As soon as it was announced I downloaded Lightroom 5 and set about working with it. I should say, I downloaded the demo. I certainly wasn't going to pay for an unknown factor. Now-a-days, I ONLY use photoshop for removing spots, dust and scratches from negatives. For this I use the healing brush tool and on occasion the clone tool, just like everyone else. The most exciting thing for me in Lightroom 5 is the new advanced healing brush tool. After giving it a good working session on some quite hard negative problems. You know, some sort of blemish in a tricky area where grain texture meets subject detail. Now, you can't expect to brush over an affected area and BAM! the healing tool does its business. It does need some input and technique from you, especially on complex textures. Once you have learned how to use the tool it is very effective without doubt. On my 2011 Mac Book Pro it works fine. I suppose if I was restoring a really battered negative the machine may complain about it. I can't imagine that this tool is light on CPU usage! But, so far so good. Now, for the first time I can stay 100% within Lightroom instead of Ducking and Diving into Photoshop. Out of the six new features only three interest me. I haven't had time to extensively work hard the upright tool and the radial gradient tool. These latter two are of minor interest. 

Now, the big question: Is Lightroom 5 worth the £60 upgrade?

£60 for the convenience of NOT popping into photoshop? £30 yes, I think that would be fair price for this update, but £60 I think is a bit steep. So, the jury is out until I have had time to fully evaluate Lightroom 5 for my needs. This also raises another question. How far can Adobe take this product. Personally, Photoshop itself reached the zenith of use with CS2. Subsequent versions have been irrelevant and the cost, just, way over. Way over Adobe! I find myself using Elements and especially Pixelmator. Over recent years I have had the feeling of Adobe flogging a dead horse when it comes to photoshop upgrades. I surprise my self in that I actually know what that metaphor means. Like you can't have infinite economic growth, you can't have infinite software upgrades. Something has to give.

One of the reasons that I have been quiet here is because I have returned from a recent trip to the Lake District in Cumbria, UK. Two weeks of minimal contact with Homo Sapiens, mountains, walks, mountains, photography, and mountains. Rain and wind in abundance, but that is the Lake District. I took too much gear as always, but ended up using my Hasselblad 500C/M and Fujifilm X100. I mainly used the X100 for casual touristy  photos, you know, happy snappy sort of stuff. The Hasselblad was used for the 'serious' picture making LOL. So, 510 jpgs and 12 rolls of film later I intend doing a full write up with selected pictures over the next month or so. Many people love the immediacy of digital. I don't! I think it is counter intuitive and counter productive. One thing I do love about film is I shoot a roll or two and then manage to develop it maybe a week, or month or two later. This means the memory of shooting the original scene has faded and when I examine the negatives, I see them with almost fresh eyes. Some film I develop a year or two later, not by design may I add. In this case, sometimes, I can't even remember making the exposure and when I see the scan of the negative it is fresh and I can make a more open minded assessment of the exposure. Unlike digital which 'forces' you to be impatient and 'forces' you in making an immediate decision. If you like working like this, then, hey, I am happy for you. I don't. I never have.

So, stay tuned and have a laugh at my results after lugging a Hasselblad up a few mountains in the wind and rain. All in the name of photography!

This coming Saturday, my wife and I are on Holiday in the Lake District. I am hoping for some good weather (please don't laugh). Hasselblad 500 CM, Contax G2 and Contax RTS or Fujifilm X100 are coming. 

Meanwhile, Saturday just gone, a walk around the Piercefield Manor House. This is one of my projects, to photograph it as it crumbles. One day, this once fine house will probably be a housing estate. Piercefield Manor Estate! How does that sound? No, I don't want it to happen either!

So, from a roll of Ilford Delta 100 here are the chosen few. I used a 1971 Hasselblad 500CM hand held, 80mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss Planar and a 150mm f/4 Carl Zeiss Sonnar. This roll was just to use up that last roll of Delta 100, to test the camera prior to our Lake District trip and to test a recently acquired developing tank - the Rondinax 60. Most were exposed using the Sunny 16 'rule'. So nothing serious then!  

