Not Quite Hot Off The Press… New Work.

"The Sea Kist" ,South Queensferry"

With gorgeous light this morning I headed out to take a few shots  before breakfast. And the one advantage of working close to home is that I could scan the shots before I worked on them. I had intended to use some of the new Impossible film , possibly the most recent colour version. But I still had some of the “Artistic” TZ film in the camera I had to hand, so that’s what I used instead.

The good thing about this film is that it manipulates well. The bad thing ( or at least the thing that I don’t necessarily want to emphasise with every shot) is the rather wierd colour mix.  So , not only does the image have to be manipulated it also has to be “tweaked” to get a result that I am happy about.

A few times recently I’ve had conversations about whether this or that ( photoshop in particular) is “cheating”.  As far as I’m concerned, since I am not photographing in a journalistic manner where I need to accurately represent “the truth” , anything I need to do , to create an image that I am happy with, is fair game. I am pretty sure that Rembrandt and Van Gogh would have made full use of all these modern tools had they had them around !

So you can see for yourself what I’ve done  – here are two more shots. The first is the unmanipulated version , and then the half way stage of manipulated or “smooshed” as I call it, before the colour tweaking was done.

A few people have asked me if I could put together some kind of a “how to ” guide to all this, so I am working on that at the moment. If you subscribe to the Studio Newsletter you will be the first to hear about it. This month’s issue will be out later this week and if you’d like a copy you can make sure you get it here.

Looking for the Colour

 

 

August Break Photo – Day 20

Shot with PX70 – trying to coax as much colour out of the film as possible. This is shot without any extra filter and just scanned in. The shoes should be bright red, so there is a little way to go.

August Break – Edinburgh Cafe

Another shot with the “Impossible ” Film again today.  In between the down pours I popped out to a favourite cafe, Peter’s Yard for a coffee and a bit of writing. Again , the picture shows those strange dots and lines, but on the previous picture I showed these have already faded away, so seems to be no cause for alarm. Am getting better at the whole “shooting into the black bag” system. Although combining that with using a monopod does leave you wishing for at least one extra hand.

New Directions

 

Edinburgh 2010 – Iphone

While I wait to see how the colour format from The Impossible Project turns out I’m still casting around to see what I’ll do if I can’t keep working in the Polaroid technique that I prefer.

I have been shooting with my Holga and Polaroid back ( which can also take Fuji Film, so still in good supply) and with a tiny Diana mini which really IS a plastic camera. I’ve still to get the first film processed from the latter, so we’ll see what I’ve come up with. But I’ve seen other people  get really interesting results. The appeal for me was that you can shoot square format with a 35mm film – oh , and do double exposures.

And from the oldest techniques to the newest , my other experiments have been with my Iphone. The built in camera, combined with a few interesting apps  provide all the ingredients for just “playing” the way I worked with Polaroid at the beginning. I think I need that slightly carefree element to push on into new areas.

I’ve created an account at posterous – www.starrybluesky.posterous.com to collect all my “iphonography” images.

The Illusionist – Edinburgh Film Festival

 

 A little mosaic from my phone pictures. For once it was nice to leave heavy cameras and big lenses at home.

A little glimpse of the goings on at the opening of the Edinburgh Film Festival. I’d been waiting to see the film that opened this year’s festival for a long time as I’d heard little snippets about it during the last couple of years. So it was a treat to manage to get tickets to see the film on the opening night.

This video  captures a bit of the razzmatazz with Sir Sean Connery and Sir Patrick Stewart amongst others.

I’ll leave the reviews to the cinema buffs – here  and here. But from me , well, Edinburgh has never looked more beautiful on screen.

The day after I went to hear the director , Sylvain Chomet , talk about making the film. Often these conversations can be even more enjoyable that the finished project. And in this case the behind the scenes glimpse into how the animations were done,  the dealings with officialdom and eductional establishments and some interesting thoughts on  flying versus train travel was very entertaining.  Train travel “massages the brain” and allows new ideas to develop.

