Kang

My first Leica negatives.

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

So I finally had my first few rolls of Leica negatives developed, and yes I believe the hype, the Leica look does exist. I initially wanted my maiden Leica roll to be a Tri-X, but mindful of the time, cost and effort it takes high street labs to process them, I opted for C41s to start instead. Also was a quick way for me to test that my camera was functioning well.

And so I was off to Calumet to get a 5-pack of Portra 400NC – which is fast becoming my film of choice at the moment. It’s suppose to deliver subtle tones, lower contrast and more natural colours, which I think is better suited for shooting people and for prowling the streets. First of all, My M6 is just a joy to use. The jiggle of the focus tab on my 35 cron, the instant snap on focus of the rangefinder mask, the sound of the tripped shutter – like the sweet whispers of a beautiful woman. And then there is the silky smooth operation of the advance lever, there are no gears, just magic which eggs me on to frame my next subject and which compels me to keep on shooting. What a beautifully machined instrument. I compare it to a Jedi’s lightsaber – Wonk, wonk – this is an elegant tool from a more romantic age.

Naturally, I took my Leica to the place where it shines – the Streets. I carried it everywhere with me, on my regular commute, when the weather turned sour, to mass rallies, to T-K Maxx and into restaurants. It was not long before it simply became an extension of my arm and my eye. I began to see more, little movements, the symmetry between objects, the dancing lights, expressive eyes, mouths… They say that Leica negatives have a distinctive quality and glow which no other glass can produce, and when all the conditions are right and the moment you trip the shutter is decisive, then you will be rewarded with a classic that will never, ever cease to amaze those who choose to witness it again and again.

For three film rolls, every exposure, every non-exposure, every miss and every near-hit was a joy and there was never a dull moment when in the process of making photographs, it was like falling in love all over again, and again, and again…

Presenting my very first Leica photographs, made with Kodak Portra 400NC film, 35 summicron lens, 40mm Nokton lens and lots of passion, enjoy.

I am indebted to Garson Byer for showing me the leica light and I urge you to take a look at his excellent work at inalonelyplace.org , some of the best street photography I have seen, and especially special are his vintage prints which he made in the 80′s with his minox and his leicas. You can see more photographs from my first Leica rolls at my flickr account here.

Tags: 35mm summicron, cv 40mm nokton, kodak portra 400NC, leica m6
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Polaroid Pogo Limited Edition Moleskine : Printing Mad.

Monday, January 18th, 2010

So I was reading a David du Chemin book – within the frame – the other day and learnt that on his photo adventures around the world, he usually carries with him a tiny polaroid pogo print to make instant prints as gifts to locals whenever he asks to shoot an impromptu portrait of someone in a foreign country. It uses Zink (Zero Ink) technology that can print on the go via a USB cable attached to the digital camera. Very mindful of my coming 3.5 week grand tour around Asia coming next month, I thought it was a good idea to invest in a pocketable printer, but never really thought too hard about it….

… until I saw the limited edition Pogo printer that comes with a custom limited Moleskine… drool. I had to buy it, how could I not, right?

Yes, I am also a huge, huge fan of moleskines, and until very recently am totally fascinated with their custom editions. There are all kinds of amazing custom jobs, anything ranging from a commissioned musuem notebook through to bespoke company gifts with special embossed logos, moleskines are hot; moleskines with custom jobs on them are just straight fire. I recommend having a look on their official website here.

I found this gem while I was browsing at the Photographer’s Gallery bookshop, not cheap at £80 and it is part of the Pola Premium put together by The Impossible GmbH, an organisation which is working very closely with Polaroid to bring back the vintage instant film again. While I was at Photographer’s Gallery, I also invested in some reconditioned polaroid film too , the 125i Silk to be exact…. even though I don’t have a polaroid camera to use the film on, just the thought of owning a piece of history (in beautiful packaging nonetheless…) was nice to know.