It has been quiet on the Wye Photography front. The weather has been glum. That is apart from two days where I was unable to get out. Besides that, for the past week I have had tonsillitis combined with a chest and ear infection. So besides the weather being glum, so am I. As a measure of that, I write this at 01:56. Sleep eludes me as I need to cough all the time. I have not had a decent night's sleep for four days. Anymore of this and I will start hallucinating. One week tomorrow I am off to the Lake District. It's all going to pot.

The days are a little longer, there is the occasional and welcome Sun, and a dash of the big blue. It's uplifting, and, on occasion euphoric! It feels so good. This is my favourite time of year, when Winter is broken. The motivation for living returns, and for me, that means picture making. So, I decided to re-commission my Yashica Mat 124G. A couple of weeks ago I dusted it and ran through a test film. The results where shocking. I knew what it must be, so, expectantly, looked through the lens. Behold! A smearing of milky white film. Fungus! Generally, the Yashica Mat 124G is a sub £100 camera. Repair just is not economical and not an option. Many Moons ago I had a similar problem with a 70 year old Rolleiflex Automat, and knew the 124G had a similar lens arrangement. What I did next was either a piece of stupidity or bravery. I removed the rear element to clean it. One hour later said lens was cleaned and installed. The fungus, however, had left it's ugly mark! You could faintly see how the fungus had etched the glass. Largely, I escaped a fate worse than camera death. Now, that brings me up to Saturday the 16th of March. Having the afternoon free, I popped to visit my old friend, the Piercefield Manor. An 18th century Manor in Neo Classical style, now, long since fallen into ruin. I have been photographing it for the last ten years. I find myself wandering the grounds, Yashica 124G in hand, ready to test my lens repair. Loaded with one of my last rolls of Neopan 400, I decided that because the light was flat (yet again) to expose the film at EI400, its box speed. One half hour later the roll was fully exposed and I was heading home when the heavens opened (yet again). 

Later that evening I developed the film in my staple developer HC-110. Wash, fix, and hung out to dry. I really wasn't expecting that much and had in mind that I was probably going to throw away the camera. Negatives always look good, they are too small to see critical levels of sharpness and detail. Photographers always obsess about sharpness and resolution, especially digital photographers.  Using a Canon 9500f and Vuescan, the scans were made at 2400ppi which is sufficient for an 18inch print. Surprisingly, the scans were very good, the lens is not as sharp as it was, but vastly better than what anything in 35mm could achieve. Three of the twelve frames I quite liked, see what you think...

Above: The old stables Piercefield House. This is what I love, lots of texture, debris, ruin. This must have been a wonderful house in its glory days. I find it sad to see such a place in such a state of neglect and abandonment. I have a love/hate relationship with the place. It is fascinating and intoxicating as much as it is melancholy. I just wonder at who lived and worked here, there would have been the smell of hay and horses, the voices of workers. Now a deathly silence. Dead! A ghost! A shell, an echo, a shadow of its former glory and splendour. Exposed as per meter reading with the focus on the wall at f4. Everything beyond the doorway falls into blur. So the 124G focuses OK.  

Above: A little way through the door. Here I wanted to test the accuracy of the focus. 1/60th of a second at f4 focussed on that black angular beam, yep, everything seems OK there. I really like Neopan 400, not as much as Tri-X. Neopan has less grain and a modern punchy look, whilst Tri-X has that traditional tone. in Perceptol, sharpness and resolution would have taken a few steps up. And finally...

I metered on the back wall and placed it on Zone IV. A tree growing within what would have been a roofed out-building. The roof ere long gone and Nature reclaims what is its own. The Manor is a Grade II listed building. I hope it stays that way. One day it probably will be a housing estate. Piercefield Manor avenue indeed! As for the 124G? Hmmm! its not as sharp as it was, but, I can live with that. Neopan 400 in HC-110 is sweet. Try it!

I hate Winter!

