Part I: Photography
The Hasselblad 500 C/M perched above the Pedder impoundment. Oct 2021, Pentax MX, 50mm, Kodak Pro 100.
Any venture, be it business, art or AD-venture, begins with an idea. A certain vision, if you like, underlaid by a strong desire to manifest that idea, to bring it into the world, from the swirly thought space to tangible reality. It’s one thing to visualise an image in our mind’s eye, and it’s another to present a large photographic print in a frame and have it hanging in an exhibition. The visualisation is necessary, but it’s not enough. The gap between idea and reality is the process of creation, and it generally involves a lot more work than we anticipate at first.
The Pentax MX. Oct 2021, Olympus Em-1, 12-40mm.
In this day and age, there is a lot of equipment and knowledge that is required in order to do just about anything that’s deemed worthwhile by society. Tradesmen will have their ute and vans loaded with the correct tools to do the jobs they need to do. Being a photographer/ picture framer is no different. There is a complex combination of tools required to get to a point where I’ve got a printed photograph hanging on someone’s wall. The first of these tools in the process is the camera.
I used to shoot on an electronic Olympus Em-1. Then it carked it, after 5 years of diligent service. It survived a crossing of the Australian Alps and a skyline traverse of Tasmania, but then died in 2018, on the top of Mt Picton, while I was taking a timelapse. I was surprised it lasted as long as it did, to be honest. That thing has been soaked through, rattled around in my pack, although I have never dropped it. It stopped working one day. The shutter appeared to be stuck. I took it in to a repair place and they said it’s probably not worth fixing. That’s generally what happens with complex technology. One day, something breaks within the mechanism that is deemed too difficult to fix. So we replace our broken item with something new.
In this case, I made the decision to replace my broken camera with something old. Older than me in fact. I purchased my first 35mm film camera, the Pentax MX from a friend for just over a hundred bucks (Thank you Jugsy!). Manufactured sometime between 1976 and 1985, the MX has always had a reputation for being a bit of a bombproof camera. What I liked about it was that it looked really good, it took really nice photos, and it was all mechanic. Meaning no batteries required for its operation. There was a light meter built in which needed a battery, but I figured if I’m a photographer who is going to earn his bread from his trade one day I shouldn’t rely on a light meter for getting the exposure right. I used a friend’s lightmeter at first, but after shooting a few rolls of film I tuned my eye in pretty quick to guessing the correct exposure each time. Gauging low light was difficult at first and I under exposed a few shots for sure. But eventually, guessing the exposure became second nature. And the wonderful thing about shooting on film is that it captures something that digital can’t. A certain mood, atmosphere, or feel, that is nearly impossible to replicate through 0s and 1s. Then there is the anticipation of waiting for a roll of film to get developed before I know what I’ve got. It all adds up to a rather different process than shooting digital. But this doesn’t mean I have stopped shooting digital.
Looking toward the ‘Matterhorn of the SW’, Mt Anne. Oct 2021, Hasselblad 500C/M, 150mm, Ektar 100.
Eventually, I was given a second reincarnation of my Oympus Em-1, by the kind hearted Charles Chadwick. Charles had upgraded to the MkII of the Em-1, so he was no longer using his original Em-1. There may have been a knob missing from the top of the camera, but it was in good working order, in fact probably a lot better than mine was before it carked it. And since I still had my three Olympus lenses, i figured what the heck I may as well keep shooting on digital as well. After all, there are some things that I can capture with my digital set up better than I can on film. The macro lens on my Olympus is ridiculous. It brings the individual hairs on the leg of a caterpillar into sharp focus. I don’t have a lens like that for either my Pentax or my Hasselblad…
Caterpillar in the Sumac logging coupe, takayna. Olympus Em-1, 60mm macro, 2017
Once a photograph is captured onto film or a sensor, only half the job is done… To complete the photographic process, a positive print must be obtained somehow. A physical copy of the image, usually simply referred to as a print. In the old days, this would be done by ‘burning’ the negative image onto photographic paper then using chemicals to develop the photograph. I have gone through this process in a dark lab using analogue techniques, to create black and white silver gelatin prints. (Many thanks to Steve Lovegrove at the Kickstart Arts Centre in Moonah.) However, to create a colour print, the process is a bit more complicated, the chemicals are more dangerous to inhale, and more things can go wrong, in order to create a true to colour rendition of our negative film. As a result, I outsource the processing of my film to Stallard’s Camera House, who provide me with digital scans of my film, which I get to edit at home on my PC, send to the master printers at Full Gammut and voila, just like that, I have a print.
Then I go back to Walch Optics, and buy more rolls of film to shoot. And the beautiful cycle of creation continues.
Theia Pictures studio, Mk III. Sept 2021 Pentax MX, 50mm, Kodak Pro 100.
Stay tuned for next week’s post to find out how a print turns into a picture.