the problem with vintage cameras no.3476

is that sometimes the technology that they need to work has been outlawed - genuinely!

To power my exposure meter and give my photographs a hope in hell of working, my OM-1n needs a Mercury battery - unfortunately these batteries got banned for being, I don't know, a bit deadly - so now us old-school Oly shooters need a workaround. Step in the 675 Zinc-air hearing aid battery, which I'm told promises to be just as effective to within a bit of a stop.

More here at Silverbased.org

ouch

"Um... I know you said we should come to class without any film in our cameras, but I tried to rewind mine at home and the film tension's just disappeared - I was hoping you could help me.." and I held out my OM-1 with black and white film elusive but still interred safe within, containing shots from Italian villages, sunkissed portraits of my extended family, countless sleepy mornings back at the cottage, fiddling in the garden with lavender blowing in the breeze and earlier that day, experimenting with tones in the gritty lanes of Brighton's backstreets...

"Hmm," she said, turning it over in her hands, "did you try rewinding it already?"

"Yeah, I think so," I said, doubt creeping into my voice, "but there's just no tightness - the wheel just goes round, look," and I demonstrated.

"Ah," she said, and before I really knew what was happening, she popped the back on my camera and showed me the film inside. I looked up at her. 

"Holy... what the....?!" I thought. My eyes widened, hugely puzzled by this new 'technique' for safely removing film from cameras.

"Your film's snapped, see?" she said, and began pulling my film off the spool as I sat, mutely gaping at the reams of now-past-saving negatives wheeling out, piling up in her hands like some awful, grey celluloid intestines. I felt sick.

"Um... ok... er..." I said, not really sure what to do and groping for comedy to pull me through as the rest of the "photography for beginner's" class watched, obviously blind to the horrific disemboweling taking place in front of them.

"You ok? We can always use it for practise film!" she grinned, bouncing the grey strip into the bin and handing me my now-empty camera while the class laughed, cheerily. I struggled for a weak grin and blinked into space. All I could see were the shots that had just vaporised like slasher-movie vampires in the sunlight, 'poofing' into nothingness. Sure, I was just trying the camera out for the first time, and the lack of any proper exposure meter meant that all my shots were probably pointless, but... wow. What a way to go.

I think I'm still in shock. On the last film photography course I was on, my LC-A got stuck mid-shoot and it was rushed across Brighton to a friendly dark bag for the necessary surgery: the harsh realities of a "real" photography course seems to mean that there's no room for emotion on this particular learning curve.

wow

In the last ten days, so much has happened that I barely know where to start. Let's try this:

- started my darkroom course and learned how to load 35mm onto a developing wheel (don't even know the technical terms for this, that's how early on I am) - smelt the weird chemicals, grinned at the other people on the course and am hooked. That is all.

- adventures with film continue: bought an old SX-70 Polaroid from eBay on a real whim, shipped it over from America (enduring customs taxes on the way) and was hugely delighted to discover that it's a complete, working set including manuals, flash cubes, macro lens and gorgeous leather case. (photos of the beautiful beast to follow soon, genuinely think it's a stunning piece of design)

- ordered SX-70 film from The Impossible Project, plugged it in and took my first Polaroids.


Fell in love with this ridiculously expensive format. Something hugely magical about pressing a button, catching the print and seeing a photograph develop in front of your eyes - it's a really personal, intimate format that I think I'll save for just me. And him, of course :)

- On the same day I liberated my SX-70 from Parcel Force, I also shot my first wedding! Well, one third of the wedding, just the getting-ready shots before the pro took over, but found myself really enjoying photographing one of my best friends and making her look even more beautiful than she actually is (well, trying to, anyway)... now working on her album, uploading images in breaks from article writing/photographer wrangling.

- knee deep in work at work and so much going on back at the cottage it's unreal. Time off soon, hopefully...

the trouble with snapshots

(bit lifted from PDN interview with London College of Fashion professor Ken Miller, about his new book of snapshot photographs)

PDN: In your essay for the book, you talk about photographers choosing to keep photographs that most people would discard, and how that makes the photographer the subject as much as what’s in the photograph. Do you think that there’s a danger of snapshot work becoming overly self-conscious to the point that it’s more about photographers challenging viewers to figure out the value in increasingly mundane images?

KM: Yes, there’s definitely a risk of that. If anything, I think that very well could be the logical conclusion of this. I’m not going to name names, but I think there are certain photographers who are already going there.

PDN: In other words, the composition of an image is becoming secondary to the photographer’s insistence that the image has value?

KM: We are already seeing that. It’s funny: you could almost say that snapshot photography is starting to reach its decadent phase. To go from saying, “Ok, there’s this image that other people don’t find attractive, but I sincerely do find it attractive, and I’m going to present it so that they develop an appreciation for it,” to saying “I’m just going to throw whatever out there because I think that every image is valuable,” I think there’s validity to that, [but] it starts to get a little bit flat and it also starts to get a bit risky when it becomes so self-reflexive on the photographer. Again, I’m not going to name names, but there are definitely people who are doing that.

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