The Lives of Others

Very rarely were the curtains drawn back. When they were however, a group of framed colour prints, lovingly arranged, revealed themselves on the wall. I never saw a person in the room, only an occasional flicker of a shadow. I imagined a photography admirer, possibly even a soulmate, living close by, who made himself/herself comfortable in a couch and, looking at those pictures, dreamed themselves away.

*I've borrowed the title of this post from the same named film. Well worth watching.

What Has Changed?

28 years separate these two photos. When I made the poppy picture in southern Turkey on a hot summer's day in 1998 I had just started using B&W film and printing in a primitive darkroom. This is on my 4th roll of B&W film ever and one of the first prints I was happy with. I gave that 18x24cm print to my mom, which she had framed, and it hangs in her kitchen to this day. Whenever I visit my parents I look at the picture and think that I've done a decent job. That print was on graded Ilfospeed RC paper, now sadly discontinued (I still think Ilfospeed is the best RC paper that Ilford have produced. It had beautiful tonality. Somehow the multigrade version doesn't have the separation of greys that Ilfospeed used to deliver). I remember that I developed my very first roll of B&W film in Ilford PQ Universal and the negs turned out very grainy. By the time I'd finished this 4th roll I must've learned my lesson and switched to another developer (most likely ID-11...haven't written it down), because these Ilford Delta 400 negatives are quite decent.

Recently I was going through my contact sheet archive and when I saw the poppy I had the urge to print it again; this time on a paper I’m growing to like a lot, the matte version of fiber based Ilford Multigrade. I made every effort to get it right, especially pulling in some tone into the top right corner. The picture here is a scan from this new print.

In the same session I also printed a picture from one of my very last rolls of B&W film onto the same paper. This time I had Ilford HP5 in my camera. The location is Düsseldorf. I had never seen a car parked in that spot before, and when I saw the silver Mercedes my shutter finger started to twitch! A minute later the owner appeared and pulled out the car.

Looking at the prints side by side the following day, I fell into a revery. I began reflecting on all that had happened in between these two pictures: how much the world had changed; how much my life had changed. But I also wondered whether or how much I had changed as a person. In particular, a question most of us photographers ask at one point: have I become a better photographer? It's a difficult one. Try transporting yourself to your mindset of 28 years ago, and then try to compare that with your mind today. Is that even possible?

There are several obvious changes. Compared with my early days, I print with less chiaroscuro, with more greys. I shoot less, much less, but with more deliberation. I'm not even sure that's a good thing. What else? I have seen a LOT of photography in those 28 years. But how did that inform my own photography? I produced zines with a few friends over the course of 6 years. That was the best thing I have done. We had so many long  conversations, and just a fantastic good time together. I guess that that must have had a positive effect on my photography. Yet, it’s impossible to prove. Anything else? Well, I’ve been blogging - I’d rather call it journalling - for more than a decade, which has given me plenty of opportunity for reflection. It has also led to friendships that I’m grateful about.

Indeed, a lot has happened and changed in the last 28 years. But whether I’ve become a better photographer, that’s a tough one. I fear in this regard I might be the same old naive me.

Interestingly, I made both these photos with a black Nikon FM2. So at least one thing has remained constant!

Free Flowing Little Pleasures

What would life be without my morning pour-over? Today it's a Brazilian variety. Freshly ground, of course. The prints in front of me are from last night. They were still damp in the morning. The new darkroom in the basement is bloody cold and the prints take ages to dry down there. But now that I've brought them up to the warm living room they are literally drying in my hands. Fast. With a nice strong curl, which is getting stronger as I keep sipping my coffee. Delicious. Maybe I should get one of those T-shirt presses to flatten them. I leaf through the prints. This one's on Ilford FB matte paper. 20x25cm. The shadows have almost no detail. And the matte paper pulls it even further down the scale. Or so I think. But in the negative the shadows are fairly empty anyway, so I reckon it's alright with how black they appear. The blacks with this paper are actually quite gorgeous. They have a charcoal quality. I wonder: could this be related to the paper developer at all? I've been using Adotol Konstant, which is the Adox packaging of some old Orwo formula. This coffee is delicious... the chocolaty notes are coming through now. Not completely sure about the lady in the shadows though. I guess it's alright. There just isn't any more detail that I could've brought out there. And isn't it nice when straight lines make burning and dodging a child's game? The exposure was 17 seconds at Grade 2 on my Focomat 2c, but the sky needed 50% more for some tone. So I dodged the dark triangle at the top - which really is the underside of an overhanging highway - for 8 seconds with a straight card during the main exposure and then simply burned in for 8 seconds from the top of the building. Thus, the sky got its additional 50% and the dark rectangle remained at the original exposure for minimal shadow detail. Kentmere 400 film here, exposed at EI400. I can't fault it. It's good. But then almost anything seems to be good when shot with the Rollei. Except maybe Foma 400. What a disappointment those two rolls were. One was so bad I threw the negs away. That was my first and last try of Foma 400. It just doesn't have any speed. Cheap but no speed. Shot at EI400 they looked at least 2 stops underexposed. The coffee seems to get even tastier now. Isn't 20x25cm a bit small? Or am I just too used to 24x30cm. Maybe I should let the thought simmer and see how I feel about it later.

