December

Let's play a word game. I say "December" and you think...

Okay, I don't know what you think but no matter where in the world you live or what your background is a pretty good bet would be it involves some sort of holiday celebration. And somehow it's become a widely accepted notion that a winter wonderland theme goes along nicely with holiday festivities. This can even be seen in parts of the world where, not only is snow unheard of in winter, but where the holidays actually mark the start of Summer. But while it's all well and good to spend a December afternoon at an Aussie beach sporting a Santa hat, here in Canada where the whole wintery theme is a bit more realistic there's a sense that the true holiday spirit can't be felt in earnest until there is a covering of snow on the ground. It's been noted time and again that a good pre-Christmas snowfall, something that should be an impediment to shoppers, are accompanies by a spike in holiday sales figures. Like so many others I've been guilty of worrying over whether it will be a white Christmas.

Why "guilty" though? After all, it's such a heart warming image, the world all covered in a frosty virgin white blanket, the multicoloured glow of holiday lights shining through, the neighbour's kids waving as they pass by, toboggans in tow. I say guilty because it's one more way in which the anticipation of something hoped for can make us overlook the blessings of what is right in front of us. Once the riotous colours of autumn begin fading to a dull brown it seems our thoughts skip ahead in anticipation of the (at least where I live) hopefully snowy holiday season to come. Until it arrives it seems so many of us are just biding time, getting shopping done so we can enjoy the season once it starts in earnest. Autumn may be a single season on the calendar but in these temperate climes there is no mistaking its later days from that time of peak foliage colour that gets so much attention. And two thirds of December, after all, consists of late autumn. That may of course have little to do with when the snow actually begins to fly, but depending on when (or even if) it does, much of December sometimes can feel disappointingly just not sufficiently holidayish enough.

It can be a shame because if you take away the omnipresent and not exactly subtle proclamations of the festive holiday season the month is supposed to be building towards and we might begin to notice December's pre-winter, absent the glitter and the lights, has a character and a soul of its own. It's in the skeletal forms of trees, the low hanging sun, the sombre silence of a still day. And then of course there's the autumn clouds you may have heard me go on about before.

If you're a photographer, letting any season pass without exploring its unique character would be like travelling somewhere new and interesting, somewhere you may never be again, and neglecting to get out your camera. But even when you're not carrying a camera, or if you're not a photographer at all, it's worth while, as a simple act of mindfulness, to take in what this time of year offers us in its own right. This is a time of winding down and of renewal. It can be quiet, reflective, maybe even a bit sombre. With so all of the other in-your-face goings on in December why not welcome the reprieve?

The Cool Colours of Autumn

It's perhaps only a small irony that we connect autumn, a season of cooling, with a palette of such warm colours as the green canopies above transform, taking on colours of flame which, even as they fade leave us with a warm earthy browns. I happen to be particularly fond of warmer tones;  I tend to favour them when making home decor choices, generally prefer my black and white prints to have a somewhat warmer than neutral tone to them and when I load up with colour film as I am wont to do each fall I imagine filling them with images dominated by warm earthy tones.

Often they are, but I'm often surprised myself at how often it's just the opposite. You may have noticed for example that the photo that accompanied "A Season for Colour" a few episodes back may have featured a small stand of trees with leaves in full yellow autumn glory, but these really provided a complimentary accent to the foreboding sky that occupies most of the image space with it's cool blue, tones that seem to speak of the months to come once the snow begins to fly. These aren't the images even I usually envision when I head out to do colour work at this time of year.

To me it seems this is a simple consequence of a being a predominantly black and white photographer with leanings toward the foreboding and moody set loose on the world with a colour emulsion. It's not that find myself ignoring what's in the camera and approaching what's in front of me the same way I do with the usual monochrome stock loaded. Except for those times when I may grab a camera on the way out the door to do other things I'm not committed to colour. There is always an extra film back in the pack when I carry either the Mamiya or Bronica system loaded with HP5+ or Acros and whenever a photograph to be made calls out for it, a not infrequent occurrence, I'll happily make the switch. I have to say there I rarely find myself in doubt as to which is called for, though there are situations when it seems either could work.

The image at the top is an example of this. Had I been shooting exclusively black and white that day I probably would have shot it more or less the same way. As it happens this was taken the same day I was testing out the Polaroid Automatic 220 that I wrote about previously. What I didn't mention there was that on that day a wicked wind was blowing up a minor havoc along the lake. As I emerged from the relative shelter of the nearby wooded path a few small breaks in the cloud was letting through the first rays of direct sun I had seen all day bringing a welcome drama to the wind whipped seascape. I was able to grab a Polaroid shot right off but the fast moving clouds meant I had to wait for another shaft of sun to bring the drama back again so I could get another shot with the Bronica. Good thing I did too because as fate would have it about 1/3 of the previous image I had done with the Polaroid ended up appearing in this exposure. Despite the distinctly un-autumn-like colour palette I think the sombre sky, weathered reeds and blustery weather so typical of this time of year make this an appropriately seasonal colour image.

