I started my photography career in the early 1970s so I have thousands of slides and large and medium format transparencies in my archive. Every now and again I need to pull one out and scan one for some reason. Here are a few that I have pulled out from the box.

A year in Egypt

I spent a year in Egypt from 1978-1979. I went there as a tourist and stayed (much as I did five years later in Italy except I’m still here). I found a job as an art director and illustrator in Egypt’s first advertising agency to open after the Soviet period, Radar Advertising later taken over by Mccann-Erickson. I was paid the princely sum of 60 Egyptian pounds (about £50 sterling) a month. Given that a Stella beer cost one pound and my rent in Heliopolis was 15 pounds a month that did not leave much beer money.

Brightly dressed Bedou women in the Fayoum Oasis 1979

A Trip to an Oasis

I shot these brightly dressed Bedou women in the Fayoum oasis in 1979. My friend was driving me in her Renault 5 which luckily had a sun-roof. I popped my head through and got just one shot before they turned, covered their faces and hurried shyly away. The film was Agfa slide which had a very warm hue compared with the coldish saturation of Ektachrome or the slight green in some circumstances of Kodachrome – not that any of this matters in the digital age.

View of Chefren from summit of Cheops

Climbing the Pyramids

In the late 1970s you could still climb the Great Pyramid of Cheops for a small ‘fee’, or baksheesh, to the dragoman in his galabeya who stood guard at the base. I was informed by a resident that you should give a just a few piasters, no more than 25 – if you gave too much he would feel honour bound to guide you up to the top.

My grandad Major ‘Pat’Somerville in 1941

The flat summit has a heavy iron pyramid shaped mast placed there, quite why I have no idea, perhaps to give an idea of its original height. The stones had all been incised on every available surface with names. I have read that even in the 19th century the guides filled the graffiti with gesso so that the pyramid presumably did not get chiselled down to its foundations. I managed to get a blurry self timer pic by resting the camera on a stone.

Patrick Nicholas stands atop the Great Pyramid 1978

I do not have a very good scanner for 35mm, the Epson 4990 is really designed for medium and large transparencies. That said, the dust on this slide was exceptionally sharp! I still use film occasionally with my old medium format cameras which still work as well as ever and give a fine high quality transparency or negative.

Dahshur bent pyramid of Sneferu.

Running for our Lives

Cairo was an easy place to hate: huge, dirty, dusty, noisy, chaos incarnate – and that was in 1979 I imagine it is even worse now. At least it was very safe then, and full of hope. It was the time of Sadat. I left Cairo on Christmas day for lunch in Helwaan with a friend after which we set off for the Bent pyramid of Sneferu at Dahshur. I had read that inside were perfectly preserved beams left over from its construction.

But there was a problem – in those days it was in a military area. The only guard on the dirt road leading to the site was an old fellow wearing a scruffy galabeya – but he did carry a rifle. I said to my mate David, “If we amble along to that big sand dune we could probably cross behind it unseen, let’s try.” We did, and a shot rang out. We came back very humbled to be greeted by a torrent of Arabic. We thought, given his un-agressive demeanour, that he was essentially apologising, “I had no choice you understand?” We warmly shook hands, no hard feelings.
Next post: medium and large format transparencies or trannies as we called them.

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In this video shot in my gallery I show how to fix a maddening problem common to most point and shoot cameras: the sticking zoom. When the zoom either refuses to protrude at all or does so only to retract immediately with ‘lens error’ showing on the display, you feel that the camera has reached the end of its natural life as sending it away for repair will cost more than the value of the camera. The answer is the common or garden vacuum cleaner. Using this method will also help clean the sensor of most or all the dust that has been sucked in through the telescopic zoom lens as for some reason even expensive compact cameras have no sensor cleaner. All you need is a vacuum cleaner with a flexible tube, a plastic bottle, sticky tape and five minutes of your time. I have demonstrated this method scores of times without damaging the camera (a Lumix LX100) in any way. That said, you shouldn’t do this if your camera isn’t already manifesting these problems.

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DSLR Cameras

SLR cameras – the D just stands for digital and nobody makes 35mm film SLR cameras any more – stands for single lens reflex. The camera has a pentaprism and a mirror, the design has been around since the 1950s. The SLR  broadly falls into 3 groups, medium format like Hasselblad (forget about them unless you want spend as much as you would on a new car); the full frame SLR which has a sensor the same size as 35mm film (24 x 36mm) – professional and semi-professional cameras with a hefty price tag unless you buy used; smaller sized SLRs with a smaller sensor usually around 15 x 22mm –  there are a bewildering variety of these cameras made for the amateur market. Things in this category change very fast, so shop around and also look out for used cameras as people are always upgrading and sticking their old version on ebay or handing it into a dealer in part exchange.

