Retrographic

#1 Introducing Johnny...
Originally uploaded by TSHolen

Oh well, it's been quite a while. I've been trying to think why I haven't written anything lately. I think it is due to a combination of two factors. One being that I am rather struggling with the whole concept of a blog. I am not really completely okay with doing the blogging thing.
The other being that I need to be in a special state of mind to ignore the former factor. These consists of either being hungover or having pressing computer-based work to do, whereas blogging works as an escape from whatever that is. The latter is the case today, as I really should be editing my moving image project.

Our roommate is in the process of moving out. At least we believe so. Cannot know for sure as he has never actually said he's moving out. Our landlady told me ages ago he'd be moving out. Upon asking our other roommate he could tell us that this was not the case, and he told us not to trust what she said. Things started shifting around and we asked the other roommate again (communication with the moving out one: not so great). No, he was not moving out. He'd just bought a drum kit. Things started shifting around even more, and we asked again. Yes, supposedly he was moving out by the end of this week (!). Things started disappearing. Notably a golden statue of a dog (probably not his), the toaster iron (definitely not his) and a whole lot of other stuff from the kitchen. It's difficult to say for certain how long the kitchen stuff's been missing for, seeing as he never did his dishes and kept quite a stack of stuff in his room. What seems to be missing is quite alot of cutlery, predominantly forks (this was also what he enjoyed keeping in his room). Upon making pizzas on friday I noticed the can opener was missing. Sorry, but that's just low. We bought that one, so we know it was indeed not his. At least I learned the pros and cons of trying to pry open a can of tomato pure with a screwdriver. And today we walked into the living room to find the tv missing. Admittedly that actually was his (I think there might be a guy somewhere missing a tv that might defer though), but seriously I think he's watched tv three or four times since we moved in. But hey, a 17 inch tv is not something you'd throw away lightly. Never mind that we're left with a sky subscription and no tv. Oh, but he didn't only take, he also gave. This generosity took the form of a giant mountain of dishes for us to do. Great!


I've been meaning for some time now to write about why I shoot film and not digital. While there are quite a lot of reasons for this, it's tempting to simply say that I get the pictures I want when using film, and maybe that really is the best answer. Oh wait there's more to it than that. In this world of digital-techno-everything it's nice to be able to actually touch and feel the things you are doing. You know the drill, vinyl vs mp3s. Same soup. Further on, one of the things that really fascinates me with photography is to know exactly what's been going on. I like to see the edges where the picture ends and the unexposed borders of negative begins. Somehow this just tells me that the picture exists, it has been taken. It tells me that this person was there and took that picture with that type of camera on that film. Which is nice sometimes. Sometimes you'd like to not know anything about a picture and just wonder how the hell it came to happen, but most of the time I like to know as much as possible. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly why I need this information, but I think has something to do with soul. Hold your horses; nothing religious. Soul in the way that this was created when an imperfect human being with a mechanical device (which has it's flaws!) exposed silver-ions to light and later on put them in some chemicals. A lot of stuff can go fucking wrong within that process. I just know that it was not something mass produced by a machine. There are a lot of variables.
In modern photography, I believe there is a fight between man and machine. Who gets to decide? Who makes the picture? Lets look at the options:


1. Un-electrified camera. No lightmeter, no autofocus, no nothing. 99% Human.
2. Lightmeter in cam.
3. Lightmeter with autoexposure. The camera makes a decision for you(!)
4. Autoexposure and autofocus. The camera decides how to expose and what to focus on.
5. Digital camera with AE and AF. The camera generates the picture. I'm not doing per cents all the way, but I'd say quite alot of control is lost.

As for generally creating an image, somewhere around 0 would be painting and automatically generated images around 6. Now of course, I'm not saying it doesn't matter who actually holds the digital camera, by all means you decide where to point it. And I believe you can pretty much turn off everything save the lightmeter in most digital slr's. You're picture is still only a series of ones and zeros though.
I didn't mean for it to sound like all digital images are shit and created only by the camera. That might be my generalisation, but I don't mean it this strongly.

Moving on; I like to be able to use the cameras and lenses that your parents merely could dream of having when they were my age. There are such a serious shitload of analogue cameras and lenses out there, it seems pretty stupid not to make use of them.

I really like being able to choose what film to use and what format to use it in. I guess it is pretty hypocritical to have a rant about digital cameras making too many decisions for you and afterwards say that I like to buy this and that kind of film because it gives me these colours/this latitude/this contrast. But I do choose the film though.

One of my absolute favourite photographers Velco Dojcinovski said the following:
"Shooting film today is receiving that handwritten letter from home while your inbox gets flooded with viagra mail"

It's a lot about separating oneself from the bunch isn't it? Today everybody's a photographer. It used to be if you had a DSLR you were kind of the cool guy. Now one in three of the cameras used to take a million pictures of that-girl-and-her-girlfriend-posing-so-hard-I'm-surprised-the-camera-doesn't-break is a dslr. To be entirely honest the sheer amount of pictures being taken these days is enough to suck quite alot of motivation out of me. Everything has been photographed before. The challenge is to do it differently and better. The challenge is in the execution.

And it surely is not about the equipment. At least not only about the equipment. The equipment you own should at least reflect what you wish to use it for. Top end DSLR for taking pictures at parties ??

I work in a photo-store in a shopping mall. At the mall's christmas party we were responsible for bringing the photographic material to be used to bear evidence that the party actually happened (the christmas party is the culmination of the Norwegian (rather heavy) drinking culture), so no guarantees anyone would remember anything. When asked how many disposable cameras to lay out on the tables my boss said the very genius:

"If we lay out three cameras, we get three rolls of film with people's drunken poses. If we lay out ten cameras we get the ten rolls of film with people's drunken poses."

Afterwards suggesting to keep the number of cameras as low as possible.

Anyways I bought the lens. The one I have been wanting for two ages and a half. Yes, it feels good. And no, it does not make as much difference as one always imagines it will when wanting something super strongly. I merely try to point it towards the same things I would normally. I won't rely on my nauseatingly expensive lens to take my picture, but at the same time, if I thought I could create images completely without any tools, I would draw or paint.

I make it a rule to treat the camera as if the film inside is the most valuable part of it. After all it's the only thing that is not easily replaceable.


For me I guess a picture should be the result of a series of conscious decisions, with an accident or two somewhere in between.