Portfolio of the Week: Margus Sootla

Dear Readers,

This week we feature an Estonian photographer, Margus Sootla. Margus is a photographer-world traveler who works primarily with medium format. He began with digital, but soon converted himself to film photography. Regarding films, he works with a great variety of them. He defines himself as an amateur, but based on his portfolio, I can only say this is an understatement. Personally, I am particularly impressed by his work done with IR films. However, I was equally impressed by his biography, as I was by his photographic work. Therefore, I made no excerpts of his bio. His full, uncut biography is posted just below the portfolio-just scroll down please. Margus' work can be accessed via Flickr and this link. Enjoy his photos (along with very descriptive captions)!

Silver regards

Mitja

Nightlife under Khaju bridge, Esfahan, Iran. This is where the local muslim young come to meet their future partners. (Kiev 60, 80mm f2.8 / Maco TP64c)

Persepolis guardian - the symbol of Iran. (Kiev 60, 80mm f2.8 / Maco IR820c IR)

An abandoned ship in Magellan Strait, Argentina. (Pentax 67, 35mm f4.5 fisheye / Fomapan 200 Creative)

Motorcycling Dream, Estonia. (Pentax 67, 75mm f4.5 / Kodak Aerochrome colour IR)

Portrait of Raúl, the friendliest person we've ever met, Argentinian Patagonia. (Pentax 67, 200mm f4 / ADOX CHM400)

Calm before the thunderstorm in my backyard, Estonia. (Linhof Technika 69, 90mm / Maco IR820c IR)

Shades of Time, Estonia. (Pentax 67, 75mm f4.5 / Rollei Infrared shot in -28C )

The Ride, UK. (Arax 60, 30mm f3.5 fisheye / Kodak T-MAX 100 )

Sublime. (Pentax 67, 35mm f4.5 fisheye / Rollei Retro 400)

Hamer tribe is having fun with my small Sigma PS camera, Ethiopia. (Pentax 67, 35mm f4.5 fisheye / Kodak T-MAX 400)

All photos copyright: Margus Sootla

Margus' Biography

I am a hobbyist, a wandering nomad who's passion is travelling. Be it physical or mental. The latter form is where the film cameras (and also analog-audio) comes into play for me.
 
I shot digital in my baby steps stage till I saw wall sized enlarged b&w photos taken with a 8x10" large format camera by one Estonian photographer who's name unfortunately I can't rember. I was stunned by how much character the photos had down to the grain level without having seen any Photoshop - it was fully analog bred stuff. My other hobby has been motorcycling, being unable to afford carrying a bulky LF camera (although I do have a 5x7" LF camera I shoot with time-to-time), there are too few 35mm film shots I've seen that inspired me, so the only way to go was medium format - to have that raw sensor size yet to be able to pack it with me on my motorcycle and travel the distance.
 
I started with Kiev 60 - a relatively unreliable soviet 6x6 medium format camera that had many mechanical problems. But through pain it taught me many valuable lessons about photography and the artistic side of it - it's often the defect that becomes an effect in analog photography. The main thing is that this camera has superbly artistic Zeiss Jena lenses that I still can't find equals for in 6x7 format I currently shoot with - the 180mm f2.8 Jena is the best portrait lens ever made in my book. With constant mechanical hassles and hoping I can keep my lenses I upgraded the body to Arax 60, which is an improved version of the Kiev 60 body, but although slightly better, it also gave me problems till I switched to Pentax 67 format which I have been shooting with many years till today. As of now, Pentax 67 is a proven battle tank, it's has endured over 200 000 kilometers of different journeys on a motorcycle - rain, dust, sand, heat, cold and vibrations and I'm amazed it still keeps going, even works at down to -30C degrees. I use 400mm f4, 200mm f4, 105mm f2.4 and 35mm f4.5 fisheye for the P67 system. Time-to-time I also shoot with my friend's Linhof Technica 6x9 with superb Schneider lenses.
 
In choice of a film I've been a complete multitasker. I do not have any favourite film I can name since I find the analog photography word so fascinating in all levels. I think I've tried almost every film currently sold, even the very little known film brands which I love to test. It's not just about b&w, infrared, colour slide or negative world, but also the alternative enlargement processes to get it on the paper - I've given up scanning the enlarged work since unlike film scanning no digital representation can bring forth the feel of seeing a photo done by an actual enlarger or a contact print onto a photographic paper. From its depth, texture to varying surface reflection, you just can't smell it from the computer monitor :). I became a big fan of the Lith-process that worked especially well with my infrared negatives. Pity I sold my decent darkroom to finance my long dream: to circumnavigate our planet on a motorcycle. This recent undertaking made me homeless, I sold everything I've had except my vinyl collection, turntable, tube amplifier, speakers and my analog camera gear. It has made me more horny about analog photography (and audio) than ever before since I couldn't really practice it to full being more than 3 years on the road.  I did shoot over 150 rolls of film that still wait for digitalizing or enlarging. This will have to wait since I'm currently in a process of building myself up from zero again and I'm glad I've kept all my analog gear, hopefully some day I can acquire some proper analog darkroom again too!
 
As said before, I'm by no means a proffessional photographer, thus like me also my work has no home in the real world nor on the internet. Flickr never had any serious attention, but some stuff is found there. For more straightforward viewing of my recent doings in English language, you can explore the following link:
 
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=480532
 

Margus Sootla

Random Quote

"Fear is a darkroom where negatives develop." Usman B. Asif

Monday Column: Why a Vampire Can Not Be an Analog Photographer

As an analogue photographer you have all experienced how is to be hours and hours in the darkroom. I don’t know about you, but I had, after several hours in the darkroom in the middle of the night at local elementary school, a strange feeling of presence. I knew that I was alone in the school, but... Hopefully I’m not paranoiac, but as part of consumer of modern popular culture, we are all bombarded with stories about supernatural creatures. And one of those creatures fit perfectly in the dark lonely corridors of the empty local school in the middle of the night.

