Portfolio of the Week: Marc von Martial

Dear Readers,

This week we feature another German photographer from Bonn, Marc von Martial. Marc is a freelance graphic designer by profession. He, as many others, started with digital equipment (not counting the snapshots from the film era), but got »infected« soon with analog, starting with lomography, when he fell in love with the images made with a Holga. Now, he primarily shoots on film, and he also develops all the films by himself. He likes to experiment with film very much, including expired film. His main focus is on people/portrait photography, some landscape, and also some street photography. He is working on a few photographic series, developing them over time. He describes himself  mainly as a medium-format-and-polaroid kind of guy, since he mostly uses his beloved Pentacon Six TL, with the CZJ 80/2.8 and 180/2.8 lenses (the same lenses he uses also on his DSLR, by his own words better lenses than Canon L series lenses!) and the Polaroid Land 350 and SX-70 Alpha cameras. He also makes great use of various Holgas, yet he also has other cameras in his arsenal, among them a Hasselblad 500CM, various 35mm cameras, and some other plasti/toy cameras. Please, take also a look at his bio just below his photos. I think Marc makes a very good argumented description why film rules for him, even though he is tech junkie otherwise. Marc's work can be found on Flickr, Marc's blog and his webpage. Enjoy his work!

Silver regards

Mitja

 All photos copyright: Marc von Martial

Marc's Bio

Since a year I focus on people and portrait photography, something that really satisfies me. I enjoy communicating with my models to develop ideas and make them feel to be part of the process. Many of my sessions go a very spontaneous route. I never try to force my models in a certain direction. If I feel they get bored or uncomfortable or it simply does not work, then I do not push it, I take my time. I think that’s an important part of getting believable portrait. The slower way of taking photos with film also helps to set a more relaxed mood. Many of my models did not take part in analog sessions before and I often hear how much they like the slower flow and that it is not necessary to take hundreds of photos to get that “one” great shot you aim for. Of course I understand that for commercial jobs this does not always work, although my approach helped me a lot in the past getting jobs done in a very satisfying way. I love to play with available light and this is also why I love film. Film “feels” light. It embraces and touches it. Combine that with a large format print on the wall and you know why you are in love with film photography. Photos need to be printed, even if you put them in a box after that. Nothing beats holding a print in your hands. And no, I’m not anti iPad/iPhone or digital, I’m a tech nerd actually.

I take my inspiration from the large Flickr community, photo books and blogs I read. I adore the photography of Rüdiger Beckmann, Jan Scholz, Hengki Koentjoro, Jochen Abitz, Jan Bishop, Magda Andrzejewska and the artistic perfection of Vernon Trent. There’s many more and I did not mention masters of the past on purpose. I have to say though  that the “analog” friends I made in the last two years influence and inspire me a lot too, not always through their photography but trough the mix of styles they bring together. Thanks guys!

My plans for the future are getting into large format photography now, I recently acquired a Graflex Speed Graphic, starting “small” 4x5 and combine art and photography way more with some alternative print and development processes. I guess that is also the graphic artist and that unstoppable curiosity in me that wants to do this :) We will see, maybe a small exhibition too, for now I’m super flattened by all the positive feedback I got this year.

Marc von Martial

Random Quote

"A photo no longer tells the truth. It suggests just one possibility." Anonymous

Monday Column: About Not Reinventing the Wheel, Giving the Due Credit, Digital helping the Analog Etc.

Dear Readers,

Our Monday columnist Matjaž has been quite busy lately, so please forgive me if I took the role of the "surrogate columnist" this week. A while ago, our contributor Alessandro kindly reminded me that it would be very nice if we would discuss the reclamation of Fuji FP instant film negatives on the blog. So true, and I am very grateful to him. Fact is also that I only lately began to play with the instant material. Though a bit more expensive and having a more limited color palette, I find instant film very pleasing with its own aesthethics. Instant film also fits perfectly into our rushy lifestyles-you can shot and get quickly a few photos having all their analog beauty and then set your camera into standby mode till next time. Yet you can still get a negative from your shots. The specific aesthetics of these negatives comes also from the fact that the negative is actually a superposition of a color and a BW negative, therefore the colors get quite muted. Fortunately, there are many many useful tutorials how to obtain a usable negative from Fuji FP film by just using common household bleach, that seemed to me pointless and unfair to make yet another tutorial about this very topic. It would be really just reinventing the wheel. But it's nice to remind about this hidden potential of instant film once in a while. Below, I included a video tutorial made by Sebek (YouTube user baldipl) which seems to me simple and concise to comprehend. And I thank him for his contribution to our community.

