We all have been through a lot this year and there’s more to come. We need to get back to our living our lives with some sense of normalcy. So, what can we do photographically? Well, there’s a lot actually, but what might be best as a start is to think about, plan and execute a new project!  Or, how about this … if you have one that has been gathering some dust and remains to be finished, start working to get it done! Now how about setting some real goals for yourself? What will you do with the project? Try to get it exhibited, maybe produce a self-published book? Or perhaps putting up a website with your work so it can be seen by the whole world! It doesn’t really matter. What matters is getting out there and doing the work that means something to you!

I’ve spent the last two and a half years working on a project for Monalog called Visions of America. The focus is on images made between 2016 and the end of 2024, a time of real turbulence in our country. The project involves previously completed work if appropriate and new work we would complete beginning towards the end of 2022.   During the next two years each Collective member had to put forward four groups of ten self-curated images with a specific schedule that had to be maintained. Each delivery came with a presentation to the group.  In short, you were forced to produce! It was a great idea, and in my own case it really helped focus me on putting together a coherent body of work based on a specific theme.

This weekend, I printed what is probably my last picture and will file my final group of ten as promised in December. The project truly motivated me and it helped me to focus on completing a substantial body of work. And even if the group project doesn’t result in an acquisition and show like we hope, I have created something of value to me and perhaps other that could find its way into a self-published book for example.

Thinking about this while agitating prints made me remember previous postings on projects. One included a great quote from an old Fred Picker newsletter, one of the most instructive pieces I’ve seen on the subject. Here it is again from Newsletter #17, April 1978:

“At workshops we stress the importance of working towards a goal at all times… Design a project for yourself. You might assume that you have a show coming up. Choose a theme. Set a definite date. Decide that the show requires a specific number of prints (all to be new work) that you can realistically expect to complete in that period of time. Ten to twenty-five, I’d say but pick an achievable number and write and the date of the show on your darkroom wall.

Go to work. If, on the projected date, you have the prints well made, toned, spotted, mounted, and sequenced, you will have accomplished and learned a great deal.

Edit ruthlessly. If a picture is weak, pull it. If a print can be improved in the slightest degree, remake it.

Now you have a representative portfolio.  Put it in a solon case with slip sheets between the prints, make an appointment, and visit a gallery. You just might get a date for a real show. If not, you at least have a nice portfolio and that’s a lot better than a Polycontrast box stuffed with wrinkled prints and surrounded by explanations. More importantly, you have created a coordinated body of work against the background of a deadline. You will have learned much in the process.

Don’t be upset by rejection. Considering some of the stuff accepted today, rejection could be a compliment. And it doesn’t matter; doing it is what matters.  Alexander Calder said, ‘I have developed an attitude of indifference to the reception of my work which allows me to go about my business.’

Follow through anyway. Hang the show in your living room, at the local High School, the ‘Y’, anywhere. My first one-man show was in a movie lobby and that was not a bad thing. Thousands of people saw it and I learned a lot and felt good about it.  Seeing a body of your work together is a very worthwhile learning experience. Patterns can appear with embarrassing clarity or with indications of direction to explore. Single photographs can be turning points; three or four I’ve made have influenced all the work that followed. Your pictures, if made with direction and seriousness of purpose, can teach you if you will assemble them and spend time with them.”

Just reading Fred’s thoughts again is revving me up to get back to work on my other projects, and starting a few new ones!

I’m starting to feel a little better already!

Stay well,

Michael

Enough said.

Next week, back to photography.

Stay well,

Michael

Recently I wrote about my experiences with my Focomat 2C. As mentioned before I’ve been using both the Focomat 1C and 2C exclusively for the past year, and doing all my 35mm work with the IC and it wonderful 50mm Focotar 2 f4.5 lens. Much of what I said in the previous posting about my last generation grey 2C could be said for my 1C of the same vintage so I won’t repeat it here, except to say, like the 2C the 1C’s build quality is incredible and with its autofocus it’s simply a dream to use.  Instead I will discuss a couple of issues that have come up and what I’m thinking of doing about them.

The first issue has to do with its glassless negative carrier. Simply put, I like the 2C carrier better. It uses both anti-newton and clear glass plates to hold the negative completely flat and is a breeze to use. The 1C metal carrier is a beautifully made thin metal plate with a rectangular opening that the negative strip is placed on top of. The negative is held in place by the bottom face of the glass condenser that becomes a pressure plate like that of the glass top piece in the Focomat V35’s negative carrier. Note: I am currently using the Leitz accessory anti-newton ring glass attachment that fits over the bottom face of the of condenser glass.  

I have a problem when I print a negative at the end of a filmstrip. Trying to get it to line up properly on the negative carrier prior to lowering the anti-newton ring pressure plate has turned out to be a major pain in the rear. One solution is to use a tiny piece of tape to hold the edge in place. A friend who has the same enlarger says that filing out the rectangular opening solves the problem.

