Found Film

80 year old mystery film

I once had a friend who bought a very old, small (3ft high), strongbox/safe with a combination lock. The safe had been sitting in the corner of an office for over 50 years. Rumour had it that the previous tenant of the office had died taking the combination with him to the grave.

The office that housed the safe was to be converted to trendy inner city apartments and when the safe was being manhandled from the building, the workmen noticed that something heavy was rattling around inside. The developer, sensing a quick profit and free advertising called in the local newspaper telling them the story of the previous tenant and offering to auction the safe to the highest bidder with 50% of the proceeds going to his favourite charity.

My friend, who was very conservative and would never normally risk wasting money, paid £1000 for the safe at a charity dinner where the food was indifferent but the wine flowed like water.

The safe was delivered to my friend's garage and a few days later he paid for the services of a locksmith to open the door. It was a big occasion, lots of reporters, photographers and interested parties. The locksmith (probably thinking he'd get his own chat show out of it), performed his trick while talking everyone through the procedure. After 15 minutes my friend was solemnly asked to turn the handle and open the door. The safe contained one brick and one steel bolt!

I tell you this story because of something that happened to me this week.

We have several local auction houses within a short drive from me. On Tuesday I paid a visit, bid and won a Kodak Portrait Brownie camera (it needed a home). It was in the trunk of my car since I bought it, so today I brought it in for an inspection, and guess what was inside? Yes, a very old exposed film.

The spool of the film has a wooden spindle and is stamped "Kodak Brownie" which suggests that the spool came new with the camera. The film could be the first and only roll taken by the camera.

The camera was made between 1929 and 1933, the film looks to be around the same period.
It's Kodak Verichrome Safety Film, made between 1931 and 1956. I've seen lots of Kodak Verichrome but never with printing this old.

So shall I develop it, or should I let it keep any secrets it may hold? Not developing is more romantic, I mean it could have a stunning image that's been lost for 80 odd years, which I like to think is possible, but it could also be the proverbial brick.

Scientology and the art of Photography

When Dennis Hopper died I was surprised by the number of commentators who didn't know he was a talented photographer. So before they die, here's a list, quickly assembled, of celebrity photographers, as opposed to photographers who photograph celebrities.

Jeff Bridges
Helen Mirren
Brian Adams
Lou Reed
Woody Allen
The Queen
Graham Nash

A short list off the top of my head, there must be many more, if you can think of any more let me know because I like knowing these things.

I've seen examples from the celebrities listed above, they're all very capable. I was most impressed by Helen Mirren's early work. Lou Reed, not so good. Graham Nash shows art school training, Woody Allen is OK. Bryan Adams isn't up my street. The Queen can do no wrong, I can't comment.

But of all the people who juggle two or more careers none are more interesting than L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology. I have a copy of a book called "Ron - The Photographer - Writing with Light". I bought my copy several years ago from a camera dealer in London, I've never seen it since, not even on Amazon, perhaps you can buy a copy from the church, it's definately worth getting hold of.

There's no doubting that Ron was highly gifted. A prodigious writer of fiction and non fiction he once wrote 138 published books in a 5 year period. As a photographer he was no less dynamic or should I say dianetic! Ron started taking photos aged 7 and became serious about photography as a boy scout a few years later. By the time he was 13 he had sold 6 photos to National Geographic Magazine, it was the start of a career that continued until he died.

Ron's camera collection is the jewell in this book. I don't know how many cameras are in the collection, but there must be close to a thousand important cameras, all beautifully displayed at his house in Sussex, England. It's certainly the biggest and most impressive collection I've seen.

The Dream Rangefinder Camera

I have a weakness for rangefinder cameras that's akin to Imelda Marcos's weakness for shoes. Of the Leica range, I've used everything from the 3F to the M6, only missing out on the M5, which for many years I thought was too large - but now it's grown on me to the point where I need to own one real bad.

I've also gone through a few Linhof's, both the medium and the large format rangefinders, and as you know I'm very fond of my Canon 110ED 20 camera. I had a brief fling with a couple of Super Ikontas and an inappropriate relationship with a Voigtlander Bessa 2, what a mess that turned out to be!

Now I have an hour to kill before I go out to work, and instead of doing something useful I'm mulling over which rangefinder is the most satisfying to use. The only guide I can use is which camera I would grab at this moment if I were going for a walk. And today I would, and probably will, take a black Contax G2.

This isn't a comparison piece, just my thoughts about a particular model. I've owned my G2 for about 7 years, I wanted one when they were launched in 1996 but couldn't afford it until the price dropped due to the digital revolution. The person from whom I bought mine, needed the cash to upgrade to a silver, plastic, Canon digital Rebel, I still wonder how he's getting along with that one.

So the camera was originally very, very, expensive. I think the cost of this camera must have reflected the R and D that went into it because it was years ahead of its time. The design of the camera is spot on, all the controls are in the correct place - there's not a lot to think about, just concentrate on the composition.

Obviously, for a multi thousand dollar camera it's beautifully made, it oozes quality. It's heavy and I suppose that's why they opted for a magnesium alloy body as a means of keeping the weight down, but I have no problems with heavy cameras, I find the weight reasurring.