Sharing the information, photos or videos among the web is another issue and it just happens too often people just forget to give the proper credits when posting something on their own sites. It's not only unethical-we all know that-it doesn't pay you back such a misbehavoir. You can only lose on your own credibility, that's it. And makes someone else (the proper author) angry. Be nice and fair to others and others will be nice and fair to you.

Coming back to reclaimed negatives-I thought it would be a good point anyway to show how important is to NOT allow the bleach to come in contact with the emulsion side-it will bleach your image too, and you'll get a "nice" magenta cast in the negative (green in the positive image). Below is my very first bleached negative and the inverted image (without corrections).

Reclaimed negative shot on the light table. Bleach leaked underneath on the emulsion edge and also spilled near the truck's front end. The result are green stains (magenta in the negative).

Last but not least, I must confess-the negative on the light table has been shot using my small and handy Philips HD camera. Yes, I have some "digital sins", I confess :) I bought it because is water and shockproof, portable like a cell phone and makes videos of acceptable quality, for example instructional videos. The photo quality leaves much to be desired, but for descriptional purposes only is good enough. I think it will be a good tool helping me with the blog. And paid it only about 110 €. I just try to be conservative with the digital gear. If I'd be a bit more conservative with the analog gear, probably it wouldn't hurt, too. But that's another story.

Mitja

Film Matter: Kodak, what's next?

We have already became accustomed to various news from Kodak. Some time ago, they stated film manufacturing is one of the few remaining profitable sectors. Then, they said they will discontinue slide film production, but will keep the remaining film product line alive. Then the last news is they intend to sell the film business simply because they need to clear their 660M$ debts. I think Kodak behaves much like a ship without compass. How much of this misbehavior is due to Antonio Perez' leadership is another question and not the most crucial one. But it is very sad if we should witness the final decay of such a glorious brand and more importantly, their excellent line of film products! In case they sell the film line, we can only hope they sell it to a responsible owner, taking care and advantage of their glorious emulsions like TriX, Ektar, TMax and others! And the bottomline question: are you ready for the next news from Kodak?

Film Matter: The Impossible 8x10 Film is launched!

Dear Readers,

I am sure all of you have (at least) heard about the efforts made by the team of the Impossible Project. Some of you are also using their products already. These people made a terrific effort in bringing back the instant integral film, once Polaroid products went away for good. Although on a small budget and on a very short deadline, they made it happen. And they made it happen once again! Today they started selling the 8x10 film-not the old Polaroid stock, but from their own production! Yes, they have been already working on the ultra-large format 20x24 film, jointly with the 20x24 studio, but that's a niche product par excellence, given also its prohibitive price... Instead, the 8x10 film is meant to be affordable to a larger number of photographers, albeit it won't be cheap (but still cheaper than old Polaroid stock). Here is their brief description about the film.

An "official" test shot made on the new film. Photo by Jennifer Trausch, retrieved from http://www.the-impossible-project.com

I must admit, I have never been particularly interested in instant film, especially not in integral instant film, due to its drawbacks. Only lately, I quite fell in love with the peel-apart ("pack") film made by Fuji and used on an old Polaroid Land camera. But that's another story for another day. In the meantime, we can just wish the Impossible Team will make their product prices more affordable.
Mitja

Portfolio of the Week: Anna Gawlak

Dear Readers,

It's a pleasure to be back after a hiatus! This week we feature a young self-taught Polish photographer, Anna Gawlak, from Krakow. Her analog photographic journey is relatively short, time-wise, but nevertheless, her talent is so obvious. She works in both 35 mm and medium format using her Canons T70, T90, AE1, and a Kiev 60.

By her own words: »I really don't know why I take a pictures. I suppose that is for me like a spinning a tale: spooling a film, snapping photographs, composing them... The narrative about calmness and naturalness. Calmness is more than lack of movement - I cannot stop searching it everywhere I am. Searching the naturalness means trying to pick out what is true and simple in the world - I cannot stop doing it.
But, first and foremost, my own story is about big, big love. I love the world: light, colour, contrast, symmetry, trees, tasty food, buildings, doors, feet, ankles, eyes. I love the human being. Everywhere I am - I cannot stop searching.
And all that makes the simple pleasures of life.
I like a film because I like learning new things. And learning to be patient belongs to them. 36 photos... it is very much!:) Besides, when I have to do 36 images I must be and I want to be more sensitive.«

It's just so good to hear over and over again how people get sentimental when using film, and Anna's position is also very philosophical, I think. I think also that her photos are very much zen-like, a celebration of simplicity in the best sense. Anna's work can be found on Flickr and Thumblr.

All photos copyright: Anna Gawlak