Right then, on to the product itself – so the pogo printer is meant to bring the instant feedback of the polaroid to the digital photographer. It plugs into any digital camera with a USB plug and is PictBridge compatible and is suppose to then print your photographs instantly. This particular package which I have bought is as I said, a special Pola Premium edition. The moleskine which comes with it is really lush. Intended to be an album (foldable Japanese style) where you can stick your Zink prints on to keep forever. This special edition comes with an Edwin Land belly band and an ultra cool blue Pola Premium embossed logo on the hard cover. Ohh… I love it. That’s another moleskine to add to my collection. (next is the national gallery little redbook) As for the printer itself, well it certainly is portable alright, it measures about the same as a 6×4 print, and is made of metal so it feels solid, but rather light as well. The battery takes about 6 hours to charge fully, and when it is fully charged only makes between 8 to 11 prints.

Anyway, so I fired up the first few 2×3 prints… and I’m afraid to say that results aren’t stunning. Though they are comparable to the quality of the digital photo sticker things you find in Asia… but it is definitely not ‘photographic’ quality and no where near a real polaroid (not that this was ever intended to be). Although, conceptually speaking, the results are good enough for the sheer portability and instant gratification of it. And when I say instant, boy is it 21st century instant. The printer also communicates via bluetooth and that means that I can send any photo from my blackberry (or any bluetooth device) to the printer and it would print instantly… no wires, magic. So what I did was open up a picture via my internet browser on my blackberry, surf on to an image which I wanted and then sent it to the pogo printer. Two minutes later, I had a 2×3 sticker ready to go into my notebook. That’s magic.

Anyway, it’s a cool device, and the sheer instant feedback has got my creative juices all flowing as to what I can do with these prints. While it may not be technically perfect; the prints do carry a certain look about it, albeit unsharp, with vertical banding lines running down one side, etc, but for some sort of small scale photo project, say a bespoke moleskine photobook of some sort, it could prove to be enticing. So anyway, that’s the seed of an inspiration…. for now. I’ll put the moleskine to good use and hopefully in combo with the pogo printer, make a little print project fit to entertain.

Watch this space….. oh and if you have been iffy about the pogo, I personally recommend it… but with a warning. Firstly, the battery life sucks because you need to recharge after 10 prints (because Zink uses alot of heat to ‘bring out the picture’ from the paper) and don’t expect the technical quality of the print itself to be a tack sharp 2×3 c-type print, because it just won’t be. It’s a fun device, it can make instant sticker prints which can go anywhere and that’s why I like it.

Tags: moleskine, pogo, printing
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Behind the scenes with Daddy Donkey

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

I did some work for Daddy Donkey a while ago to help them create abit of photography for their website. If you don’t know Daddy Donkey, they are the ultimate burrito-mobile machine based in Leather Lane. They make great burritos, I recommend the steak one – it really is as juicy as advertised. I remember the brief for this one because it was alot of fun to do. Joel (the owner) wanted something freestyle and a set of photographs which capture the bustling street feel and also the vividness of the the food. Leather Lane and the vendors who set up their stalls spring to life during the busy weekday lunch periods… and boy were they a tough crowd to manoeuvring around! I shot this throughout an entire service, from about 11 am just as they were setting up shop through to seeding myself – literally – in the centre of the moving crowd to catch some up close and personal wide angles and finally to the winding down period as people return to their offices. It was tiring, challenging but I really had alot of fun doing it. You can see the final results over at the Daddy Donkey official site, they are using alot of the material as a flickr slideshow.

As I was archiving this job, I realised there was enough unwanted material which could be used to put together a photo story of some sort. As you know, I like putting together behind the scenes articles, I was trying out new photo effects as well, in particular I was interested in replicating cross processing, lomo, polaroid, you know sort of faded out vintage film like effects on digital.

Anyway, enough gibberish, here are the results, no subtitles to go with this paper movie (hopefully not needed), and I hope you’ll enjoy the show…

Posted in Blog, Photo Projects, right | 1 Comment »

I’m a gearhead.

