Last week I wrote about Palm Sunday and the importance that it has in the liturgical calendar. Today I would like to talk more about photography. In my article about the Canon 6D Mark II and the 16-35mm lens, I talked about how it seemed to be a less productive day, and it was indeed, and that next time would be possibly different. New day, and different light, by definition. Well, it was.
Spring has sprung, we have changed hours on the clock, and the weather seems to be a little less despicable with some nice sunlight, whilst still having some lovely light fluffy clouds to be amazed by. Whenever that happens, I know how I want my camera. I want it, firstly, with me, otherwise, photography becomes a more laborious pursuit. Secondly, when doing my editing, I want to reproduce the effect of putting a red filter on my lens as if I were doing black and white film photography. The blue skies become darker and the fluffiness of the clouds just seems to pop out. Add a little contrast, and bob’s your Aunty, or Uncle depending on his or her pronouns…
It might seem slightly old fashioned to you, but I find very this type of image very pleasing, and it gives off a certain old-timer vibe, and as an old-timer, at least compared to the young timers, I’m more than happy. Everything is relative anyway. Maybe I am of the age where I no longer care about impressing people and just want to do things my way. I’m not saying I don’t love a compliment either. All men do. Ladies, never underestimate the power of a compliment to a gentleman. We may seem cool on the outside, but on the inside, this compliment will boost us for ages. Try it. I dare you!
I parked the car at the Feydeau underground car park, and just walked along towards the castle, and for me as an introvert, actually dared to ask somebody if I could take their picture, at least a picture of their shoes. The young lady was most obliging and said yes. Thank you. One of my favourite photos of the day and in “colour!” Then the famous Miroir d’eau, which is more subtle than Bordeaux’s water mirror, but in Nantes, you get the reflection of an enormous castle, which is where I went next. Don’t worry, you won’t have to follow each and every pace. You can do that by looking at the photos at the end of the article.
I parked the car at the Feydeau underground car park, and just walked along towards the castle, and surprisingly for me as an introvert, actually dared to ask somebody if I could take their picture, at least a picture of their shoes. The young lady was most obliging and said yes. Thank you. One of my favourite photos of the day and in “colour!” Then the famous Miroir d’eau, which is more subtle than Bordeaux’s water mirror, but in Nantes, you get the reflection of a huge castle, which is where I went next. Don’t worry, you won’t have to follow each and every pace. You can do that by looking at the photos at the end of the article.
To sum up, a very fruitful outing, with a break at the pub, so, even more reason to describe the day so worthwhile. Thank you for following and feel free to share your impressions. I promise not to bite!
As a Catholic I celebrate the beginning of Holy Week, culminating on Easter Sunday when we will declare once again, that “He is risen!” We will celebrate the fight of God sending His only Son here on earth as the Saviour of all mankind to vanquish darkness. We will celebrate life over death, the sacrifice of our Lord, and the hope that this gives all of us.
In the Gospel in mass this morning, or last night for me at the vigil mass, we reminded ourselves of the palms laid on the roads by the crowds welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem, where less than a week later, He would be crucified and sacrificed to save us from our sins. From treating Him like a king, even though he humbly rode in on a donkey, to mocking Him as King of the Jews during His execution. So during the mass, we hear the Gospel of Luke, which told us of His Passion from the entrance into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, His betrayal by Judas, His trials, His crucifixion and death.
This belief in His sacrifice, the power of life over death, is really the crux of our beliefs. *
We prepare ourselves mentally and, of course, spiritually, for this during the forty days of Lent, which reminds us of the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness fasting and praying just before taking up His public ministry. It also harkens back to the forty years of Exodus that Jews had whilst fleeing Egypt, (where Jesus grew up, following His birth in Bethlehem, and where Herod ordered all the male children under the age of two to be killed during the massacre of the Innocents). Everything just seems to link back. And not just Egypt but the number forty too. There are so many more that I don’t have the space to write them all here.
