In my last article Dear Reader, I promised you some colour photography and in this article, you’re going to get it. The sun was still warming my back and it felt good to be alive again! I talked about missing out on the Jaune in the Grue Jaune, but not this time. Shorter article maybe but some great colour for you. When I bought the Fujifilm X100f one of the things that had was the Classic Chrome film simulation, which was supposed to emulate Kodachrome which of course died in 2009 and can no longer be processed. The X100f of course has other film simulations, which you can look up on the web, but that Classic Chrome look just got me. A slightly more subdued colour range with a certain warmness and something that you just can’t quite put your finger on, which reminded you of an age gone by in photography.
I mean the whole camera seems to have a certain vintage vibe to it despite all the technology hidden away inside. The little knobs and buttons everywhere just remind you of a film camera. How was I supposed to resist? As you can see in various articles and various photo galleries, I didn’t resist and I’m still OK with that! I even went on to acquire an XT2 with interchangeable lenses, which offer me more variety in the kinds of shots I can take, as well as keeping the same feel to my shots.
Everyone says to shoot in RAW. I can hear them even now saying, “Shoot in RAW you fool!” Well I do, but I also shoot jpegs to have those images already colour edited to fit that Chrome feeling. It’s consistent and I still have my RAW files to fall back on if needed. The Fuji Jpegs are amazing and it helps me to cut down on the amount of editing that I have to do. I’m basically lazy, so if I can avoid doing something and yet get a perfectly satisfactory result, then I’m going with the path of least resistance.
On this outing, I was using the 18mm (24mm equivalent) lens with the XT2. Again, I’ve talked before how I decided to go wider instead of longer, and if any of you are laughing at this point, get your minds out of the gutter! I’m talking photography!!
So without much further ado, let me present you with some colour photography taken on the XT2 in Nantes.
I hate you January. What a month for depression, for shitty and pissy weather! Christmas is a souvenir and we have all recovered from the hangovers from New Year’s Eve. Why can’t the year start in mid-February or even in March? You bring darkness and cold with you, and with Covid we’re not out all the time huddled together enjoying ourselves even if we have had three shots!
IJM Photography
February, on the other hand, sees days getting longer and slightly brighter, but with January’s rain still lingering like a hard to treat MST that you just can’t get rid of. But the sun is starting to make an effort and poke its head through the clouds. Sometimes it even manages it! You can see daffodils growing and want to flower. The hedgerows are green, but only with evergreen plants. The blossoms have yet to come but won’t be long. First is the blackthorn, which ironically has white blossom. Nature seems to get its backside in gear during March. But even now we have milder weather…
The French government, in its infinite wisdom, with only the very slightest whiff of irony, has decreed that from the 2nd of February, face coverings no longer need to be worn outside. The French government, again, in its infinite wisdom, with only the very slightest whiff of irony, has also decreed that from the 16th of February we can stand at the bar to get drunk and no longer have to sit. We can also go to nightclubs. Although not my scene at all, I could go if I so wished. COVID isn’t over but it would appear that party time is starting once again. A little later than in number 10, but starting anyway. That there is an election in May and the fact that the governing party doesn’t want to look like party poopers has nothing to do with it. Boris didn’t let it impede his partying. Boris is also a self-righteous buffoon. Don’t be like Boris. I remember when Boris used to be a rather rotund Russian chap, fond of promoting vodka and heart surgery… Those days are long gone… But he certainly seems to have had more fun than Vladimir, which is not surprising when you’re not at all planning on invading Ukraine like you did in 2014… Keeping the peace? More like taking the peace!!
But let’s get back to France, Nantes, and photography, or rather me I, France, Nantes, and photography. Since the beginning of the year, we have been granted our Friday afternoons off by the company I work for. This allows me time to get off my rather large backside and go out and take some photographs. Sometimes, I have my daughter with me, and sometimes I’m just on my own. Like that, she doesn’t eat my cake! SO, I walk around in the sunshine and feel alive again. Don’t be jealous, this last week has been very rainy and depressing, but it should be fine tomorrow and next week looks OK.
I usually hang out in the centre of town but for the last couple of weekends, where it has been sunny, I walked along the river Loire in the infamous Hangar à Bananes which is lovely during the day, but not so much at 2am when the bars throw people out. I’m not saying that it’s a magnet for crime, but I would say that during the day and early evening, it’s lovely! Take from that what you will. Far be it from me to infer insecurity where the city council says there isn’t any and we’ll fight it with culture. You can lead a horse to culture, but you can’t make it drink unless it’s an Irish horse, which would make things easier. And you don’t have to get a seat for your horse now. It can drink at the bar without being judged. Wonderful isn’t it!