I hate it with a passion!

Not only that it profoundly affects my mood, the light is more than often rubbish. It's flat, dull, dark. Hate!

For the first time in simply months I have felt like taking pictures again. The 'vision' is starting to return. It's still weak and flickering, but, for the first time in over a year it is actually there. Many other things have changed. I have shed many cameras, giving most away to my local school. I could have started a small museum! Just KNOWING I had all those damned cameras was a mental burden. I decided to simplify. I have one digital for any professional work that comes my way. One digital for personal shooting. One medium format film camera, one 35mm film camera and one full-frame micro film camera. That's four cameras (I discount the digital camera that is used for professional work)! I have not had this few a camera in over a decade. I feel free! Unburdened! Unfettered! No more agonising over which camera shall I take. I grab and go! No thought! Or, very little. I also decided that I want to shoot film. I am a black and white photographer. I think in black and white. And for black and white nothing beats film. For me, that film is Tri-X. I love its tones, its grain, its feel, the way it responds to light. Although you get those classic Tri-X tones from D76, I prefer using the excellent Kodak HC-110 developer. Its economical and convenient. Once-in-a-while I like to use Rodinal or Prescysol. All three are excellent developers. I prefer sticking to one main developer and then learn to use it well. My intense dislike of Photoshop drives me down this path. I hate all those photoshopped to death images. They are not real! They are fake! Faux! Fraud! I want my photography to be honest, real, there. The biggest problem of photography is to FIND and SHOOT the most amazing photographs, NOT create them on the computer.

This week's adventure happened last wednesday. I managed to pop out and shoot a roll of Fuji ACROS. Mainly as a test. I do this before I shoot a brand seriously. That way you get to know a film before you do any serious shooting. Anyway, the conditions were not good. Very misty, very dull. I arrived a top Wyntour's Leap near Chepstow. It's one of the best views of the Wye valley, but, not this day. It was ugly! As it was sooo flat, I shot the roll at its box speed, EI100. I used my Contax RTS II with the Carl Zeiss 35mm f2.8 Distagon, Carl Zeiss 50mm f1.4 Planar and Carl Zeiss 135mm f2.8 Sonnar lenses. All are super T* lenses. The best you can use for the small 35mm format.

So, 1hour and 15 minutes later I had shot the roll and the film was in the development tank. The following day I developed the film in HC-110 according to established development times and scanned using a Nikon Coolscan V ED. Right, cut to the chase, the negs are a little too dense for scanning, grain and sharpness excellent, had to push the contrast in Lightroom (which increased the grain). ACROS doesn't have the latitude of Tri-X. I should have exposed at EI50 and cut development to give the shadows more exposure. Actually, a coiuple of them I like, anyway, here is the selection...

I can't believe it's not butter. No, it's not. It's photography, and it's almost a year since my last blog. It's doesn't help when you are immensely insular and taciturn. Communication just isn't my forte. 

I have spent the good part of the last year thinking whether I want to continue with photography. I have been thinking about quitting. I still have those feelings. My mind about photoshop has not changed. I hate it. I have not used it in over a year. I think Photoshop has done untold damage to photography. I will not use it again. The world is now awash with images so manipulated they absolutely defy reality. I hate all that digital fakery. It's FRAUD.

Still struggling with where I want to go photographically, I feel that honesty, truth, and as-it-is imagery is my natural leading. So, that means I won't be winning any competitions then, eh! Charlie. I feel that I need to be close to the image making process instead of relying too heavily on software writers and programmers.

I have also limited myself to two main cameras, the Contax RTS and Fujifilm X100. From time to time I will also use my Yashica 124G. Pure monochrome images are my main interest, it's still what I want to do. I sum it up in the three words TEXTURE, TONE, TENOR. The latter word, in this context, means mood or overall feel. To me, it is what monochrome is all about. There often is no story, it is almost irrelevant. No semi-mystical psycho babble either. No! None of that! What you see is what you get.

Until next time (whenever that is) May you always find the light...