Here I am!

It's been a while but I was occupied with the important and serious things in life you sometimes don't want to spend time on. As you may have noticed, the finishing of my darkroom has been delayed but I'm quite sure that it will be finished by mid-spring this year and then I will be posting much more regularly and upload many prints. Keep coming back!

Peter the Great

In this picture you see Peter the Great watching out from a Rotterdam dock. He was born in 1672 and died in 1725. Peter was tsar of Russia from 1682 to 1725. I took this picture on Kodak Tri-x rated at 200 iso and developed in Rodinal, which gives the grain. I intentionally overdeveloped this picture which created the contrast and killed some of the detail in the highlights (especially in the water). I don't mind the grain. What do you think?

Statue and Palm

I took this one in Caltagirone, on a beautiful hot summer day. No thoughts behind this one really.... I liked the composition. This is a scan from the actual print I made in the darkroom. A bit of brown toning would do this picture good imo. What do you think?

Boys playing football

Sicily is fascinating. I haven't come across a better place to take photographs. The mystery, the romance, the ancient world...it just all falls into place perfectly. You only need to wait and good photographic oportunites can be found almost anywhere. I came across these boys in Palermo on a scorching morning. The sun was torturing me but these kids didn't seem to care. I think it's people that make a picture interesting and want to focus on photographing more people and less objects. The picture is a scan of the original print.

Tri-X, Rodinal and Ralph Gibson

I love the work of Ralph Gibson. The way he works with highlights and the way he lets shadows become an integral part of a picture is nothing short of amazing. In an attempt to figure out how he makes his highlights "shine" without bowing them, I did some research on the internet. It is said he develops or developed, most of his pictures at 20 degr. C for 11 minutes in Rodinal dilluted 1:25. That's what I did in this picture also. I like the grain, which is finer than I expected and even if the highlights are a bit blown (which I expected and accept) I like the overall tonality of this picture. I developed another roll earlier this week, using the same technique, but it has a lot more grain. I'm now trying to figure out how come. In the picture of the dog I did not agitate for the first 1.5 minutes which might have contributed to a better perceived sharpness. This picture is pretty sharp around the edges. So far I just love Tri-X in Rodinal.

I came across this chap (o wait, I think it's a she) in a shopping mall. Shot with the 35 mm Summicron at f/4.

TGIT !!!

That's right folks! TGIT!! Thank god it's thursday! Just one more day to go and we can say TGIF!! Here's some religous wind-down just before the weekend.

These pictures were taken in Berlin in the fall of 2006. It's the splendid interior of the Berlin Cathedral or Berliner Dom . The roots of this cathedral date back to 1465 and the cathedral, as it is now, was finally completed in 1905. The main altar dates from 1850. Inside it's a really impressive structure and I still wonder how human hands could have built all this... .

The pictures were shot on good old Kodak Tri-X 400, at iso 400 and souped in..... I have no idea! This is from before I started to develop my own film and I have no clue of what developer it was souped in. In any case; have a good weekend and don't drink too much ;-).

A Photographer's Dilemma

If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. These were the famous words of war- photographer Robert Capa. Pretty easy right? Just move in closer, poke the camera into somebody's face, trip the shutter and you're done! Well....if only it was that easy. Unless you're shooting trees and plants, it can be somewhat difficult to put Capa's theory into practice. Many people do not want to be photographed from close range and then there are many photographers who don't have the guts to move in really close and I'm one of them, I have to admit. So what'a ya do? Well, you either shoot them when they are pratically dead, what Robert Capa did here OR (imagine the sound of drums in a circus before the canonball flight is peformed..) you shoot them when they are sleeping :-). That's what I did in this picture. This man was enjoying his siesta and I happened to be around with my camera. The lighting was pretty good and the original print shows a lot of texture and detail. This was shot with a 35 mm lens on (you guessed it right) Rollei Retro 100. Location: downtown Palermo, Sicilly.

Oh and by the way: I promised you to upload some recent shots... . Well I haven't had time to develop the film so I'll be posting them later.