Ilford Sporty experiments

Here one of the negs from my first roll taken on the Ilford Sporti. As I bought it at Car Boot Sale, I thought I could also shoot it there. I wanted to do a project on Car Boot Sales for a while.

I was surprised about the outcome after reading that most users only got blurred shots. This one came out the best- click to enlarge. It was scanned by Tom Wilson-Keller. I believe some sharpening occurred. Will shortly add the other frames and for comparison will not apply sharpening...

I submitted the contact sheet to Photo Collective "Preston is my Paris" who run a curious archive project at the Photo Fringe Open: http://www.findbrighton.blogspot.com/2011/11/julia-horbaschk-camera-ilford-sports.html

Rollfilm: A love story

A few months ago, I sold my Digital SLR and started shooting again on my Bronica. I found a good value 120 back at Clock Tower Cameras giving me an extra boost in using up all my expired film from the fridge. I hope this helped my camera to warm up. I am enjoying the slowed down working procedure of film and the quality of the large negs.

On the other hand, a little frustrating is the limited exposure range and the heavy weight of the camera and all it's needed gear (two backs, tripod, light meter etc). And of course there is the price. With predictions that the end of film is near and shops reducing the amount of stock and upping the price it feels like walking near the edge of the cliff.

However, film just has some excitement to it that digital does not compare with. Even new-comers to the medium can feel it- it's not just nostalgia. Furthermore, going back to my last blog entry and the importance of experimentation it is also rather enjoyable to mix and match different styles of image making and not stick to just one solution. Who knows best then photographer Chris Coekin (Knock Three Times, the Hitcher) who experiments with different styles and presents multi-dimensional projects.

In the process of shooting two new projects, I started to ask myself if it really matters what medium we take the images with and I am currently experimenting with mobile phone imagery to go alongside the 6x6 results. I am even thinking to use the recently bought Ilford Sporti for my other project, which would benefit from a vintage/amateur style, yet have 6x6 frames.

Will reveal the results once I have mastered the task of bulk colour shift/cast removal.

A little creative bargain: Ilford Sporty 6 (1963)

It's important to experiment and to break loose from conventions, norms and expectations. Some would argue this will lead to more creativity - and I need some!

On this note I am writing a blog entry purely hoping to illustrate the point. After all, we lecturers too often have our heads full of rules and regs and yearly CPD (Continuous Professional Development). (Ouch, if Graham ever reads this, I will have to pay up for the swear words!)

Hence, in an attempt to keep my own creative work going and blog once a month, I am writing about what keeps me engaged in the photographic universe.

An Ilford Sporty 6 (1963)

Initially I only bought it for a laugh and £1.50 at my local car boot sale and so far it cost me a few tears with the first film coming out blank. I don't even share much with the Lomo/ Diana fascination and yet something makes me smile when bantering over this little Ilford bargain.


I'm not sure if it's the fact that it's a 6x6 and the last sincere production of it's kind or perhaps that it was manufactured in Reutlingen by Dacora Kamerawerke, just 10 miles from where I was born, and that it has traveled around for almost 50 years, just to be found around the corner from where I live today? I suppose this may be it: a nostalgic moment and a reminder that photography is often oh so autobiographical.

To see the first test shots of this little bargain camera check back shortly...

Ref: http://www.thecamerasite.net/07_Viewfinder_Cameras/Pages/ilford-sporti.htm

The Bicycle Revolution at Ningbo Photo Festival

I just received a note from Wonder with images from the Ningbo exhibition. Unfortunately there is little online about this new festival (in it's second year) but it was an honour to be invited and have my work printed and presented there. My thanks go to the curator, Wonder Wang for giving me the opportunity to show this body of work, and to Barbara Herman from Stern magazine for identifying it as worthy work during my MA.

On show were: 200 images, 16 photographers from 7 countries.

Here a few images from the show, link to my body of work and the small book I devised. Stay in touch for further development of the work as I have some more plans...

Exhibition images

In the footsteps of Iain Sinclair

A few weeks ago I was once again in London for my yearly Photographing London workshop with participants from Morley College. This is the 7th time I have organised the workshop and it was by far the most intriguing. Every year I try and come up with a surprise location to which the participants respond. As a long term fan of Iain Sinclair, I knew I had found it when rediscovering his fantastic Thames River Walk, only a short trip away from the Metropolis. A worthy link to the map and podcast here.

The day was also used as a challenge to get out of our comfort zone. Participants were: Saron, Rob Crane, Jenny Eccles, Paul Street and Carol Jones. Find their images on our flickr page.