Friday, January 1st, 2010

And pop goes the cherry. This series of photographs was taken from my window at midnight on New Years Day, 2010. It would appear that my neighbours had decided to create their own little fireworks display. Of course, we had the London eye fireworks on TV, but when something so colourful was happening in – literally – our own backyard, we turned off all the lights to watch the show. It was brief, about a couple of minutes, but man was it fun. I should go thank my neighbour for the fireworks display. Hello 2010 and here’s to a fantastic new year, hooray.

I’m sure everyone has their shopping plans etched out for the months ahead, and you know I’ve got plenty. As much as I love spending my money on food, I tend to devote a large chunk of my life savings to photography equipment. At work, me and my colleague call ourselves gearheads. I shoot food, he shoots churches, but we’ll only shoot our major subjects of interests with the latest Nikon digital bodies, any less, and it’s a toy camera. Haha, oh man, I’m a camera snob, I should be ashamed of myself. I love gadgets I have to admit, I do wish I was more dedicated to the craft itself, than the tools, but the tools are equally important for me.

I shoot with a Nikon D700 and it’s a great camera. A digital sensor physically equivalent to the original 35mm 24×36 format, which means that I can use all the Nikkor lenses made for the Nikon F-mount as it was originally intended, without a cropped view. More importantly though, there’s more bokeh when you operate at full-frame…. I’ll save that discussion for another post though, today I just want to share my lust for camera gear with you.

There’s an acronym on the web for this – G.A.S: Gear Acquisition Syndrome. It’s a full blown addiction. It starts with probably a perfect image taken with said equipment, be it a lens or a camera, and I’ll probably have seen it on flickr. And then I’ll probably google a review (my favourite so far is Steve Huff and my utter envy of his Leicas), and then after gathering all the relevant intel on the piece of kit; my life suddenly becomes a quest to acquire the Holy Grail. My current setup – whatever it may be – will never take photographs as I ‘intend’ it to, and my mind will be fantasizing about what my dream gear could do instead of what I have. My mind will be wandering until I finally surrender my credit card to the camera dealer. I’m a Nikon guy, very loyal to the brand having started out with the D40, made some video clips with the D90 before jumping into the full frame arena. I’ve also dabbled with a wide variety of lenses too, and like many just starting out, I was lured by the zoom-it-alls to my first prime, the nifty fifty. Today, I compliment my D700 with four prime lenses that covers the 24 to the 85 range, and it handles all my image making needs. I don’t shoot with zoom lenses.

Although, if we’re talking true gear love, then it’s got to be my Nikon FM2n. Fully manual film SLR, loaded with Kodak Portra 400VC or Tri-X 400, slap a 28 f2.8 on it and take on the streets… now that to me, is true photography.

This image was made with my FM2 and a 28mm, probably set at f4, probably zone focused to 1m and probably loaded with the cheapest film I could get at boots. I had it developed at my local sainsbury’s and it is untweaked, straight off the negative. Great isn’t it? Alas, there are times when I need to go digital, but my heart would always lean toward the FM2, the sheer joy of exposing film, is what makes photography so romantic. As we roll into 2010, high on my shopping list is the ultimate 35mm camera : The Leica. After going back and forth and back again, I’ve decided my first Leica should be a film one, the Leica M6 to be exact. To keep to a budget, I’m looking at 50mm ‘cron and lots and lots of rolls of tri-x 400.

This is shot with tri-x 400 with my FM2 at 28mm, probably at f8 and probably prefocused at 1m as well, but I don’t know. To quote a fellow aspiring photographer mate of mine, film just has a ‘look’ which digital can’t yet deliver. Of course, if we’re talking about signature looks, there is none more recognisable, or to be exact, quite as revered as the ‘Leica glow’. What’s their motto again, ‘You can always tell a Leica by the pictures it takes’ … or something. Anyway, I want it. I want a Leica, I will buy it in 2010, I intend to forge that ‘connection’ Leica photographers claim to have with their gear and I want to make photographs with soul and abit of glow.

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