Is there a way to start a blog post with Greek mythology and not sound awfully pretentious? I don't know, but I love the question at the end of the story. You most probably know it anyway, so I'll make it very brief. After slaying the Minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth, Theseus escapes to Delos by ship, some 300 odd kilometers to the north. He arrives as a hero, because he's stopped the sacrificing of Athenian youth to King Minos of Crete. To commemorate Theseus's feat, the Athenians start an annual pilgrimage to Delos with his very ship. Over the years, wear and tear on the ship make maintenance work inevitable. Rotten planks have to be replaced by new ones. Observing this, there comes a time when Greek philosophers ask an interesting question: once every part of the ship has been replaced, is it still "the ship of Theseus"?
The never-ending rebuilding of Istanbul brings to my mind Theseus's ship. As in "is it still my Istanbul?". But thinking this over now, maybe the proper (Greek) analogy would be "you can't swim in the same river twice". Anyhow, during the pandemic this building was on my walking route and I loved the single window in the facade. Did the owner of that flat just say "The hell with my neighbours and regulations. I'm gonna knock down the wall here and open a window!"? A couple of months after I made the first photo a gaping void replaced the window, signaling what was going to come next. Shortly after, as expected, the whole thing went down. Now a new building is there. Its shape is remarkably similar to its predecessor's. So far, it's a white facade, sans window. That might come later!
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All three of these photos were made with a Bronica RF645 and the 65mm/f4 lens. They are printed on 24x30cm Ilford Classic FB paper.
The first two frames are on Tmax100 film and were developed in Tmax (1+9) at 24 degrees Celsius. The last frame is from a few weeks ago and is on the new Kentmere 100, which I developed in home-mixed D76. This is my first ever roll of Kentmere 100 and it looks all right. I probably should reduce the development time a bit though; the negs look a bit contrasty.
An interesting work in progress Omar - hopefully some enterprising soul will paint a nice mural on that gable-end and cheer it up a bit. One question though - did you take the original print with you so that you could get the composition almost exactly the same? really interesting to see how the side-vegetation has grown too!
ReplyDeleteI like the contrastiness of the Kentmere actually - suits the scene.
Well done - I know what you mean about places though - the river analogy is perfect!
All the best from Scotland.
Hi Phil. I had a pretty good impression of the first print in my mind, I guess. Still, the verticals are slightly different.
DeleteYes, a mural would be great. There are some fantastic murals in the same area actually.
Hope all is well.
Cheers...
I don't think I could ever keep an image that tight in my mind - WELL DONE!
DeleteAnother question Omar - are those the actual borders of the print? They don't look much more than 5mm - very tight, but it works really well. I suppose, actually, why waste money with big borders!
DeleteThese prints actually have a fair amount of border. I'll add a pic of one print at the end of the post in a moment.
DeleteBut you hit upon something which I've often had issues with. You could call me a border nut :) I've had periods when I couldn't get around thinking about the waste/cost of wide borders. In those periods I trimmed the picture really tight, leaving only a few millimeters of white. For example, if it's a 6x6 frame, I would adjust the easel for a 20x20cm print, trim a 24x30cm sheet to roughly 24x22, use the smaller bit for test strips, and finally trim down the paper to about 21x21cm. But when you have a set of prints made from various film formats and trim everything, the lack of uniformity becomes a problem for me.
These days, my final prints are all on 24x30cm paper and they have a generous border, more or less the size you can see from the pic I added to the end of the post (the film format changes the borders a bit of course). I have various templates actually, usually two for each film format, one with a narrower, another with a wider border. I go with gut feeling which to use. But if I'm not sure where I'll head with a print, I'll start with work prints on RC paper, and in this case I always trim.
That's interesting - I think borders are important - they can somehow make an image look bigger than it is.
DeleteI sort of (for the moment) standardised on 9.5 x 12" simply because someone gave me about 250 sheets of fairly old (at least 10 years) MGRC. Like you, my borders can be quite generous and I have a number of waste prints that I use as templates - flipping them over and then drawing around the inner edge of the image frame of the easel, to see what they look like and going for it if I like it. Test strips are a bit of a pain, however I recently rediscovered something I bought over 20 years ago - an ORIGINAL RH Designs Zone master (it cost £20) and it is really very good indeed. I never thought I'd use it when I bought it, but I think as my printing experience has grown, I see it as a valuable tool, that cuts out the test strip to an extent. This being said, I've only used it in earnest once recently, but it made a good enough judgement call up against a print I'd done in my old test strip method to make me think "Aha, this could be useful!"
Watch this space!
250 sheets of paper is a very generous offer. That must be enough to finance the L2 + NKT!
DeleteLooking forward to your post on the RH Designs thingy ;-)
That was only the 9.5 x 12! there's 12x16 and 16x20 too . . . and a ton of film. Friend at the forum giving up film altogether . . sad stuff. He's got a Devere 504 and 810 to get rid of too . . .
DeleteSad indeed!
DeleteToday there was a post about Ilford's financials over at Photrio, and what struck me was the state of paper sales. Here's the relevant part of the post:
"In this latest update, the effects of the covid pandemic are apparent. Turnover was down substantially in 2020, recovered in 2021 though not quite back to the pre-pandemic level. A similar pattern is seen in the operating profit, though the recovery there isn't so strong. The biggest hit to revenue in 2020 was in the US; this is reflected in the chart showing US share of overall turnover. US turnover and share recovered partially in 2021. Employment was maintained through the early days of the pandemic in 2020 and the associated lockdowns; the notes indicate that the company participated in the UK government's furlough scheme. Employment fell in 2021, however, with all of the losses coming from production; R&D employment remained unchanged.
The "business review" notes indicate that film sales held steady in 2020 and grew 15% in 2021. However, paper sales were hit badly by the pandemic, declining 47% in 2020 and recovering only 23% in 2021, remaining down 35% since 2019. The decline in paper sales is attributed to reduced attendance at schools and colleges by students who use photographic paper in the darkroom, and is noted to be "particularly stark" in the US, which is described as a significant purchaser of photo paper. Sales of processing chemicals grew by 10% in both 2020 and 2021, while sales of darkroom accessories grew by 50% in 2020 and 30% in 2021."
And this is the link:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/harman-technology-limited-financial-performance-2005-2021.201092/