Right. Time for the photo bit of the article. You’ve been very patient and now you will be rewarded! The photos are a mixture of the two weekends, and a mixture of colour and black and white photography. It would be a shame to miss out on seeing the Jaune in the Grue Jaune. And although you can get some beautiful images in the rain and even difficult light, it is so much more agreeable to not have to deal with it! The photos are taken on the Fuji X100f with its 35mm equivalent F2.0 lens, and the Fuji XT2 with its 16mm F2.8 lens. I’ll let you have a look at the photos now. Thanks for reading this far! I’ll leave the colour photos for another post. Let’s not get mixed up now… won’t be long. I’ll soon get it sorted.
Back in 2009 I had a camera that died on me. It might only be a camera to you but to me it was everything. It was my first camera. I was heartbroken. To those of you mocking me, just think back to your first car and to your first accident in that car. Alright, you may not be shedding a tear you unemotive bastard, but you might just have the smallest of inklings about my loss. It was my fist camera that had taught me the basics of photography, and since 1987 had been a relatively constant companion, and part of me. My son now has it on a shelf looking pretty damn cool on one of his shelves.
It was at that time that I had come back to film from digital. Why bother using filters that would emulate film photography when you could get the same thing straight out of camera without going through the rigmaroles of messing around in Photoshop to get that result? At that time, although digital gave me a lot, there was something missing. Like most of us I was looking for something authentic.
I went to the camera shop to see if anything could be done to repair my camera and bring it back to life. With hope I entered the shop that would become a familiar haunt, and had to face the brutal truth. My Praktica MTL3 was dead. It had passed on, this camera was no more. It had ceased to be. It had expired and gone to meet its maker. It was a stiff. Bereft of photographic life. It was resting in peace. It was pushing up daisies. Its metabolic processes were now history. It was off the twig. It had kicked the bucket. It had shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bloody choir invisible. IT WAS AN EX Praktica MTL 3! Any similarity to a Norwegian Blue parrot pining for the Fjords is a mere coincidence! So I asked him if I could buy the one in the display cabinet and he said of course I could and that yes it was a little expensive, it came with a 6 month guarantee, and here was a film for it, and no mention of Bolton or Ipswitch. Although not exactly the same it was a purchase that set me off on a series of events that lead me to “collecting” a certain quantity of cameras. It was either that or becoming a lumberjack.
Through YouTube, articles on the net, and my own research, I learnt about some of the iconic cameras that I never had, and at that stage, the hipsters hadn’t bought up everything on EBay and you could still get something very decent for un £50, which now of course might set you back between £150 to £200! So I was very fortunate to start collecting when I did.
On the famous YouTube, and its infamous photography videos that I still seem to watch on a regular basis, I went down the rabbit hole of specialising in film cameras. There was one guy, called Matt Day, who waxed lyrical about his Leica M6, and how much he loved using it to take images from his everyday life. I started thinking, could this be my next acquisition. And then I started looking at the prices that these things cost. Megabucks, which is something that I don’t have and even if I did, such a purchase would be grounds for divorce. It’s cheaper to keep her, as the classic Rhythm and Blues (before it became R’nB) so wisely reminded us.
Therefore, what is the difference between my new old Praktica MTL3 and a Leica M6 I hear you say. Well, both are German. One is a classic camera from a West German manufacturer, and was the gold standard of 35mm cameras from pre war times right up to the modern day, and was a rangefinder, the other one being a relatively cheap and yet very solid SLR from the old East Germany.
So both were made by the Boche, one further to the left that the other. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so a video must be worth two thousand words! Earlier I talked about a certain Matt Day, well here is a video of his from last year talking about the differences. I’ll let you watch it, and then we will be both on the same page! I can tell you’re impressed.
Soooooo, I wanted to learn about a rangefinder and see how they worked out in real life. But, as I said earlier it’s cheaper to keep her, so I was going to have to find another way of doing things. As many photographers on a budget but wanting to get some half decent materiel, I looked East, towards Mother Russia. Communism is messed up, but it did leave some rather solid cameras, and to the rangefinder aficionados, the names Zorky, and FED will be familiar. The Zorky looks very vintage, rather sexy and exclusive with its Cyrillic writing on the top of the body, but I was not comfortable about using a camera without a light meter. The Sunny 16 rule should be easy enough to follow, and with the latitude that black and white film photography gives you, you shouldn’t go too far wrong, but I was being stubborn, which is so out of character for me.
