I recently started to process my own film. I’m tempted to add “again” to the end of that sentence, but in reality I’ve done little processing in my life, just a few rolls in school, and a couple of rolls a few years ago in an ultimately aborted attempt to start processing.

For my benefit, and doubtfully for any others’, I’m going to get fairly anal and document some of my experiments, so unless you’re into agitation (of the tank inversion kind) and dilutions you may not want to click the “Read More” link below.

The pictures and data shown here all relate to Rodinal, that venerable (since 1891) developer from Agfa (available in Japan from Grace Photo of Osaka).

A couple of caveats:

• The pictures are probably meaningless, since they’ve been worked on in Photoshop.
• The pictures are even more meaningless because I’ve been having “color management” issues with my hardware.
• The particular bottle of Rodinal I used for these rolls is actually over four years old. Unopened and all, but still four years old.

General processing consistencies:

• Temperature of developer is always 20°, except where noted below. Temperature of pre-wash and stop bath is more or less 20°. Temperatures of fixer (Fujifix), second pre-wash, Fuji QuickWash, and final wash are not paid close attention to.
• Tank used is Spanish AP 2 reel (135) tank (Patterson clone)
• Developer is always diluted/prepared with filtered water. Both pre-washes and stop bath are done using filtered water as well. But the final wash is tap water.
• Other than the developer, I only agitated the fixer (continuously, 5-6 minutes). Maybe in the future I should try agitating the water stop bath.

Example Roll #1

Film: Agfapan 400 (probably “old” version, bought in bulk form off eBay four years ago, and not refrigerated since, so definitely expired). Rated at 200 EI.
Developer/dilution: Rodinal 1:100
Temperature: 20°
Development time: 15 minutes. I think I got this time from the Massive Chart, and then adjusted it, factoring in that I was going to be pulling it one stop.
Agitation method: Using the plastic swizzle stick. Didn’t take notes, but I believe it was continuous for the first minute, then for 5-10 seconds every minute.

Comments: Weird roll. Rather thin all around. Some shots have so much grain you can barely discern an image, others are workable (with some work!). The swizzle stick agitation method seems to have produced the tell-tale denseness around the sprocket holes (I remember having the same thing happen 20 odd years ago in art school). Maybe I over-agitated. Maybe the dilution was too “thin” (1:100) resulting in only 5ml of developer concentrate in the tank (with 500ml of filtered water). It’s possible the temperature of the developer rose a few degrees during the 15 minutes. Basically there are too many variables (outdated film, outdated developer, pulling the film one stop, a stab at the developing time) and not enough controls to make this roll more valuable as a benchmark.

Example Roll #2

Film: Agfapan 400 (probably “old” version, bought in bulk form off eBay four years ago, and not refrigerated since, so definitely expired). Rated at 200 EI.
Developer/dilution: Rodinal 1:100
Temperature: 20° at the start. (Hell knows what it was when I poured it out!)
Development time: 75 minutes. (I pulled this time out of my ass, just so you know).
Agitation method: Continuous for the first minute (using the plastic swizzle stick). After that, left it sitting there while I watched the French Open.

Comments: One of the reasons I was excited to find the unopened 4 year old bottle of Rodinal was that I could try this thing called “stand development,” which seems tailor-made to a lazy ass such as myself. Since the normal agitate every minute method didn’t turn out so hot on the first roll (not that it was the agitation’s fault, of course), I thought this time I’d just let the Rodinal work on its own. I’m quite happy with the results of this first “standing” experiment, and encouraged to try more. Also a reminder to myself that I should really measure the temperature at the end of the process, and also experiment with ways to keep that temperature stable.

Example Roll #3

Film: Fuji Neopan SS, rated at box speed (100 EI)
Developer/dilution: Rodinal 1:100
Temperature: 19° at the start, 22.5° when I poured it out.
Development time: 45 minutes. Not sure where I got this time, maybe it was arrived at after reading a few different times from other Flickr users.
Agitation method: Continuous for the first minute; stand for a minute; 30 seconds agitation; 1 minute stand; 10 seconds agitation; stand until 17 minutes left on timer; 30 seconds agitation; stand for the remaining 16:30. (I took notes, as you can see). (All agitation done via inversion method).

Comments: Hmmn, not sure how successful this was. Negs a bit on the dense side. Maybe I should have developed the SS in Super Prodol. I’ve never been a fan of the SS (both film and Nazi versions) but thought the Rodinal might give it a kick. Oh well, no harm gained in trying.

Example Roll #4

Film: Agfapan 400 (probably “old” version, bought in bulk form off eBay four years ago, and not refrigerated since, so definitely expired). Rated at 400 EI.
Developer/dilution: Rodinal 1:25
Temperature: 20°
Development time: 7 minutes. This time is on the data sheet accompanying the Rodinal bottle, though whether this is for “old” Agfapan 400 or “new” Agfapan 400 I don’t know.
Agitation method: Continuous for the first 45 seconds, then for 5 seconds every 30 seconds, as per the data sheet, except it should’ve been a minute at the start, but I had a brain fart. (All agitation done via inversion method).