I’ve decided to try a more complicated approach which also has to do with my second issue … the appearance of pesky newton rings. When I first tried the enlarger I was making prints without the use of the accessory anti-newton ring glass. No problem, the prints came out great. However, over the summer I noticed the little buggers and had to install the anti-newton glass. Perhaps it was the increase in humidity in my darkroom. Even though I run a dehumidifier near the darkroom I noticed the humidity going up while working with the door closed.  In comparing two prints made with and without the anti-newton accessory glass I could see a difference in tonality and preferred the print made without the anti-newton glass.

I’ve decided to improve my negative carrier’s ease of use and provide even better negative flatness by having a small piece of high quality 1mm thick clear glass cut that will either be glued into the rectangular opening, flush with the top.  If that doesn’t work, a longer piece can be glued to fit over the entire length of the carrier. Doing this will probably require a tiny adjustment in the autofocus, buy that’s no big deal at all. My hope is this might allow me to do away with the anti-newton glass.

I think the modified carrier will be a big improvement even if it doesn’t cure my newton ring problem. In this case my hope would be that any issues I might have with using the anti-newton ring glass would be resolved as I use the enlarger more.

One final item. I am looking into the possibility of purchasing color heads from Kienzle for both enlargers if I am able to convince myself I could use them with my Zone VI digital compensating enlarging timers with their sensors. Somehow I would have to be able to secure the color heads while placing the sensor inside the enlarger in the filtered light path as I had done with my Devere. Stay tuned!

I am convinced that having both the 2C and 1C, especially with color heads and fully functioning Zone VI compensating timers would be the ULTIMATE. But even without these adaptations, these babies rule!

Stay well,

Michael

Let the drums roll and the kazoos blow!!! Yes, despite my boyish good looks I am in fact now officially 70 years old today. That’s right baby, the big Seven O! And why not celebrate it here! Ok, I know this isn’t world peace, but why not!  I tell you this because let’s face it, it’s an age that many might consider a little vintage and I’ll admit as I got closer to the big day I felt somewhat age ambivalent, but now I’ve decided that’s just nonsense. Afterall, earlier this year my grandchildren agreed I was only 53 and I feel better than that! In any case I don’t intend to coast along and eat bon bons, or slow down one bit!  I have too much I want to do! In fact I feel like I have hit a real creative phase that has been going on for some time but now it seems to be intensifying.  And I’m having more fun!

I know that many involved with the arts and music seem to have their most productive period in their younger years but don’t understand why that has to be the case at all. Perhaps it comes down to how one looks at their life.  You can say “this is what I’m supposed to be doing now” or “I’ve done this before and don’t have anything else to say”.

Well, surprise … I’m more excited about the photographic life I am living now than I have ever been before!

And why do I say that?  Here’s what I think. Mostly because I’ve given up caring about what others think about my pictures. I also don’t care all that much about the need to exhibit my work. I have done a lot of it over the last few years with Monalog, but I’m not driven by it. Another contributor has been to stay near nearby … my so called “2 Hour Rule”. It really helps focus my work and keeps me from unnecessary travel for something “new and different”. But if something important comes up that’s not around the corner I’ll make time for it. I just don’t have a need to travel far distances to do my work. Another thing that helps with focus and continues to excite me is working on projects, and I have a number I continue to work on.

Unencumbered by what others think or what I don’t care about I’m making photographs of what I want, when I want and how I want to. I post them on my galleries here, and if people want to see them that’s fine; if not, no harm no foul. What I really want to explore at some point in the not too the distant future is creating photographic books … but more for me than for anyone else. I still love gear and the gear is so much of what our photography is all about, I don’t lust for it anymore. I’ve tried out a bunch of interchangeable lens medium format cameras in the past several years because of a project requirement (nothing finalized so nothing to write about), but I’m not obsessed about it like I would have been in the past. No lying awake at night with a brochure ready to read on my night table.

I also love writing about what I love and haven’t missed a week in the almost nine years since I first published this thing. That’s a lot of entries! But you know what, I’ve communicated and made friends with a lot of great people as a result, and I have no intention of slacking off on this either!

Yes, I am 70 today and I’m doing everything I can to stay physically and mentally in shape because this photography thing is the bomb!

I have a lot to do and say and intend on doing it all for a long time!

Som happy birthday to me!

Stay well,

Michael

I’ve been using both the Focomat 1C and 2C exclusively for the past year and while it took some getting used to after all my years working with the DeVere and its color head, I am happy to say that while different and in some ways more of an effort to work with I am quite pleased with the results. So I thought it was time to discuss my “user experience with these overbuilt photo-mechanical wonders.  My mode of operation thus far has been to use the 2C exclusively for medium format enlarging, leaving the IC for its intended application as a dedicated 35mm enlarger. This arrangement has made sense given its legendary 50mm Focotar 2 lens.