One more example is this recent shot of my son Brennan. It was a bit of a side jaunt to the beach I took him on while running a few errands. Noting some rather interesting clouds before we left I grabbed my Nikon F80 on the way out the door. I can't say I was really planning to use him as a subject, but somehow he just belonged in the scene so how could I not? Now someone may prove me wrong, but I don't think too many would argue with the suggestion that it just wouldn't work the same way if he'd been wearing, say, a red hoodie. And though, yet again, the predominantly cool blue tones here hardly scream out autumn, despite the lack of any real queue I can point to here that gives away the fact that is image was taken in October rather than, say April, somehow there's still a sense of the season here. Maybe it's just me, because I know, because I was there. Maybe it's something else though, something about the lake, the clouds, the play of light. There are always things that can't be put into words. If there weren't we probably wouldn't bother with pictures.

A Season for Colour

Here it is October again and, not unlike countless other photographers (at least those who live at similar latitudes), my normally black and white photographic muse begins entertaining thoughts of colour. Simple enough it seems, it's autumn, the leaves take on riotous colours and every photographer wants to capture that. I wonder though if there might not be a little more to it than the changes that occur to leaves. Beyond colour, autumn has its own emotional pallet. It's in the air, in the scents, the crisp silence of still moments, the immediacy of the chill wind, waking us from dreamy days of summer, bringing us back to earth, to the world of our direct experience, carrying its reminder that we are after all as much a part of it as anything else. There are times, even when the flaming yellows, oranges and reds of October have given way to November's dull browns, that something of this sense of presence can be lost to the abstraction of black and white.

An image from the fall of 2014 made with the Mamiya RB67 on Kodak Portra 160.

None of this is to say I'll be putting away the Ilfords, the T-Max's and the Neopans until the snow flies. Some of my most treasured black and white images were made at this time of year. Knowing there will be times when colour is an important part of the feel of an image however it does mean I making plans so I'm not caught unprepared. Two years ago I accomplished this by packing my old Nikon D80 DSLR along with the Mamiya kit. Shooting digital and film side by side like this presented me with an interesting contrast between how I thought and felt about using one photographic technology versus the other (and as a result I haven't taken a digital camera with me for creative purposes since). It did not, however, result in any memorable colour images. Last year I was better prepared with a couple of pro-packs of Kodak Portra, a 1L kit of C-41 chemistry and some thawed rolls of 35mm Fujicolor that have been sitting in the freezer for the past decade or so. To be honest black and white has become such a habit that I didn't reach for it as often as I could have and never felt I really got into the colour photography groove, but I did come away with some reasonably good images that worked where black and white wouldn't have, at least not as well.

That brings us to this year. My hopes were that by now the new Ferrania E-6 film would be on the market. Alas that project has hit more than its fair share of snags that started with the unexpected discovery of asbestos contamination in the factory which set off a small avalanche of delays in its wake. If you haven't been following the project though fear not, they are soldiering on in Italy and the project is starting to get back on track once again. Alas, not in time for there to be hope of having film on the market before it all gets covered over in a frosty white blanket.

Whether or not I'm giving the new Ferrania a go, which I inevitably will, shooting transparencies (or slides if you care to mount them) rather than colour negatives does have a certain attraction for me, especially these days. Back in my late teens and early twenties when my fascination with photography was really starting to take hold I rarely shot anything but. The great thing about this for an "improving" photographer is that since the image you would see is on the actual physical piece of film that went through your camera you saw exactly what you shot as you shot it in it's unadjusted, unadulterated, uninterpreted form. What would be more important to me these days is that having a direct positive provides me with a finished, physical, hold-it-in-your-hand image in a way that a negative doesn't. Back when the term "photo shop" referred to a place rather than an app this wasn't a big deal since when you got your colour negatives developed they came back accompanied by a small stack of prints, but as that sort of service isn't easily available, at least where I live, getting that finished physical image from colour print film has become a challenge and working with just a scan from a negative doesn't seem to be the same thing.

If that was all there was to it though I don't have to wait for Ferrania. Fujichrome is still out there and for a bit more of an adventure there's an interesting selection of transparency film available from the Film Photography Project (henceforth and heretoaft referred to as FPP). An the E-6 chemistry to process it is a little more expensive and a little trickier to use than the C-41 equivalent needed for colour negative film but still well within the threshold of how much of a challenge I'm up to. The real issue is that, once mixed, the chemistry has a shelf life that is measured in weeks. As it was the much longer lived C-41 chemistry I used last year went off as a result of sitting too long on the shelf well before it reached its potential in terms of the number of rolls I might have been able to process. To get full use from a batch of E-6 chemistry I would really need to go on a colour shooting binge. I have heard some E-6 shooters say they will save up exposed film until they have enough to justify mixing a batch of chemistry to make sure none goes to waste but that seems to me to require a special kind of patience that I just don't have.