Comments: After a few rolls done with varying “stand development” times, I thought I would try a more “by the datasheet” approach. And since I was recently able to order a new, bigger bottle of fresher Rodinal, I thought I could afford to not be so stingy with my dilution and went for the more potent 1:25. I’m quite pleased with the results, and keen to try this combo but with fresher film (hence I’ve also ordered some Agfapan 100). There’s still grain aplenty, but it seems smoother. The image of the Rodinal bottle at the very beginning of this post is a 100% crop of a scan from this same roll.

More rolls have been processed in Rodinal (both stand and normal processing) but the above should give a representative sample of results to date. Of course, any comments on the results or the process of my processing would be most welcome.

Kiyoshi has been my private English student for almost 3 years now. He has been playing the accordion for about 14 years, having settled on the instrument after unsatisfying tries at the guitar, piano, and violin. Twice a week he teaches beginning and intermediate students at the community center. Because of the volume of the sound the accordion makes, he usually practices outside in the park as shown here. The accordion he’s playing here cost him around $8,000 USD, and was made in Italy. It isn’t the only one he has (though I think the others were not nearly as expensive). Kiyoshi is the father of two elementary school-age daughters, and works in the marketing department of a large printer manufacturing company.

Also (on color negative) here and here.

Dr. Nello Pace and monkey, December, 1966, UC Berkeley. Photo by Ansel Adams.

Photography. — Photography is permitted almost anywhere. No trouble will usually be experienced in changing plates at night, as most rooms have good shutters. A piece of non-actinic fabric and a few drawing pins will be found useful for covering the little window over the door by which a passage is often lit. Let me assure those unused to long tours with cameras in foreign countries, where they may never be again, that it is very easy to develop as one goes along. I carried half a dozen light unbreakable 7 1/2 by 5 dishes, two boxes of Anderssen’s eikonogen cartridges, a bag of hypo, a folding candle-lantern, a couple of wide-mouthed bottles, a bib, a duster, and a large piece of mackintosh to lay over the table. These reposed peacefully at the bottom of a strong leather box, in company with many dozen of Lumiere’s most rapid quarter plates and other trifles. I used one of Shew’s “Xit” quarter plate cameras, and carried two Goetz lenses, one of six, the other of four inch focus. The latter was invaluable for architecture and interiors. A swing back and rising front are necessary. An aluminum stand proved thoroughly unworkmanlike; it was on the bayonet principle, and as sure as one division declined to pull out, another would get jarred and refuse to go in. Finally pieces of the legs took to dropping off like a frost-bitten nose. I used a light folding wooden tripod the next time. An exposure of about the thirtieth of a second with F 16 is right for a general view of the exterior of a building well lit by the sun of Spain. On my last visit to Spain I used Imperial plates, developed them at home, and obtained very satisfactory results.

Cities and Sights of Spain: A Handbook for Tourists, by Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond, 1904

Keeping his mouth shut and working fast as he had learned to on this job, Prescott got the baby crawling on the dirt floor between pans set to catch the drip from the roof. He got the woman and Dago and the baby and two smaller children eating around the table whose one leg was a propped box. By backing into the lean-to, between two old iron bedsteads, and having Carol, Johnny, and Dago hold flashes in separate corners, he got the whole place, an orthodox FSA shot, Standard Poverty. That was what the Foundation expected. As always, the children cried when the flashes went off; as always he mollified them with the blown bulbs, little Easter eggs of shellacked glass. It was a dump, but nothing out of the ordinary, and he got no picture that excited him until he caught the woman nursing her baby on a box in the corner. The whole story was there in the protective stoop of her figure and the drained resignation of her face. She looked anciently tired; the baby’s chubby hand was clenched in the flesh of her breast.

From “Pop Goes the Alley Cat,” by Wallace Stegner

Though of course they wouldn’t have known it at the time, The Museum of Modern Art’s 1967 exhibition, New Documents, organized by John Szarkowski and featuring the work of Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand, became one of a handful of truly landmark exhibitions in photography’s history.

And so it is with some measure of amusement that one notes the human frailty contained in this facsimile of the original press release for the show. With the typewriter just about clickety-clacking in our ear as we look at the Courier type, the after-the-fact insertion of the demonstrative pronoun “this” in fact demonstrates, by following the exception-that-proves-the-rule precept, the care with which these old documents were prepared, back in the day. One questions whether this sort of dodo markup will be understandable in another generation or two from now.

Allow me to use Stephen Shore to put a fine point to it:

There seems to be a greater freedom and lack of restraint. This is analogous to how word processing affects writing: one can put thoughts down in writing, even tangential thoughts, with a minimum of inner censorship, knowing that the piece can be edited later. The other side of this lack of restraint is greater indiscriminancy. Here’s a tautology: as one considers one’s pictures less, one produces fewer truly considered pictures.