So, traditionally we are bound by rules of fast and abstinence. Traditionally, we would give up something to try to add to His sacrifice and our “little sacrifices” as Ste Theresa of Lisieux said, would bring us closer to God. As children, we were told to give up sweets, and I remember being told not to just give something up to do something else by our local bishop. I took this on board when at high school and once went to daily mass for the whole of Lent. This year I was influenced by some of the older men in my village who were known for giving up the demon drink for Lent, and us weaklings would look at them with great admiration. This year, I tried the same thing, and, thank God, I have kept it up. There were a few times at the pub when ordering a coke, I received blank stares, like what the f is wrong with you man???? But as Lent drew on, people got used to it and I could just have to say Carême so that people would get it. All this is on top of the no meat Wednesdays and Fridays, with a little extra fasting just to remind you of the seriousness of Lent. That was slightly harder. We also try to get at least once to confession before the end of Lent to prepare our souls for the feast of Easter.
The extra thing I tried to do, was to say a daily Rosary, which our Protestant friends told me is just idolatry, and worshipping Mary, instead of going directly to Jesus. Unfortunately for them, they don’t seem to have grasped what is so important about the Rosary of Our Lady and her role in Jesus’ life.
The Rosary is above all a contemplative prayer, asking Our Lady to intercede for us to Jesus, whilst meditating on fifteen mysteries or events in the life of Jesus. These mysteries fall into three groups, the Joyous mysteries, the Sorrowful mysteries, and the Glorious mysteries. You have ten Hail Marys per decade (or event in the life of Jesus) which gives you something akin to a metre or acts as a pacemaker. I would urge you to click on the Rosary link to find out more and it’s a website that I use regularly to help me get through it.
When I started doing it every day for Lent, it was slightly arduous to begin with, like taking up a new sport. Easy to be distracted during the meditation, and some days I just couldn’t do it. I would actually fall asleep on occasions! I would even go as far as saying that it was a grind, but as the days went on, I started seeing the benefits of this spiritual exercise. It really is an exercise but becomes easier. I certainly feel better thanks to the daily recital. Maybe I should do the same for this body of mine.
I wish you all a very Happy Holy Week and Easter. And as Padre Pio once told us, pray, hope, and don’t worry!
Well, on Friday night we had the consecration of Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As a Catholic, and, as somebody who has actually been to Fatima, and knows what a big thing this is, it was a very moving and special moment. The majority of us wish peace for Ukraine and wish for an end to Putin’s invasion, and anyone who says it’s just a special military operation is in serious error! Since the beginning of the invasion, this is a start of hope in this grizzly war. Let’s keep praying for them! What else was Pope Francis supposed to do?
I’m sorry if Catholicism isn’t your thing, but it is mine, and I wanted to get that out there. You can hate me later.
On Saturday, I felt slightly out of it, especially after the emotion of the previous evening. I felt tired and just wanted to sleep and rest. During the week, I had started reading up on using an ultra-wide lens as a portrait lens. As it happens, I have one for my Canon 6D Mark II. The infamous 16-35mm. If you look at previous articles and on my Instagram feed, you can see the results that I have managed to get from this setup. I love the distortion that this lens gives me. It allows me to create images that although taken in real life seem to have an otherworldly feel to them. “They” say it’s all about creating images that “stand out” and I’m all for that!
So instead of just reading up on it and wishing, the best thing to do is to pull the proverbial finger out, get the kit out of the camera cupboard and use it! I’ve been using my Fuji camera systems lately and I thought it would be good to have a change. I’ve been so happy with the Canon and the 16-35mm lens in the past, and have had such great results with it, so I was feeling really geared up and positive.
Then I got out and for some reason, I just couldn’t get into the zone. I was fortunate enough to get a couple of half-decent photos, but I certainly wasn’t feeling it. I kept at it with my legendary stubbornness, but I knew it wasn’t a good day. I know you can’t have a good day every day, but I usually do better than that. Let me assure you, however, that this is only temporary, and that next Friday afternoon I will have another go. Not every photo was useless as you can see in the gallery, but you do feel a certain frustration. You’re all geared up to create and then you get performance issues. Still no idea why, but it could always be worse. I could have given the booze up for Lent and therefore not be able to have a pint of Guinness to console me. Oh, wait…
There’s a difference between knowing the theory, having practised, and being able to reproduce great results every time. That is probably the reason that I am still an amateur and not a pro.
I will not let this discourage me and next time is next time. If this ever happens to you then please don’t fret about it. Sometimes it’s just not your day. It doesn’t mean that you are a bad photographer, it just means that it’s not a good day on a given day. Be stubborn. Keep going. Don’t give up. Show the buggers what you can do!