Here I try to sum up the experience in a sound slide show. This is one of my very first attempts to bring images and sound recordings together. The voice over was caught on Jenny Eccle's Blackberry and the water sound on Rob Crane's iPhone. Thanks to both of them for taking part in my experiment. I converted the files in Audicity in order to work with Soundslides. Soundslides can be downloaded for a free trial (ad version) and bought for very little online. It is far less complex then using Final Cut Pro but of course less advanced.

The sound is by no means perfect and you may have to turn up your volume. In any case I learned quite a lot about sound conversion and am pleased with the result. Enjoy!

BTEC End of Year Shows 2011

Having just taken down the students end of year exhibition, I thought it would be nice to celebrate a few pieces and have an archive of their achievements. After all, I have been a tutor for 8 years and sometimes, I like writing a little bit about them. This blog was meant o help me develop my own professional practice but perhaps some of it reflects in the student's work...

I am thinking about writing a more educationally focused blog, as teaching is part of my creative endeavor. Watch out for a new tab appearing on the blog.

Here a selection of City College Brighton and Hove Photography Graduates 2011.

BTEC Level 3 National Diploma Photography: The Diploma graduates have produced some stunning work this year, it went up so quickly and we were all so involved that I only managed to trace two images so far. However, they are great ones by Scarlett Casciello and Tom Selmon who are both going on to study Fashion Photography at Falmouth University. I love the juxtaposition of nature and beauty in Scarlett's work and the surreal qualities in Tom's image based on the tale of the LaLaurie slaves . The fashion world is a tough one- Good luck to them both! 1. Scarlett Casciello ©, 2.Tom Selmon ©















BTEC Level 3 National Subsidiary Diploma Photography: Let's start with a nice time laps (madeup of nearly 2000 still images!) of hanging the Sub Sid Diplma End of Year Show, created by Michael Addison:


Some Highlights from this course: Felix Cockell and Tom Wilson Keller have sold their images privately, both have produced stunning landscapes photos and there are many more gems to be seen. Students have excelled in their final project on Environmental Photography as well as in Portraiture and documentary image making. You can find more images put together in the following two Flickr Galleries: Landscapes and Portraits.

Images from the top (left to right): Abandoned car by Tom Keller, Cranes against sunset by Momo Werner, Squares by Emma Buttery, Lucyamie Towner Hibberd (two portraits), Monroe by Annabel Louise Clifton, Shaun Morrison by Alex Gill. Some of the student's work has also featured on Phil Coomes BBC blog: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-14215513

Book review 1: Landscapes

During the Easter break I had a little time for reflection and been getting out some photo books. I thought it would be great to start reviewing some of these here. The first ones I will attempt are an August Sander Exhibition catalogue as well as Fay Godwin's "Our Forbidden Land".

The reviews are by no means exhaustive but rather a short investigation related to my personal interest in environmental photography and book making. I have picked these two books for their great image quality but also because they are not as populist and well know as other photo books. Furthermore the reviews are meant to encourage my students to look at a larger variety of references.

I will start by looking at the August Sander exhibition catalogue:











This catalogue (I also call it book or booklet from here on) is beautifully presented with a solid 82 pages, a knowledgeable introduction, a sensitive collectors' perspective and an insightful essay. The first and last page is printed on very fine paper. It looks recycled and even handmade with remains of green fibres (image on the right).

The book consists of 40 landscape photographs grouped by region and theme. I picked up two new copies in a Brighton bookstore for £14 in December 2010. I felt it may have collector's value and perhaps I wasn't so wrong: it currently sells between £49 and £97 on Amazon, which is a good indication that it may be on the rise.

The intention of the catalogue was to celebrate the occasion of a unique exhibition: "August Sander: Photographs of the German Landscape", shown in Washington, D.C. in 2004 (organised by the Phillips Collection). A collection of 40 Silver gelatin prints was donated to the Phillips Collection Washington, D.C. The catalogue was designed by Ken Karlic to accompany the exhibition. Notes suggest that there was a further book produced for the occasion.

The catalogue is presented in a contemporary way, with the title caught on the bottom cut edge of the book cover. Only two colours are used throughout the catalogue (green and black, with shades of grey)- I wonder if this was also an environmentally friendly choice? Image reproduction is very good with great tonal range. Some images are a little small and the black edges framing the images are a little too bold for my taste.

On the whole, however, I really enjoy looking at the catalogue and in particular I like reading about the background of the images and the artist's intention. I did not know much about Sanders landscape work before I came across this little treasure. It was a huge delight as I was in the middle of picking up loose ends on a variety of environmentally concerned projects. What stands out to me is the mix of landscape art and scientific interest but I can also sense an emotional response and the familiarity to the land.