And so it was decided that for now I was better off sticking with colour negatives. The little snag I had to confront was that at some point since last year my main supplier, B&H in New York, has unfathomably restricted their C-41 kits to in-store sales only. Now B&H is one of several great dealers for those of us who have little choice but to get our photo supplies online, but with punishingly high shipping rates from the U.S. to Canada these days the fact that B&H (at the time this is being written anyway) can offer free shipping to Canada on orders over $100 is hard to ignore. No matter though if I can't get what I need from them, I can still order C-41 kits from the FPP online store. The kits are actually priced lower than at B&H if you ignore the fact that for me that means foregoing the free shipping, and better yet sales go to support the Film Photography Podcast which, if you're not familiar, stop reading now, go to http://filmphotographyproject.com/podcast where you'll find links to listen to each episode, then return when you're ready.

The order was placed, shipped the next day and arrived a few days later. To spread the shipping cost a bit thinner I ordered two C-41 kits along with some 120 Portra 400, some 35mm Ektar and a roll of of FPP's Retrochrome E-6 which I plan to cross process in the C-41 chemistry as soon as the first batch is close to exhaustion. Retrochrome, by the way, is a typical example of the way FPP will repurpose film that was originally made for specialty applications such as motion picture duplication or traffic cameras for use by photography enthusiasts who may enjoy the unique characteristics some of these stocks offer. Retrochrome itself is from an expired surplus stock of Ektachrome 2239, a film that was produced for industrial use but with characteristics that were probably not unlike the Ektachromes available to consumers and professional photographers at the time. The unique look it offers today is likely solely due to its having mellowed over the years resulting in a warm nostalgic look as the name suggests. Who knows what if anything that will mean to me when I cross-process it in C-41 chemistry, but stay tuned and I'll let you know.

For now though I have the day free and a roll of Portra in the Bronica. I also have a mind to load a roll of the 35mm Ektar into an RB67 back with a set of home made adapters I put together for panoramas "sprocket hole" style. Autumn has hardly just begun (I can tell because the stores are only now putting out the Christmas/Hanukkah/Saturnalia merchandise) but as always will present only so many opportunities to photograph what it offers before once again I'll find myself challenged to write convincingly about the joys of photographing the ice and snow.

The Clouds of Autumn

Growing up in a home where the dining room was regularly turned into a studio and the bathroom could on any given night be converted into a darkroom, I was aware of one constant whenever this time of year rolled around - my parents along with all the other camera people were nuts about the fall colour. Though I never understood all the fuss about taking all those pictures (my seven year old self would be shocked to learn I had become one of the camera people) I certainly didn't mind the outings to the country my sister and I would be dragged out to at this time of year. The world had a different sense to it than at other times of year, one that made even familiar places seem unexplored and the new places we sometimes went feel like visiting the settings I might imagine if I were caught up hearing a great story. What was different, who could say? If I had been introspective enough to ask myself back then I probably would have said the colours. That's what the camera people are going crazy for after all. It seems obvious enough doesn't it?

If so then, black and white guy that I am, Autumn should mean no more to me than the progressive loss of leaves from the trees and a withering of ground cover flora. And yet it isn't that. These days I pay a lot of attention to the sky for cues on where and when to head out with my camera and come this time of year something starts to change. Maybe it's the angle of light, the way clouds form as temperatures begin to drop, or some other phenomenon beyond my meager powers to recon, but no matter the cause it is gets the cogs in the photographic centres of my brain churning. Who knows, it could even be the psychological effect of feeling that first small chill in the air and knowing it means the summer has passed for good, and I'm fine with that even - my psychology is as indispensable to my photography as film and camera.

I first noticed this change a week or two ago, around the beginning of calendar Autumn. The leaves were still barely showing a change anywhere so I know that wasn't it. I can't say exactly what it was but there seemed to be something about the clouds, a quality I swear you'd never see in July. I'm not talking about a bland overcast mind you, but the rolling varied clouds that at this time of year somehow hang there with a new immediacy, the tangibility of their forms giving question to our notions of earth and sky as realms that must remain forever separate.

I don't see clouds like that every day, and though the leaves are reaching a stage of unmistakable change, when the sky is clear and the temperature hasn't dipped too low a trace of summer still lingers, but soon there will be no mistaking it with or without my clouds. The colours will be out in force as we come to the one time of year I feel compelled to do at least be prepared to shoot a bit of colour. Last year that took the form of dragging out the D80 DSLR for what will likely prove it's last hurrah as a tool for creative work. I don't know that the results were all that horrible, but in the immediate comarison with the satisfaction I felt between shooting with it versus my RB67 it did not fare well. As I was shooting, but even more so when I brought the results up on screen and began to tinker with them in Photohop the word I think best describes what I felt is 'hollow'. I don't know that the feeling had something to do with some quality of the images I brought back. I don't imagine I'll ever be able to put my finger on exactly what it was, just like I'll never put my finger on what it is about my Autumn clouds I love so much. It doesn't matter though, I don't have to put my finger on anything. Intangibles are no less real because we haven't explained them.

This year I have a different plan for Fall colour. The pro-pack of Kodak Portra 160 arrived this afternoon in fact along with the C-41 chemistry kit. I have no idea how that'll go. As usual though I'll keep you posted.