Back On Track

Finally, after folding my darkroom in Istanbul 2 years ago, I've set up a new one in Düsseldorf. This time it's in a basement washroom, not the nicest of spaces, but with running water. It required the swapping of a very old window that wasn't tight and let in cold air with a new, double-glazed one. (which I blacked out of course). I'd had shipped my Focomat 2c from Turkey before and today I set it up in one corner, behind which I'd painted the otherwise white walls matte black to prevent reflections.

So, on Valentine's Day, and also on day of the carnival in the Rhineland, I'm BACK ON TRACK.

More Light

One beautiful German word is "Abendstimmung", which would translate as "evening mood", although in German it has a bit more gravitas I think. Funny, I can't think of a good Turkish word or phrase that would express that mood. That's the beauty of languages; each has its own landscape of meanings that correspond to the cultural cosmos of the people speaking it. Anyway, back to Abendstimmung. Three years ago I visited an exhibition called "More Light" ("Mehr Licht" in German) in Düsseldorf's Kunstpalast, which explored 19th century oil studies in open nature. There I saw this painting by Carl Robert Kummer titled "Abendstimmung an der Elbe", depicting an evening scene at the river Elbe in Dresden. I was so impressed, I had a hard time moving on to other paintings, and even came back to it several times, studying it further.

The clouds, especially the ones on the diagonal, the silvery water, and that bold arc of the river...what an inspirational painting. 

Just like those 19th century romantic painters, I guess many of us try to make our own Abendstimmungs when the evening light starts to shift to the purples and reds, right? Well, here are two of my humble attempts made along the Rhine last year.

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A major exhibition usually has an exhibition catalogue; I try not to miss those. They tend to have loads of informational essays and one can enjoy the paintings (or photos etc.), although in admittedly inferior reproduction, for many more years. Look, the lovely small Elbe painting even made it to the cover of this catalogue!

Views of a Landmark

Legend has it that in the year 1632 Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi flew with wings he cobbled together, supported by strong scirocco winds, from the top of Istanbul's Galata Tower all across the Bosphorus and landed in Usküdar, about 3.5 km towards the east. Many historians dispute the truth of this story for various reasons, one being that the only source mentioning this event is a short entry in the travelogue of the Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi. He concludes that sultan Murat the IVth watched the alleged flight from his palace and eventually declared "this is a man to be scared of; such people should not be kept alive" and exiled Ahmet Çelebi to the farthest corner of his realm, Algeria. There, at the ripe old age of 30, Ahmed Çelebi died. His nickname "Hezarfen" means "man of a thousand sciences".

Hezarfen's departure point, the Galata Tower is one of the most prominent landmarks of Istanbul and therefore often appears in my  (and others') cityscapes, intentionally or not:

While I was crossing Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn, I was delighted to see the tower reflected in the window (of one of the bridge's support structures). In order to add an extra layer to the photo, I waited for one of the many fishermen pull his protein out of the sea. Or maybe it's the tower that's the extra layer!

Sometimes the tower is just "there"...

...and sometimes I make a conscious effort to photograph the tower. This is very much a cliche, a view from the garden of the Süleymaniye Mosque over the chimneys of the neighbouring medrese (a school in the Ottoman days).

All three photos were made on the same day whilst on a short trip to Istanbul over last Christmas. I used to bring along analog cameras and B&W film on my travels. But it's become so cumbersome with the security procedures and the constant anguish that the film might get fogged in the x-ray machines, especially now that CT Scanners are being gradually installed, that I now prefer a Nikon DSLR while travelling. I still use my old manual focus Nikkors though, as they are extremely rugged and perform like a charm. Here, the first two pictures were made with the humble but superb AI 50mm/f1.8 and the last one with the AI 200mm/f4.0 Nikkor, which again is optically excellent and relatively compact.

Totally unrelated to my musings above, I'd like to recommend this documentary about Dorothea Lange. It's been uploaded to Youtube just a few days ago. I watched the 2 hour documentary twice, I found it that good. What an amazing photographer she was but what a sad end she had to face.