This week I will discuss the Focomat 2C. Mine came equipped with the wonderful 100mm Focotar 2 f5.6 lens. Apparently only 2800 of these fine lens were made so I’m lucky to own one, especially since they can be quite pricy if you find one for sale.  Of course, the whole enlarger is expensive, especially if you have a late grey model like the one I was able to snag. Same thing, with its little brother, a late grey 1C.  But as previously discussed, when the opportunity presented itself I couldn’t resist the chance to get them both!

My first enlargers were Omegas with condensers, but I’ve been a user of cold lights (Beseler) dedicated cold light enlargers (Zone VI), and color diffusion enlargers (DeVere) most of my photographic life. According to my copy of The Leica Manual and Data Book, published in 1956, there are drawbacks to both condenser diffusion type enlargers. The authors state that “the Leica enlargers are a composite of both types; they utilize a defused light source consisting of an opal enlarger lamp in combination with a single plano-convex condenser. The resulting machine has the advantages types and the faults on neither. Prints are definitely more snappy than those made on a pure diffusion enlarger, and “normal” grades of paper can be used, even with the low-gamma miniature negatives. The condenser used in conjunction with the diffused light source increases the efficiency of the system so that exposures are conveniently short; but because a diffused light is used with the condenser, it need not be adjusted for different degrees of magnification.  Graininess and dust are not brought out to an objectionable degree with the Leica enlargers, yest detail and sharpness are maintained.”

Ok, so what about my experience with the 2C so far?  I think there is definitely something to be said about the above. I really do love the prints made from my medium format negatives. Overall the Focomat prints look crisper and perhaps a little clearer if that is possible compared to those made with the DeVere with color head, while not exhibiting any of the harshness of those made with typical condenser enlargers. And while all so far have been from 6×7 negatives there is the capability to easily make prints from any medium format negative size by simply switching a mask in the beautiful and robust two piece glass negative carrier.  The carrier can also be used for 35mm negatives with a 35mm mask. I absolutely love the carrier and it is better built than my DeVere glass carrier. I also have the gorgeous and rare dedicated 35mm single surface glass carrier. So if I ever decide that I want to try out 35mm negatives with this enlarger and its 60mm Focotar lens I have a choice of carriers! And by the way, both lenses are permanently mounted a lens stage that slides beautifully from left to right under the light path for quick and easy switching between formats!

Dust is not an issue, especially since I use my Zone VI antistatic brush religiously on both the negative and all four glass surfaces. To be honest, I think dust is more of an issue with negatives than with glass. But you know what, it is all worth the effort because the prints are beautiful! And once autofocus is set up, focusing the enlarger is a dream. Why? Because you never need to worry about focusing again!  For the longest time I kept double checking with my grain magnifier even though everything was spot on. Now I don’t bother. I just choose the size of my image and I’m ready to print! Using the enlarger, I feel like I do when I’m out there with my M3 or M2 … it’s overbuilt, ingenious and precise. In short a joy to use and there’s a real pride of ownership. Yes I’m a gearhead, but believe me it’s true!

The big difference for me has been the change from the utter ease of using the DeVere color head with my Zone VI digital exposure compensating exposure timer to using Ilford Multigrade filters with a first generation Zone VI solid state timer that lacks exposure compensation (Note: both timers have built in dry down compensation features).  The good news is that Ilford filters are speed matched from grade 0 to 3.5. According to Ilford “multigrade filters are numbered 00–5 in ½ step increments with the lowest filter number corresponding to the softest contrast. They are easy to use with no complicated calculations required when changing from one filter to another – the exposure time for filters 00–3½ is the same which then simply doubles for filters 4–5.”  Because I rarely if ever use high contrast filtration, this means I’m pretty much able to get all of the benefits of using my Zone VI exposure compensating development timer with the DeVere color head.  Yet there’s still a difference. With the DeVere I could easily dial in the most minute contrast changes. With the 2C and Multigrade filters I don’t have this degree of control. That having been said, I am able to get less then ½ step increments of contrast by using development techniques I haven’t tried since my graded paper days.  For example, when developing my prints I can get greater contrast by vigorous agitation and less contrast by not agitating at all.  Oh and one other word about using the filters. My enlarger comes with the filter tray between the condenser and lens. As a special touch when you wish to remove the filter from the tray, there is a tab you push down and the filter pops up for easy removal. Those Wetzlar elves thought of everything!

Yes, notwithstanding the autofocus that truly is the bee’s knees, the 2C takes a little bit more effort to use.  But I don’t really feel like it does and I seem to enjoy the process more!

All of this having been said, I have begun toying with the possibility of getting a dedicated color head made by Kienzle that works with the existing condensers and is said by the manufacturer not to change the look of the print.  The only way I would do it would be if I fully felt comfortable with Kienzle’s claim and I could somehow use my Zone VI exposure compensating timer with it. In other words, a bit of a leap of faith and I would have to be able to place the thermistor in the light path in such a way that it could “see” changes in filtration. If both these issues could be dealt with would this stupendous enlarger become the ULTIMATE enlarger?

Stay well,

Michael