I moved on to looking at the FED 5, especially since I had found one for only 15€ imported directly from the Ukraine, which at the time was not at war or hadn’t been annexed either by Mother Russia. Oh you naughty boy Vladimir!!
Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way first. The FED 5 was produced in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov from 1977 until 1990. It is a 35mm format rangefinder camera, with interchangeable lenses with a Leica M39 screw thread, (mine has a 35mm f2.8 lens, which is great for street photography). It has a focal plane shutter, shutter speeds of 1 second to 1/500th of a second, bulb mode, and the flash sync speed is 1/30th of a second. What more could you ask for. The film loading is similar to the Leica where you remove the base of the camera, load your film etc. and then put that base back on. Because you know that it’s about the bass, ‘bout that bass no treble…
To do the metering you have to put your faith in the selenium cell light meter, on the top right of the front of the camera. This will give you a reading on an EV meter on top of the camera next to the “calculation wheel”. One dial is for the speed of you your film. Now don’t go looking for Din, ISO, or ASA, but look for GOCT, or GOST. 90 GOST is 100ASA, 180 being 200ASA etc. For 400ASA I just turn the little dot to the S in GOCT. It’s one of those Soviet things that is just a quirk of this camera. This will give me a reading on the outer dial with my shutter speeds and F Stops combinations to nail that exposure!
As with other Soviet-era rangefinders, the shutter-speed selector rotates when the shutter is released, and this should not be changed “until after” the shutter has been cocked. If you change the shutter speed before you cock the shutter first, the setting pin can be broken when you advance the film and cock the shutter! Don’t even bother trying. I never have, and it still works today!
Focussing is easy which is always something that catches my eye, no zone focussing, and it’s slightly different to the SLR. As you saw in the video, there is a ghost image in the middle of the viewfinder and as soon as that ghost image disappears, it means that you have focussed successfully.
Anyway, I paid my 15 Euros and a Ukrainian camera arrived two weeks later in an original box which is still in a display cabinet in my hallway. The leather case still smells of leather! So I tried the damn thing out. Worked out how to load the film which as completely foreign to me but still doable and not too demanding even for me. It is supposed to be the street photography camera par excellence for a few reasons. Firstly it looks pretty sexy around my neck and the leather is top notch without necessarily having a leather fetish, but each to his own! You can use zone focussing with the lens as you can see at such and such an F-stop, the part of your photo which will be in focus is shown on the lens. There is no mirror that slaps up, and the camera is relatively silent, and can be used to close to your subject and get that trendy and yet timeless street portrait. Shooting from the hip.
I can hear you saying, well thank you Ian for all this information. Really great, and almost useful. But pray tell, is it any good? What’s it like to shoot with? Is it worth me looking into? Can I buy you a Leica M6 for your birthday?
Well Dear Reader, let me address your interrogations. Firstly is it any good? It is definitely slightly sexy and certainly looks the part! I wasn’t used to the focussing of a rangefinder but found the focussing to be spot on. I’ll let you have a look at the photos and let you judge! What’s it like to shoot with? Once you get used to the way a Soviet camera functions it’s actually pretty neat! What I do like is being able to get my exposition without having to look through the viewfinder. You know that you’re going to be spot on, and indeed I was. That’s half the battle won, which is what we’re all about. It works mate, it works! You need to be able to get that sot that you want and I think that’s pretty simple to do. Is it worth me looking into? All depends on what you’re looking for. If you can get one for a relatively cheap price then get one just to try out; you can always sell on. I certainly have no regrets and it’s still in my collection which just goes to show you! Can I buy you a Leica M6 for your birthday? Who am I to refuse such generosity?
The photos in this article were taken in Montaigu, Vendée in 2016 and feature my daughter. The film is Illford XP, which is a black and white film that is developed with colour film chemicals and processes. C41 for those in the know. It’s always strange seeing photos from nearly 6 years ago and I remember that outing with my daughter as if it were yesterday. It was one of the ways I used to cope with my depression. I might not know what day it was but I remember taking each photo. We all cope in our own individual ways I suppose…
As I said a couple of articles ago, for my many sins, I am a musician. In 15 minutes I will be on stage playing in a concert. It’s almost an other-worldly experience. Random thoughts wondering through my mind. I know I turned off the iron, because I did my ironing yesterday. But on the 45 drive minute drive to the theatre I was just taking in the landscape and the colours of Autumn, telling myself that “that” would make a nice photo. Capturing the autmnal colours of the trees, seeing those that were in all their warm coloured glory. Wondering if I should use a 50 or the 16-35mm zoom. Well in that very instant the answer wasn’t a problem. I was driving and not taking photos. Michael Ball was on Radio 2 talking about Children in Need and giving praise to those fund raisers that keep the UK going. I was there and yet so far away in my mind.