The film will be on general release in Scotland on the 20th of August – possibly earlier in other places so keep a look out for it .

The other important celebration today is for Etsy’s fifth birthday and I’m heading down to Leith later on to join the party there.

If you are in Edinburgh my exhibition is still on until Saturday the 26th at Newington Library.

And the next issue of my Studio Newsletter with work in progress and creative snippets will be out soon too – don’t miss it by subscribing here .

Five on a Friday

Picking up my Friday theme again for a little while as I keep coming across random snippets of goodness that I’d like to pass on.

First , if you are in Edinburgh until the 16th of May , pop in to the gardens at St Andrew’s Square and have a look at the wonderful animal photography by Steve Bloom. He has captured intimate moments in their lives  such as a monkey contemplating the rain splashing on his palm. Other images show wonderful patterns such as the geometric green patterns on a lizard or masses of stripy zebras.

Recent film trips have included two little gems. Admittedly I am within the target market for a film about rural Romania – ( given my very longstanding soft spot for this country). But I notice that it has also charmed a lot of others. Constantin and Elena  is a documentary featuring two pensioners living in rural Romania and made by their grandson. What stuck me, and continues to give me food for thought, was how self sufficient they were and how skilled – from making and smoking their own sausages to their very accomplished and deft baking skills. Not to mention the weaving done on a large loom in the home. It feels as though, for all our modern progress, we have lost an element of simple contentment.

Another study of  a different lifestyle came with Mark Cousin’s film The First Movie  made in a Kurdish village in Iraq. Visually it had a beautiful dreamy quality, and on occasion veered into what he called “magic realist documentary”. Part of the idea was to give cameras to the children in the village and allow them to make their own films. The result was again very moving and thought provoking. I hope it gets wider screening so that more people have the opportunity to see it.

Moving along –  it has been around for a while, but I didn’t see it until this week – if you haven’t seen this joyful “Sound of Music”  inspired piece from Antwerp you are in for a treat.

And finally Cynthia Morris of Original Impulse and Journey Juju has started to do a fun video broadcast  “Juju Infusion “  every week. Lots of little snippets about travel, creativity and other life enhancing tips. You might spot a little bit of Starrybluesky in this week’s episode.

Film from the Impossible Project – First Try

So, the long awaited “Impossible “  Film is finally here. I’ll admit to feeling a little nervous about it. I’d read up all I could on the Impossible site and also had a read over at the Flickr forum devoted to the film. It all seemed a bit tricky and hit or miss. As a few other people,  such as Jake Messenger  ,have done,  I thought I’d scan and show all the shots I took with my first pack and my comments about how I got on. Reading how others have dealt with the film is the best way to get to grips with this new film, which, it has to be said, is a bit of a “prima donna”.

So – first and second shots –

 

 The first was very unimpressive. I was shooting by a window in a location where I  have shot a lot of other work. I got the picture into the dark as soon as possible ( tipping it over into a box ) but I didn’t attempt to keep it warm.  With the next shot I did the same again but in the meantime had created a little bag from a handy black bin liner and put it into that straight away and under my cardi. So, seems that it is true – heat on developing is every bit as important as shielding from light.

I still wasn’t that happy with the results so decided to keep reshooting the same subject. This time I pulled out my monopod and this helped the image quality, but also made the operation of getting the photo into the black bag a bit trickier , with a camera and monopod in the other hand. Two more shot in this context. Getting there, but still nothing that I was really happy with.

By the next two I was getting the hang of the film a little and one of the kitchen images I quite like, but other things were starting to be more obvious. There is quite a lot of white speckling in some of the images. And also a very fine white line through the middle of all of the images. I don’t remember ever seeing this before, so I assume it must be from the film and not the camera. You could get rid of it with careful editing, but I’d rather not have to.

With the last two, I did a very  white on white scene to see how it would cope with that  – not well, in this instance and then another still life to see what it did with a wider range. ( The last two also did something rather odd  which I didn’t notice  in the others – after a little while they became very mottled . But after a longer period the mottling disappeared again.) And there are also some strange darker marks in the image on the left below.