The metering is as accurate as anything I've ever used. In the days when I used slide film I would set the Contax on auto and be 95% confident it would get the exposure correct. Of the 5% of times I wasn't confident I'd dial in the compensation to make sure. Now I use print film which has huge lattitude, I don't give exposure a thought, it's always correct.

I have 2 lenses for the Contax, a 45mm Planar and a 35mm Planar. The 35mm I keep on a Contax G1 but I occasionally swap them over. There isn't a lot to say about the Carl Zeiss lenses, they are just about perfect, and like the later Leica 50mm Summicron they are the benchmark for optical quality. The 45mm Sonar is my favourite focal length, it feels normal. An amazing lens and I feel very fortunate to own it.

The Contax G2 viewfinder is great but different! It's different to other rangefinders and you might prefer one over the other. I don't really have a preference, I find the Contax viewfinder perfect.

I have a few minutes left and I can't leave this without talking about the famous autofocus. There's a lot of nonsense written about focusing the Contax, usually by dunces who have never owned the camera or if they have, never taken the trouble to read the manual (which isn't the greatest manual ever written).
Just like any other autofocus camera, you can focus the G2 by half pressing the shutter button. However, the G2 also has an ingenious focus button which sits right under your thumb. Using the focus button on the back feels a lot more natural and is more accurate and faster than focusing using the shutter button.

The focusing (if you know what you're doing), is incredibly fast and (a blessing for me because my eyesight isn't perfect), extremely accurate.

So there you have my quick appraisal of the Contax G2. It's silky smooth, fast, accurate and stylish, with the finest lens Carl Zeiss ever produced for a 35mm camera.

Overlaps - my big adventure

I had this idea a few weeks ago when I was looking at a viewmaster reel. I thought it would be interesting to create 2 images, similar to stereo (here's the clever part), but not stereo. I worked on this for a while, making sketches until I came up with a sequence similar to a strip cartoon, one image containing several frames of information.

I've been busy, experimenting with overlapping frames to produce a sequence of images and I'm excited about the results. I haven't got everything right yet, but it's progressing nicely.

I'm using an old camera with a red window in the back to count the exposures. Knowing how much to roll on is tricky but I'm getting a feel for it. The difficult part is estimating the spaces between the frames.

The big problem for me is that I use a company to process and scan the negatives. With each film I send, I enclose a note asking them to scan the overlapping frames as one image. It's a lot to ask a busy lab (I wouldn't do it!), and I appreciate that they try and follow my instructions, but so far they've missed a few images from each roll and the ones they miss always seem to be the most promising.

I'll work on my frame spacing and stick with the lab doing the scanning for the time being, maybe write more detailed notes to them, but I can see I might end up forking out for a big scanner to do the job myself.

The images here are my first attempts. I'll keep you informed on my progress.

Overlapped Cambridge

Overlapped Bicycles

Brian Duffy dies aged 76

Reggie Kray and grandfather (1964) - Duffy

I'm sad to say that Brian Duffy has died.
Known simply as Duffy, he was one of three working class photographers who changed photography and art in the 1960's.

Duffy had a notoriously difficult personality and will be remembered for burning his negatives. Like Dennis Hopper who also died this week, I think this aspect of Duffy overshadowed his work which was a pity because he was a class act. Duffy had a beautiful mind, creative and erudite, we owe him a round of applause.

David Bowie as Aladdin Sane (1973) - Duffy

The Abdullah Brothers

As an antidote to the bizarre prices expected at the Sotherby's Polaroid sale later this month, there is a series of school and college photographs taken between 1890 and 1893 in Istanbul, Turkey. The photographs were taken by the Abdullah Brothers.

Reminiscent, but pre-dating August Sanders by 20 odd years, these are beautiful and highly desirable images.

Available for FREE download from the Library of Congress.

Students, Imperial Polytechnica - Abdullah Frères

Students of Mekteb-i Sultani - Abdullah Frères

Students, art school for girls - Abdullah Frères

Polaroid Photographs go to Auction

9 Part Self Portrait - Chuck Close, 1987

When Polaroid collapsed in 2008, it wasn't entirely digital photography that killed it off. Polaroid was the victim of a Ponzi scheme similar to the one operated by Bernard Madoff. One tragic side effect of Polaroid going into administration was their famous collection of prints being sold off. Now the collection is being broken up and will be sold off later this month by Sotherby's, New York.

The collection of more than 1200 prints was put together by Edwin Land over his lifetime. It would have been a fitting tribute to Polaroid and the genius of Land if the collection could have remained together and gone on permanent display but that's not possible.

I'll be interested (and sad), to see the inflated prices the photographs reach. One lot by Ansel Adams, a large print of the Sierra Nevada is expected to fetch $500.000. I you miss it don't worry, there are five others exactly the same but in different sizes. There's a very nice joiner by David Hockney that should fetch a reasonable $50.000, in fact there's something for everyone ha ha.

David Levinthal - Untitled (Wild West series)

Avalanche - William Wegman, 1982

All photographs courtesy of Sotherby's.