Could be a vampire? A lonely sorrow creature craving for the blood. And a lonely sorrow analogue photograph in the darkroom seems to be a perfect target. Not! As commonly known, vampires have some deficiencies. Among allergy for garlic and UV light is also allergy to silver. Be thankful to that, that analogue photography is all about silver those days. In the modern films, the vampire killers uses bullets filled with silver nitrate for killing vampires. So, if you are afraid of the vampires, just keep some of used developer. After you develop a film or photographic paper, it has a lot of washed away silver from not exposed parts of film in it. So in the case of need, just pour it over the creature. Guarantee success.  So you don’t need the garlic wreath on the door of the darkroom. You could be sure that no vampire will come and bother you, when you are printing your precious photos.

But hey! Maybe they are not so bad after all. And after all you could find a brother soul in analogue photography? Oh, there is a problem. Photography is all about light and vampires are allergic to the sunlight. But they could be nightlight photographers and they could produce masterpieces like the Edward Steichen’s Pond – Moonlight?

                                       Edvard Steichen: Pond - Moonlight                                                                                  
    Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/ThePondMoonlight.jpg

And others could develop and print the photographs for them, as they did for the Henry Cartier Bresson (and many others photographers too). But why they would bother? At present days, for night time photographers, you have are more appropriately suited tools. A blasfemy for analogue photographers, but nevertheless, vampires goes digital. We already stated that when we are talking about soul in photography, it is analogue. Vampires have no soul. So that’s the ultimate reason, why a vampire could not (wont) be an analogue photographer. They don’t even bother about, they have ISO 204,000.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

No, it's not a post about some Danse Macabre stuff....these were just my thoughts when we took a visit to Helmut Newton's grave in Berlin, back in May. First we took a mandatory visit to his museum on Jebensstrasse which is pretty easy to find, just behind the (in)famous Zoo Station. There, at the museum, you can really get a grasp of his life and work, glamorous and controversial, but also about more intimate aspects. And it takes a while to get through all three museum floors, too. Diametrically opposite is the impression when you visit his grave, unnoticeable and humble, just a few meters away from Marlene Dietrich (it was his wish to be buried there). We were lucky enough to meet two graveyard employees, so the quest was relatively short. I am not saying I was expecting a mausoleum or something, but realizing that one of the greatest photographers (his ashes, actually) is buried there, being visited only by a bunch of visitors, here and there, made me a bit sad. On the contrary, Marlene's grave gets much more visits (if you compare the stones put on the gravestone).

Helmut Netown's grave in Berlin.

Bottom line: take care of yourself and of your dearest here and now. It won't really matter after.

Helmut is buried in the Städtischer Friedhof III cemetery, not really a "high point" of Berlin. Sadly, even many locals are not aware of the cemetery itself, let alone of Helmut's grave. Hint: it improves your chances to get in the right direction if you ask where is the cemetery where Marlene Dietrich is buried, but it's not necessarily 100% proof (that's our experience).
Mitja

Random Quote

"In my experience I've learnt that they make an ordinary scene interesting and an interesting scene ordinary", Tim Hixson on plastic cameras. More about here.

Cottage Tip: Keeping Humidity under Control- Part 1

Humidity is one the worst enemies of your cameras and lenses! We all know that under prolonged humid conditions, especially if stored in the dark, fungal growth can begin inside your beloved lenses! The best cure is, of course, keeping your equiment in constant use (fungal growth is quite sensitive to light). But most of the time, our beloved toys reside in a bag or a case, in the dark. Unless you live in an arid environment, we need to make sure there is not enough moisture inside to initiate the growth of the evil fungi! Fortunately, fungal growth is quite a slow process, and won't happen overnight! Many photographers just put (intuitively) inside a bag or two of silicagel they recycled from a shoe box or other purchased goods. The problem is, this silicagel is probably already exhausted, so it has no capacity left to absorb the moisture. Plus, it usually has no color indication whether is exhausted or not. Most of the people just put inside these little bags and forget about them for good! Fourtunately, most people don't have problems with fungi, but some of them do, sadly. 

This is all you need: fresh silicagel, a film canister and a sharp tool (e.g. scissors). Rightmost: a bag of exhausted silicagel.

This is how a punched canister looks like.

Left: film canister with fresh silicagel. Right: canister with exhausted silicagel, notice the color change.

 The real solution to the problem is to buy silicagel beads with color indicator in bulk-you can buy half a kilo or so for little money online. As the silicagel gets too wet, it turns its color from orange to dark blue (it looks like caviar-before and after-salmon before, beluga caviar after J). So, buy silicagel in bulk, and you can regenerate it many times by (re)heating it! Next problem is the container; I simply use a (translucent) film canister, finely punched along its surface. Pour the dry silicagel inside and close the lid. A canister or two will do their job for a few weeks or months inside the bag (or case), but not forever! Moisture penetrates more than you can imagine inside your bags and cases (unless you have everything sealed with plastics-not really practical), so a regular check is advisable. When it comes to regenerate, simply put the silicagel in a shallow (glass or metal) container or pan inside the kitchen oven for an hour or so around 100 °C. When it turns back orange in color, you're done! When not in use, keep your silicagel well sealed against moisture. The humidity in your closet or drawer, where you keep your gear, is also important. We'll cover this in the second part.

A note of caution: with time, some fine dust will occur, due to silicagel's self-abrasion. Do not breathe the dust, it's not friendly to your lungs!

Mitja