Stephen Shore quote from “A Conversation with Stephen Shore,” by Jörg Colberg, Popular Photography, September 24, 2007

Erik Kessels, flanked by two Dutch celebrities, showing off his Christmas stamp designs in Amsterdam

Also makes me wonder if the Dutch have discovered email yet. 750,000 sheets at 20 stamps per sheet comes to 15 million stamps. That’s almost one stamp per every man, woman and child in the Netherlands, and this was not the only Christmas stamp produced. Not that I’m complaining, mind you! But perhaps it’s appropriate there is a Japan element (albeit unstated) to these stamps, given that Japan has its own posting frenzy during the year-end holidays, when up to 4 billion (!) New Year’s cards will be sent at the end of this week.

To everyone reading, Season’s Greetings for 2007, wherever you may be.

Green Cine Daily points us towards the 2005 documentary Off Limits (La Rue: Zone Interdite) by Montreal photographer Gilbert Duclos. In the late 80′s, Duclos was sued by a young woman who had appeared in one of Duclos’ street photos. The woman claimed that her right to her own likeness had been violated. She eventually won.

Off Limits looks at the issue of photographers being increasing hemmed in by laws designed to protect a person’s supposed right to their own image, and particularly droit de l’image laws in place in France. Duclos interviews William Klein, Marc Riboud, and Willy Ronis for his film, and these elder statesmen of the street or reportage photography tradition are not surprisingly pessimistic about the chilling effect such laws can have on photography as well as journalism.

French photojournalism now removes the faces of people in the street or in any other public setting, or pictures are simply staged. Editors at major magazines tell Duclos that they simply avoid publishing pictures that might trigger lawsuits, which means publishing far fewer pictures, which means that the street photography which has documented much of the 20th century has nowhere near the vitality in the country where it once seemed strongest.

The review notes that it is the United States that Duclos and others look to to protect the freedom of photographers to shoot and publish non-commercial candid images, though given the current climate one wonders how long it will continue to be the beacon in this regard.

RELATED: See my post from a couple of years ago on how “the right to one’s own likeness” comes up occasionally in Japan, mainly spearheaded by the entertainment industry out to protect their “assets.”

Sadakichi Hartmann
Photographed by William M. Vander Weyde, 191?

One of the strangest and most original men of letters of the day — in the United States at all events — is Sadakichi Hartmann, the poet, art critic, and lecturer. He was born in the land of wistarias and chrysanthemums, and he sees life with that Japanese anarchy of perspective.

– Vance Thompson, Paris Herald, September, 1906

Sadakichi Hartmann fried eggs with Walt Whitman, discussed poetry with Stephane Mallarme, and drank with John Barrymore, who described him as “a living freak… sired by Mephistopheles out of Madame Butterfly.” W.C. Fields said the critic was “a no-good bum.” But though Hartmann might lift your watch (he was an accomplished pickpocket), his opinion was not for sale.

Born in Japan to a German merchant and his Japanese wife in 1867, he was disowned at 14 and shipped to a Philadelphia great-uncle, an incident that, as Hartmann said, was “…not apt to foster filial piety.” Largely self-educated, he published his first newspaper articles as an adolescent. After meeting Whitman, he wrote an article for the New York Herald quoting the poet’s opinions of other writers. Whitman denounced him for misquotation; Hartmann responded by expanding the article to a pamphlet. At 23, he wrote his first play, “Christ,” which was banned in Boston and publicly burned after Hartmann’s arrest for obscenity. A critic from the original New York Sun, James Gibbons Huneker, called “Christ” “the most daring of all decadent productions.”

– King of the Bohemians, Past & Present, By William Bryk, The New York Sun, January 26, 2005

More: See my collection of links at del.icio.us related to Hartmann.

The Riva Schiavoni, Venice, 1894
James Craig Annan (Scottish, 1864–1946)

Having secured a light-tight camera and suitable lens, there is no more important quality than ease in mechanical working. The adjustments ought to be so simple that the operator may be able to bring it from his satchel and get it in order for making an exposure without a conscious thought. Each worker will have his own idea as to which style of camera comes nearest to perfection in this respect, and having made his choice he should study to become so intimate with it that it will become a second nature with his hands to prepare the camera while his mind and eyes are fully occupied with the subject before him.

So said Annan, as quoted in Alfred Stieglitz’s essay The Hand Camera — Its Present Importance, published in 1897.

One can see Annan’s work here. Annan was the son of Thomas Annan, who in 1868 had documented the Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow with a camera. The younger Annan, in addition to his own photogravures, gained renown for reprinting the pioneering calotypes of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, who collaborated on over 1,500 calotypes during their brief 4-year partnership in the 1840′s, photography’s infancy. These photogravure reprints, done by Annan in the late 19th/early 20th century, later found their way into Stieglitz’s Camera Work journal.