here I want to reduce to the minimum touchup, like you would do in the darkroom.

The slides or negatives I scan, aftwards check the gradation or contrast. Then do some toning. In the lab I was using Kodak Selenium to produce a similiar effect.

Film Development

Just returned from a trip to Bali over the last weekend. Came back with 3 rolls bw, 4 rolls color and 1 120. Brought it immediately to the lab today. What a joy looking forward to the ~160 images. Think with the digital equipment would have shot easily 10x more pictures and takes me forever to sort out. Somehow I enjoy this personal renaissance of film. Lets see tomorrow the results !