Since manipulating the image is my main reason for liking the old Polaroid film I wanted to have a go with one of these. It was ok to work on, but again, I’m not overly happy with the result. The emulsion “smooshes” easily enough, but it seems to relax a little after manipulation and become less defined. Also, for me, I’m not sure that manipulation is the best use of this kind of sepia/black and white film. I felt my final image was just a little too much like milky coffee and lot of the subtlety of the image was gone too.

The image at the top of the post is the only one that I’ve given a bit of  TLC to , although I didn’t go so far as removing the white spots or the thin white line. And the image at the foot of the post is the one I manipulated. It feels a little strange to be posting so many images that I’m not happy with but  hopefully my experiments will help someone else avoid a few of the mistakes I made. And I’m still crossing my fingers for the colour film that I have every confidence will appear later in the year.

Holgaroid Experiments

Have been enjoying experimenting with the Holga + Polaroid back – commonly referred to as a Holgaroid. It lends itself to a very dreamy style of image and has given me an idea for a series that I plan to execute very quickly over the next couple of weeks. Maybe I was influenced a little by seeing a performance yesterday at the Arches by Derevo in collaboration with another Russian company and a Scottish theatre group. The Arches is an underground space below Central Station in Glasgow and provided a suitably grimy mysterious backdrop for an equally mysterious show. The audience congregated in a central area for the start and finish and in between had to select 3 doors, out of  a possible  7  to watch 20 minute performances in each. Dreamlike  and confusing with reality and fantasy  blurred.

( * You can sign up for my “soon-to-launch” Ezine from the link on the right or from here – and receive two downloadable postcards* )

Card launch on Etsy – a 24 hour bonus.

( * You  can sign up for my “soon-to-launch” Ezine from the link on the right or from here – and receive two downloadable postcards* )

I have just added some sets of greetings cards to my Etsy shop. Until now you had to attend one of my exhibtions to get hold of some of these.  ( WHere they just flew away ! ) And to celebrate that ( you will have noticed by now, that I am quite big on celebrating )  I am offering a complimentary 5 x5 print ( of the buyer’s choice) with any set of cards purchased. Offer runs from 9pm today until 9pm Saturday – UK time.

Seven Resources for Photographers….

( * You  can sign up for my “soon-to-launch” Ezine from the link on the right or from here – and receive two downloadable postcards* )

A few old favourites and new finds….

Photo Jojo has grown quite a bit in the last little while. A terrific resource for all kinds of ideas about “what to do with your photographs” and fun ideas about actually taking the photos too. Now they have published a book of their ideas and also  have a forum up and running .

The Joy of Marketing –  a marketing teleseminar for photographers. Listen to the calls free or buy copies of the downloads. Some very experienced names are speaking here – such as Kevin Kubota one of the wizards of photo processing, Dane Sanders who has helped many photographers improve their skills and business and Marilyn Sholin who will be talking about selling fine art.

Open source forum is a photography forum set up by David Jay. The atmosphere here , in my experience , has always been friendly and supportive and a great resource for finding solutions to all kinds of photographic issues.  I was fortunate enough to attend a workshop David Jay (and  Bob Davis) held in Paris a couple of years ago, which really speeded up my workflow , as well as encouraged  me to start experimenting a bit more with off camera flash.

Speaking of  off camera flash ..the best resource I’ve found for this is Stobist. I am far from an expert in this area but have learnt a lot from exploring this site. And heading into the autumn and winter is a good time to start experimenting with lighting.

Shutter sisters – an inspirational website to visit and contribute to.  At the moment you can see some of the photos resulting from the “Hope” project as well as their daily photographic servings.

Letting go of the camera –  by Brooks Jensen.  This is still one of my favourite books on photography. Short essays that can be read with a cup of tea and never fail to trigger a new idea.

For information on all things Polaroid that are still available, Polapremium  is the place to look.  ( And for updates on how things  are getting on  with plans to develop a new “Polaroid like” film see  The Impossible Project  . )