The night Germany won against Brasil during the football / soccer world cup I first didn’t want to go out to take pictures because I was feeling too tired thanks to all the moving preparations. I had decided to go to the finals instead. I heard the firecrackers twice, so I thought that Germany had scored 2 goals. Suddenly Ezequiel told me that it stood 5 nil though! Apparently people were staring at their screens openmouthed and forgot all about their firecrackers. At that point I changed my mind and decided to go to the Fanmeile, because the celebrations were bound to be crazy with that kind of score.
Because of my decision to go to a different game I hadn’t bought any colour film yet and only had one roll of expired 24 shot Kodak 400. I took a roll of Tri-X for backup and after finishing off the Kodak 400 I shot most of the colour digitally. Surprisingly the black and white shots also managed to convey the atmosphere quite well. The celebration was somewhere between a big friendly party and a sort of half-threatening aggregation of insanely drunk people. Right after getting there some random drunk guy started talking to me. For some reason he decided that I needed protection and started following me around like a puppy. It got sort of annoying because he kept telling me to smile while I was actually busy shooting and in “work mode”. He then told me that he was an undertaker by profession and spent several years in an insane asylum. My next thought was obviously: “And who protects me from you then”? It took me a while but in the end I managed to lose him in the crowd. With that kind of protection I rather look out for myself!
Maybe I should add that I’m not actually interested in football and had lost track of the score while I was busy shooting and getting rid of my “protector”. Since I wasn’t really watching the game I also lost track of time and missed the point when to leave to still reach the last train. They had blocked roads in such a stupid fashion that it took me ages to get to the train and I literally missed it by minutes. I spent the next 1 1/2 hours trying to get a cab – none were available, the Taxi company wasn’t even answering calls anymore. I also couldn’t manage to get on one of the insanely full buses. In the end I walked all the way from Brandenburger Tor to Friedrichstraße where I finally managed to squeeze into a severely delayed night bus full of the most unbearable people. At some point I actually snapped at one of these morons that he should cut out the racist comments about the Russian bus driver. From the closest stop to my old home I finally managed to get a cab. What a nightmare of a journey home! At least I got some good pictures though and there are still quite a few colour shots to come.
All pictures taken with: Olympus XA, F.Zuiko 35mm f/2.8.
Tri-X EI 800 stand-developed in Rodinal 1:100, 90min.
Yes there is some blur, but for film stock rated at 800 iso, the quality is amazing. You would have been at 1600/3200 in digital surely or does stand development in Rodinal push the rating further?
The XA is an aperture priority automatic and I rated the film in camera as ISO 800, which explains the motion blur. I had no control over the shutter speed. The development is still pushed one stop beyond though. 90 min is about ISO 1600. I also think that these turned out great for rating them at 800. I don’t normally push Tri-X, too much grain and contrast, but it turned out quite well this time.