When showing the book to Phil Coomes, he immediately drew a comparison to Sander's "People of the Twentieth Century". Phil felt that Sander had portrayed the trees similar to the people. This is in deed confirmed in the curators introduction: "Sanders portraits of plants and trees provide natural analogues to the human studies"(Phillips, p.23).

The Collectors ((Minichiello, p.33) go further calling them "intimate landscapes". They speak about the solitude visible in the set of images they call paths in the woods. The paths suggest a human presence without any humans visible in the pictures. They also suggest that Sander took strength from making these images. They have spoken to Sanders grandson, Gerd Sanders, who confirmed that under the Nazi regime it was difficult for Sander to continue his portraits.

The catalogue alternates text with images some of which display a similarity to Ansel Adams inspired, broad views. Other images show more intimate details of paths, wild woods as well as botanical studies. Sometimes the texts in the book take you away from the images and I wonder if the text should have perhaps been separated from the flow of images.

Nevertheless, it is well worth the effort to follow up the essay taking you through the second half of the book. It gives a brief overview of the history of landscape within the arts and goes on to reveal some more details about Sanders background as a painter/ photographer.

August Sander started out with landscape photography yet advertising himself as an interior and industrial photographer. His work progressively moved from landscapes to cityscapes. The essay (Lange, Conrad-Scholl, p.61) summarises: "In general Sander's work combines the tradition of topographic documentation with a modern interest in its intellectual ramifications."

The essays mentions that Sander has left behind an archive of over 4000 landscape negatives.
It goes on to discuss the major regions Sander has focus his landscape work on such as the Rhein area, Eiffel and the Siebengebierge and reveals that Sander has applied the exact same systematic approach to his landscapes than he did when organising his portraits into book form. A good example can be seen in his portfolio "Der Rhein und das Siebengebierge".

In the view of the writers, the botanical studies associate Sander with Goethe. He had a collection of books by Goethe and was inspired by him. It seems that this encouraged Sander to work intuitively and not feel limited by one genre, bringing science and art together. Although it has to be said that not all images in the catalogue display the same technical quality (some appear blurred due to long exposure times) on second glance, the front cover choice seems to celebrate Sanders marriage of technically brilliance with intuitive flair.

My personal favourites are "Eibe im Fruehlingskleid (Yew in Spring), Birken im Wald (Birches in the woods) and Baumgruppe auf dem Hohen Venn bei Windstille (trees on the "Hohen Venn" during calm). All 1930s. The latter in reminds me a little of Alfred Stieglitz's cloud studies "Equivalents" (also known as "Songs of the Sky").

All images © August Sander

I leave you with a Sander Quote:

"In landscape we recognise the spirit of our time, which we are able to capture with the help of the camera"

_______

Fay Godwin's book: "Our forbidden land" was first published in 1990 and won the Green Book Award. It starts with a long introduction by the photographer laying out our relationship to the land. Again, I bought this book for a bargain of £7.50 through Amazon.

It is rather different to Sanders e.g. far more critical about the landscape and varies greatly in it's approach to image making (mix of formats). It includes 132 images over 192 pages with extensive text and captioning. Reproduction of images is very good. It also contains various snippets of poetry.

The themes covered in the text are: Good and bad farming, walking access and dogs, support industries e.g. chemical and machine production, nuclear, defense, water companies, polluted food vs organic food.


Photographs cover a wide span of themes including: public woodlands, allotments, small/ bio dynamic farms, blocked and dangerous paths, caravan parks, Stonehenge, power lines, private estates and beaches, dying trees, littered landscape, the Channel Tunnel works, former military land, food and farming festivals, inner city natural spaces, erosion and repair of food paths.

In my view it is a greatly educating book providing food for thought and an insight into land management. The one minus point is that pages start to yellow on the edges. Nevertheless, it strengthened my idea to set my students an environmental photography project and convinced me to take them out for a trip once again this year. Thank you Fay!










All images © Fay Godwin
_______

I have been so inspired by books lately that I started to archive my own images in book form. As I had just been invited to submit some photos to the Ningbo Photo Festival in China, this has given me an occasion to group a few of my images of bicycles in Dalian. To see a preview just click on the picture below or to the right.

One thing I can't stop thinking about is: how acceptable is it to still print books on environmental subjects (ethically speaking) and what other/ environmentally friendly ways are their to show photographs to the same standard/quality? (not based in a computer!)

Any feedback welcome. Still work in progress.