I was sat down on stage at the correct time, secretly hating all those who were there before me making me seem late. 8 minutes to show time. Thoughts in my mind telling not to screw up such amd such a passage. And thinking that in Mars I start the concert with a bass horn solo. So no pressure then. Once it’s over I’ll be in the action and not thinking anymore. Looking forward to the horn section solo in Jupiter. No need to play too loud, but on the contrary, just be present with a large sound and enjoy the shit out of it!
Time to go and I’ll finish after the concert or maybe at half time. I don’t know yet… You’ll just have to see. It’ll be a surprise.
Well that could have been worse. I mean it wasn’t disastrous, but little details could have made it better. Lack of concentration maybe. It’s a long hard slog after all.
I’m not saying that I feel like death, but…. I tried to die quietly which is all anyone can ask of you. The cold seems to have to descended onto my chest, so thankfully no sneezes but quite a few coughs. Each one on a down beat of course…
Next up is the de Meij Symphony. Let’s hope we give proper tribute to the composer that introduced us to the inner workings of his composition. After that home time, and if I have the energy I might develop some film. I have a backlog of films to get through. Just arrived in the car and the choise seems to be pub, or home…. Decisions, decisions
It ended up being home. See you next time for an other enthralling episode…..
Rest and recuperation, or R and R for those who know, is so underrated in these modern times where being busy is seen as being a virtue and shows how very productive you are, and yet it is vital and something we so badly need. Yes, I’m talking to you burnt out millennials who are just seeking validation by being so into your careers to replace the love you didn’t get from your baby boomer parents. You’re still not as screwed up as Generation X who are experts in coping with mental health. When we were kids, we just didn’t talk about it and it has led to a generation of very “interesting” people.
Anyway. Rest and Recuperation. The clue is in the name. For those who don’t know me, I’ll bring you up to date. I suffer from Arthritis in my right knee and have been limping for what seems like forever, and it hurts like buggery. I gradually have got into CBD oil in a big way and enjoy the relief it gives me, but it’s just enough to keep me vertical. I know I’m rambling, but I want to give you a little context, or even a large context, for the rest of this article. I also live in France and we enjoy quite a few public holidays, a majority of them being religious holidays, which I always found a tad strange for such a fiercely secular country where “laïcité” is the national religion! So the 1st of November is All Saints’ Day, where the French will go to the cemeteries to put chrysanthemums on the gravesides of the dead, and remember what the people were like and reflect on their own personal histories. Note to self, if I ever get flowers for my mother in law, it might be wise to get anything but Chysantemums… I might be sending the wrong message otherwise. In the UK, they’re a flower like any other but here they’re just for dead people. Halloween isn’t as big over here as it is In Ireland, the UK, or the US, but Gen Z have worked out the trick or treat thing and are well into it! So it might decide to stay after all. In the John Mc Byrne pub, they had a right old knees up and were all dressed up! I decided to decline. I was resting.
Now we’re getting to the crux of this article. As of Thursday, I have been suffering from a cold. That’s bollocks, I’ve been dying of Man-Flu. My nose turned into a water fountain, and for two days the tap was open and I felt awful. Thank you brothers for your solidarity and good wishes. But I was able to get into the car and get to work and therefore not dead, and able to work, even off my head. Fortunately, I wasn’t working on Friday afternoon, so, was free. My wife had left on Thursday morning to go and see her mother, minus the chrysanthemums, and would only be coming back on Sunday. Feeling like death I thought the best thing was just to go to bed and stay there for as long as possible. Fortune shone on me again, and there was no Friday night OHC rehearsal (insert plug here for our concert “the Planets” on the 14th of November, tickets still available here, and don’t forget the comfy seats…) I had my dog sleeping next to me in her basket on my bedroom floor. I would go down from time to let her do her two p’s. Pees and poops.
I had a call from my son asking if he could come home with a couple of friends for a soirée. I agreed on the basis that there would be no noise and they would leave the living room (which was to become the drinking room) spotless the next day. The friends would kip on the pull out sofa in the living room. At least nobody would have to drive. I drifted between sleep, going to the loo in the middle of the night, and then back to sleep. I had a Vicks vapour stick, and by then my nose was leaking less and was staying relatively dry. I took the dog down at 10 am to let her do her business and saw two of my son’s friends asleep on my sofa and I could not get into the kitchen. The huge sofa bed takes up quite a lot of space. It’s always delicate when people are staying over…
I went back down at 3pm feeling a little peckish, but they were still out for the count. There was only one thing to do. Get in the car, and go to MacDonalds to get my lunch. I got back and saw my son coming out of his room looking somewhat delicate, he asked where I had been and explained why, and he just said, oh yeah and went back into his room. I must have gone back to sleep because when I woke up they had taken the dog with them but the living room was spotless! #DadGoals!