Here are the photos. Not all of them were horrible, and one or two shine out, which is actually quite good. Tell me what you think. How should I change my approach for the next time?
COVID-19: I tried it so that you don’t have to! As with most things, I always seem to be late getting “on trend” and with Covid, I was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, I had got through it without catching it. Little did I know that the next day, Covid would come along a smack me about the face!
It was a Tuesday. A rough day at work. The sort of day where you feel shitty all day, but are still vertical and not horizontal, and therefore not ill. Serves you right for only 4 hours of sleep last night… Wednesday. A really rough day at work. You slept a little better but are still tired. Coughing a bit. Must be just the sleep thing. Exhausted and not hugely productive in the afternoon. I’ll just check my temperature, you never know… 35.4°C. Could be worse, I suppose, but wow, not felt this bad for a while. Vive la “going home time.” Yay; I got home in one piece, and let’s just go to bed. An early night won’t do me any harm. It’s freezing in bed and I can’t get warm. I have the covers on, and my dog is next to me, but I’m absolutely freezing. This is not good.
Day 1. Thursday morning. I get up at the usual time. Not one for pulling a sickie, I seem to have the do I, or don’t I debate in my head. Well, I didn’t. My wife said to do a Covid test last night. Didn’t feel up to it. But this morning I plucked up the courage to stick something uncomfortably far up my nose. Had great difficulty reading the tiny printing, but worked out how to do everything, and how to do the test. Two lines appeared and usually mean pregnancy, but it can’t be that. I’m just fat. No, I was Covid positive and positive that I had Covid. Out came my phone, first, to write the mail to my bosses informing them I will not be there today, and second, with blind optimism, phone the local nurse to get something else poked up my nose, but officially this time. Could I come straight away? She didn’t have any patients that morning. Yes, I could. Told my son where I was going and was asked if he could come too. We were both in the car with our masks on, drove to the nurse’s office, and got poked right up the nose. I was now officially positive, and my son was officially negative. Did he realise how many points he had just lost in the favourite child competition? No masculine solidarity at all. He was actually looking quite smug! The cheek of the boy!
Back home to work out how you do everything for the Social Security, and how you get your sick note. It would appear that you have to grass up anyone with whom you were in contact for over 15 minutes without wearing a mask. The only people were my daughter and wife. And of course the dog. A miracle happened. To finish on a high note, I got all the French Covid admin done from my phone and could enjoy being ill at last. I was still chilling and felt cold, and coughing, and put on Netflix and get back into bed. It would appear that I have drifted off… Again…
My daughter was tested later that day and became my Covid Buddy. She also gained points and won the coveted favourite child position. The day was spent sleeping, and feeling awful.
Day 2. Friday. Much the same as Day 1, still with the coughing and feeling cold. That beautiful doggy dog didn’t move one inch from my side. I tried taking paracetamol to see if it would do any good. Who was I trying to kid? It was about as useful as a bicycle for a non-cycling fish! Kept trying to drink lots of fluids. I had a goodies parcel from the UK and was gradually working my way through glasses of orange and lemon barley water. I still had good taste. Which is something just not worth contemplating losing. If it were to make me pee during the night, then I could just sleep the next morning.
Day 3. My wife became a Covid Buddy too. She had vainly tried sleeping on the sofa downstairs last night, thinking that this would protect her. Well, it didn’t. She was quite worried about phoning her boss, but I reassured her saying that Covid is Covid and so is the week off you get as a consolation prize. Full pay too! Less coughing.
Day 4 and 5. Much the same. Bed. Snoozing. Feeling pretty crappy. During the night, suffered from horrible muscular pains in my thighs of all places! Stopped me from sleeping, but I knew I could snooze later.
Day 5. If I were Covid negative, then I could go back to work. But despite the mail from my boss asking how I was and possibly hoping that I would be back, it wasn’t going to happen. Back to bed, and snoozing.
Day 6 and 7. Much the same, but by the end of Day 7, I was starting to feel nearly human again!
Day 8. Back to work, but not necessarily bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but definitely vertical again. During the whole Covid experience, that dog never left my side for over 10 minutes at a time! She got loads of brownie points.
Rating. 2 stars. Nice to have a fully paid week off work, but not nice being too ill to get the most out of it. Wouldn’t recommend it to a friend.
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.
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…
IJM Photography 