posh

The other day we walked to the city centre for a bit of shopping. Stupid idea, since there were actually sales on and nothing was available in reasonable sizes. In the end we bought a photography book instead: The Mexican Suitcase with negatives of the Spanish Civil War. The edition is somewhat strange and leaves quite a few things to be desired: it’s not printed on glossy paper, the binding is flimsy and it comes in two volumes held together by an even flimsier slipcase. The content is fantastic though: 4500 negatives by Capa, Taro and Chim that were lost for years, printed contact size as the full rolls. Having them printed as contacts is actually great: You don’t only see the pictures but also the style of working. Suffice it to say that you need a magnifying glass to appreciate this book.

My pictures from the day were definitely not war photography. However, maybe the pictures relate to it somewhat in the sense that San Sebastian is a filthy rich place in the firm grip of Opus Dei. Exactly what the Spanish Civil War was all about (or against) at least on the side of the Republic.

 

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Even the dog screams Money money money.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Now, that’s more like it.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

No idea what was going on there in the background.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Ah, fake fur, an affront to all the teddy bears in the world.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Clearly the posh fur crowd attracts the cheap fake fur crowd as well.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

The pigeon, Jesus and me. I guess you need the full resolution image to get the Jesus reference … The guy had a brochure with Jesus on it.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Serious smoking. Ah, wide-angle, I love you so!

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

No advertisement intended.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

About yay high. No idea what the dog and the person on the right are looking at. Must have been interesting.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

One. I love how the guy is completely unperturbed.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

“Hey, I’m down here!” It didn’t even look like it was his dog either …!

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Let’s go home …

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Tree illuminated by red light (clearly visible that it was red, right?)

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

The river seen from the second bridge. It was getting dark and the sky was beautiful.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Tones!

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Another glimpse of the sky.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Yeah right, total anarchy.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

I see … the cane is just an accessory in posh town. What’s next, monocles?

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

If you’ve been following my blog then you know that there are hardly any low light pictures on it at the moment. The low light performance of the E-PL3 is clearly not my kind of thing. I’ll make a point of going for a night time walk with my Canon and the 50mm f/1.4 lens when I’m near it. At the moment it’s sitting on a shelf in Berlin. And maybe some pushed film in the Zorki would be a nice idea too.

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 14mm f/2.5 ASPH.

 

For the last few days I’ve been pondering whether I should buy a new film camera. I had my mind set on the Yashica Electro 35 CC, which is the rare one with the fast 35mm f/1.8 lens. When I finally decided to act it turned out that someone had snatched it up in the hour that it took me to organise the logistics of shipping it to Spain. I was obviously not exactly pleased. Today I was lucky though: Although it is quite rare, another one was up for sale and that one I got. The seller for some reason decided only to put a minimal description and let the auction end at an impossible time (4am) and therefore it was quite a bargain. Well, at least if it works, that is. I can’t wait to play with it!

Quite obviously my Zorki 4K felt a bit threatened by all this and decided to go on strike. The shutter got stuck and I had to get a bit intimate with the shutter mechanism in the bottom plate. Since I was loading film when it happened this fault cost me at least 4 frames. However, after my screwdriver intervention and a bit of flattery my Zorki and me were friends again. That afternoon I shot a couple of rolls of Kentmere 400 in town while going for a walk. It was one of those horrifically crowded days, because it was rumoured to be the last nice day in a while. For a street photographer those are the best days, because there is a photo opportunity every two meters. However, if you don’t like crowds it’s hell as well. If it hadn’t been for the camera I wouldn’t have liked it at all. It reminded me of the crowded touristy time in summer. And yes, a street photographer who doesn’t like crowds is a little bit of an odd creature, I admit it freely.

Today I then developed the rolls taken on the weekend. My recipe estimation for K400 in Tetenal Ultrafin was based on the data sheet times comparing HP5+ and K400 in D76 and actually worked out quite well: K400 in Tetenal Ulfrafin 1:19 for 16 minutes, first minute continuous agitation, then one inversion every minute. I use the same agitation scheme for HP5+ for 13 minutes.  There seem to be quite a number of good pictures on the rolls, although it’s hard to evaluate sharpness without a scanner. Quite annoying that I will have to wait until March to see the pictures properly. By then I will also have a whole scanning marathon in front of me because there likely will be 16 rolls of film to scan (or more) and I don’t plan to be in Berlin for a long time. Especially my Epson v330 is a bottleneck, because it can only scan one stripe of 6 negatives in one go. Well, it’s only going to be a problem if my new batch of film actually arrives at some point, since I only have one roll of K400 left at this point. Getting hold of film, developer and most of everything else, including cameras, is a nightmare in Spain due to the high shipping prices and the long waiting times.

So, as you can see, suddenly I find myself in the middle of camera faults, film shortage and organisational difficulties of scanning! Well, nobody ever said that analog photography was easy …

Comments

  • I like the red sky! And the photo with the little boy running and the little girl walking with her trolley is superlative!
    robert

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Thanks Robert! That one is also my favourite from this series. Totally chimped after that one to check and was very happy to have gotten it right 🙂

Leave a Reply