My wife and daughter arrived on Sunday at what seemed like mid-afternoon, and so it passed. The house was no longer quiet. I still rested though. My daughter went out with some of her friends in the quest for sweets, and my wife filled up a whole bowl with sweets for children coming ringing at the door. I was shouted at for eating some of those sweets but the return to childhood was immediate. Emotion and food isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Monday came around and I was worried about going to work, and not feeling up to it.
Monday came and went, and on Monday evening that I wasn’t limping and hadn’t taken any CBD. Maybe Rest and Recuperation go together
For my many sins, I am a musician and not just a depressive dude with a camera. I play the French horn. Some might even say that I’m a French French horn player, without being corrected by my autocorrect. So this music thing… I play the horn in a Wind Band, in Cholet, in the Anjou region of France, with good food and wine. I wonder what decided me to join them… There are a series of concerts every year with each concert having a given theme. This next concert’s theme is about the planets. The programme will be The Planets, by Gustav Holst, and the third Symphony by Johan de Meij, Planet Earth.
If you want to read Wikipedia to tell you about the Planets by Holst, then you can click here. I will now give you my version of events. Gustav Holst, a man with Swedish, German, and Latvian origins but born in England, wrote a series of pieces that made up the Planets Suite. His ancestors must have settled before Brexit! This was ground-breaking stuff, akin to Stravinsky and his Rites of Spring. However, this program is about the planets, so we’ll leave Spring to Igor, the composer and not Frankenstein’s whacky assistant. As any trailblazer will tell, they just weren’t ready for it man, and that it was ahead of its time, which to be fair, it was. He started writing the suite in 1914, and the first movement was “Mars, the bringer of War.” Quite eerie when you think about what happened in 1914. Composing finished in 1917 and the première took place at Queen’s Hall, on the 29th of September, in 1918. There were seven movements, and when I was a child, I always wondered why the planet Pluto wasn’t included. What did they have against Mickey Mouse’s dog??? Then I learnt Pluto was only discovered in 1930. The poor planet was demoted in 2006 and is no longer considered a planet but is still a heavenly body… Just like Yours Truly!
This music that first disturbed people, has, over time, and thanks to John Williams, become the music of space and the stars, wars or no wars. Some have accused John Williams of nicking everything in the first movement, Mars the bringer of War, and using it to compose the music to Star Wars. I’m not saying he nicked it, but… A nice American gentleman, Charles Cornell, has exposed his point of view in a YouTube video
When you look at it like that you can get where those people are coming from. But in a completely nonpartial way, I couldn’t give a flying fart. Both composers’ music is wonderful, and I think one could call it more homage than pilfering. Mind you, there are certain similarities.
When you look at the Planets Suite, you notice the Earth isn’t mentioned. One person that noticed this and who could do something about it, is a certain Johan de Meij, whose name is engraved on a plaque on our rehearsal room in the Cholet Conservatoire. A Dutch trombonist, he moved into composition, arranging, and conducting. In the Wind Band world, he is very well known and respected. Nearly all of us will have played some of his music at one stage in our careers.
The third Symphony takes us from the beginning of our Lonely Planet, Planet Earth, ending with Mother Earth. It isn’t as much a narrative, but a more auditory exposition of ideas in an abstract form. A soundtrack with electronic sounds helps the symphony become one musical experience as opposed to the classical three separate movements. Planet Earth really is a continuation of Holst’s Planets.
It’s a whopping significant piece and a joy to play despite a few difficulties to challenge the horn player. We were very fortunate to have Johan come and visit us, not just to say Hallo, but to explain the piece to us, conduct us and rehearse us. The poor lad was full of cold, but shared his wisdom and experience with us, which I’m sure will prove itself invaluable for our performance on the 14th of November in the Théâtre Saint Louis in Cholet. We worked on aural skills listening to the chords and listening to them to adjust the tuning and seeing where we fit into those chords. It might be an insignificant detail to you, but the seats are very comfortable and the acoustics are pretty damned good too!. Holst couldn’t make it. Must have had something else in his diary for that weekend!
IJM Photography 