The SLR allows for interchangeable lenses but every time you change a lens dust will get into the camera. So a word about interchangeable lenses. SLRs (single lens reflex) and some sophisticated point and shoots allow you to change lenses – obviously a good thing BUT when you change a lens dust gets in and this can end up on the sensor. Film was always moving from one frame to the next so dust wasn’t a problem, but the sensor picks up dust and dust is a pain. Some cameras have built-in sensor cleaners like my Canon 5D but this doesn’t always work  well and then you’ll have to either go to your friendly neighbourhood dealer and have him clean it or buy one of these, the Arctic Butterfly.

arctic butterfly

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If you want my opinion I think 35mm film is a waste of time, but as I used to teach film and old processes until last year I still think there’s a roll, sorry role, for film, namely medium format. I never use my Bronica 6×4.5 now (you can make me an offer ) but I do use my Mamiya RB 67 and my panoramic 120 format Noblex – occasionally.The cost of a medium format digital back for a medium format camera is for most people prohibitive – besides  120 film is quite cheap, as is processing which one could do oneself of course, or use C41 lab processing which is what I do.

It’s also still possible to find Polaroid 665 pos/neg BW film as well. A really beautiful slow film. With 665 it’s best to overexpose by a stop to get a useless, overexposed print – that way you’ll get a good negative. It doesn’t even need fixing – washing it well under running water is sufficient. On location you can even wait till you get back to civilisation as the gell doesn’t dry hard for hours. You can buy it on Ebay or Amazon.

Polaroids. 'Homage to Corday' (right) is printed from Polaroid 665 neg

The advantages of using film are: a much bigger file size than you’d get on a 35mm digital camera; greater sharpness if that’s what you’re after; lower depth of field; the ‘feel’ of film. The sheer size of the beast will also impress a portait sitter in this digital age. I do very big prints for exhibitions sometimes up to 2 metres long and for those dimensions film is ideal and the grain lovely. But even on smaller prints you will notice the difference in quality.

Genius Loci, Ilford XP2 film

my Noblex Panoramic Pro

I rarely use the Noblex Pan camera now as I prefer digital stitching, although there are occasions when the old workhorse comes into its own: for example an aerial shot from a micro-light – you can’t stitch that! It’s quite fun to use it for group photos – or even outdoor portaits with a crazy tilt (right).

Orvieto portrait

I use a whistle to attract people’s attention –  they love it!  I used it in the British Museum because I wanted to hand-hold and also tilt the camera. I have a 2 metre long print hanging on our wall at home, you can pick out every detail.

British Museum taken with the Noblex in our home

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bee-gun

The bee gun creates a lot of smoke over a period of time as long as you keep topping it up with carbon tabs and incense – the set will smell lovely! But beware, the gun gets very hot indeed! So in an interior give some thought  beforehand as to where you are going to put it down.
Bee smokers rust like crazy so better invest in a stainless steel one. You can use kindling but best of all are impregnated carbon pellets with a saucer shaped dip to hold the incense (if you go down the sacred road).

With smoke on the set you have to photograph towards the light source to get the effect.

instant smoke

Suppliers to the film industry stock all you need or else Apiarist (beekeeping) suppliers,  surprise, surprise. These latter are more ubiquitous than you might think.
A cheaper and instant alternative is the spray smoke canister. Called ‘Smoky‘ and available from Condor Foto in Milan. They have a perfectly horrible website,  but they are, despite appearances, quite efficient:
Condor Foto

bee-gun in action on set (in this case an Etruscan tomb)

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Photo filters are still useful. Although the effects of filters can be duplicated in Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture etc there is a strong case for creating the effect during the shoot. I use the following:

Soft, neutral grey gradual, polariser, neutral density.

Soft focus filter.

A soft focus filter will push the highlights into the shadow areas like dark hair, smoothing the skin and giving a healthy glow to a portrait. Blemishes and lines on the skin will be diminished. The filter has less effect on the shadows so hair will appear sharper in respect to skin tones. The advantage of using the filter as opposed to Photoshop is time – just put the filter on and off you go. I usually take some shots without the filter to show the sitter the difference – they always prefer the filter ones. I use soft focus usually with women of all ages and children, but rarely with men.

soft focus filter lessens the contrast on a sunny day

Types of soft focus.

I usually shoot outdoor portraits in the shade or in the evening using a wide open aperture so I use a screw type, weak filter. Softness depends on aperture so the wider open the lens the softer it gets – it will be softer at f2.8 than f11. You may not notice it at all at f22.

In the studio or on location with lights I use a Cokin filter usually of medium strength the reason being that I may be using f11. As an alternative you can use the old Hollywood technique of gauze or a piece of  stocking pulled tight over the lens.

On location the contrast range maybe too high between highlight and shadow and in this situation a soft focus filter will help lower contrast.

A word of caution. Flare can become a problem so it’s wise to use a lens hood, or in the case of the Cokin type system, clip on matte boxes – just a cheap plastic clip-on modular system but it makes all the difference. You can add one, two or three.

Gradual filters.

grads

In these days of High Dynamic Range photography (HDR) you can avoid using a grad and do it later in Photoshop. But again, it’s easy enough to use a filter to pull the sky and the clouds in with a neutral grad.

Cokin is a good and economical system but their filter boxes will drive you nuts, I suggest their P series filter wallet. All this stuff you can find on Ebay.

In the old darkroom days you could soften the focus by putting a filter between lens and paper but this had the opposite effect of using a filter at the taking stage – it pushed the shadows into the highlights making the image gloomy and sinister. You can do this in Photoshop. Tutorial

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Manfrotto junior 410

Lilith – from Belle Collection read more here

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