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Boston, LA, Back to Maine - Agfapan APX 400 - Late 2019, Early 2020

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Boston, LA, New Orleans, Back to Maine - Agfapan APX 400 - Early 2020

There’s nothing quite like exploring a (relatively) unfamiliar city.

Boston should be more familiar to me -- I grew up two hours away from it. For about six months I’d go down every saturday to an extracurricular at MIT, then do Boston School of Rock. A couple years later I spent three weeks learning to make a guitar there — It’s a shit guitar. I mean I love it but it’s kinda shit. At any rate I stopped through the city on my way back to LA this year I think I did last year? Maybe it was two years ago. I can’t remember -- admittedly my brain/sense of time has kinda gone to shit (NB: I wrote this bit pre-covid -- my sense of time’s just gotten worse since then).

I got to the city fairly early on the Tuesday to basically just wander and shoot while I waited for a friend - the same friend who I visited last time I stopped through Boston - Shout out Andy - hopefully we’ll get to go do beers again soon.

At this point I’m working on my eventual giant stupid lab report or “what I learned shooting” on Agfapan APX 400 (original, german made, not the Harman/Kentmere stuff) -- I developed all of this in their/all the fucking stupid old mens’ forum’s favorite for it - Rodinal Spezial, which I will refer to as “spezial” from here on out to avoid confusion with Rodinal (which I also tried). They’re actually very different developers - the branding/naming is wildly unhelpful. I’m not enamoured of it, even though it has like a six minute development time at 20ºC. If you bother to read the safety sheet, it looks pretty similar to the modern Rollei RPX developer (which kinda tracks when theoretically RPX is the modern successor to APX), and HC-110 which I’ve never seen straight prints/scans from that I’ve particularly liked - setting aside Brendon Holt’s work on film -- also I’ve come round a bit more - HC-110 does also tend to look really good with kodak 400tx/Kodak Tri-x.

I pushed everything to 800 for safety. It’s alright? Like overall it’s okay and the photos are still solid but I’ve gone on to shoot more of the film and process in xtol 1:1 -- and frankly - it’s preferable by a long shot - the film bows way less than it normally does in the Spezial, less grainy, has a sharper edge to it - likewise if or when I run the film in standard Rodinal I’d expect quite a bit of grain - (it’s an old tech film) - but general sharper or edgier results (look for that further down).

Anyway, I decided to run all around Boston, Boston proper mind you -- for those unfamiliar with the area, the “city” of Boston is really made up of like 100 (exaggerating) smaller cities. I basically made a giant loop through the north end, and met up with Andy at the end of the day near Boston College. There wasn’t much light at that point so I don’t have too many photos from there on.

As much as Boston is an Old Colonial city, I honestly find that I tend towards shooting the skyscrapers and the brutalist public structures that crowd the main business district. I definitely shot less than I thought I would on this trip/visit, even given a whole day - in fairness I’ve gotten a lot choosier about the shots that I take.

Also in the spirit of changing stuff up, I tried to employ a looser/faster shooting style and more hipshooting to continue to push my previsualization skills -- also to try and feel out what shooting more like Moriyama feels like. I think I got mixed results. It felt okay at first, and there’s a bunch of stuff I do like, but I’m not 100% how I feel about the whole thing -- I think if I’d picked a developer or a contrast ratio that was a bit punchier and gave the photos a harder edge that might’ve helped some. Food for thought.

In other notes this is still a fairly early outing for me with the Minolta Rokkor-x w 35mm f/1.8 - though still equipped to the ever-constant Minolta XD-11. Some of the compositions are a little awkward, I’m still kind of wrapping my brain around the lens - I haven’t or hadn’t really gotten it under my fingers or in my brain all the way, but overall the look or angle of view has grown a lot on me. That said, I think I’d prefer the 1.4 of my 50mm than the 1.8 of the 35mm - I know that’s like ⅓ stop distinction but when it gets dark that ⅓ seems to make a world of difference - or like you’d be shocked at that difference.

I shot the film at 1600 and 3200. Not much better — take a look above and below for examples.

I’ve later come around and decided to merge this with my review overall of APX 400, and my return to maine photoblog - because it hasn’t really been all that long, and it’d be a really short post otherwise.

I think if I learned anything shooting the APX it’s that some film is just straight up dogshit awful - like theoretically there are good photos but like whatever. I feel like it’s worth noting that even the kenmere/harman (Agfaphoto APX 400) version of the emulsion is also terrible - and wildly expensive.

I basically packed all my shit up in about a week before lockdowns went into full/heavy effect in LA and then fucked off home back to Maine because, believe it or not, before covid, I was actually pretty tired of LA - no disrespect to anyone currently living there or from there - I just couldn’t hack it there anymore for my own personal reasons - it’s nobody’s fault but my own. I’ve wrapped up a few projects - which may or may not see the light of day.

Pretty quick after getting back to maine (and quarantining indoors for two weeks) - I scored up a camera kit containing a Minolta Rokkor MC-II 58mm f 1.2 (and some other bits) - to sell - which had some issues, but overall has performed fine - but I used that along with some of the APX 400 to finish testing it - I’m still definitely going to be selling it - I still prefer the MC PG Rokkor 50mm f/1.4 - for a 50ish lens length if for no other reason than familiarity, and that I personally believe my copy is magic - even though I seem to have really switched to 35mm in a big way. 

The final variable is that the last three rolls I did of APX 400 were in Renatto Repetto’s Coldinal Method - stand at 2hrs 1:50 +/- 40ºF --- and quite frankly that’s probably the best in terms of tonality that the film does. That said, it’s a medium/high speed film, in rodinal, and that just ruins any kind of reproducibility at any size bigger than 3x5 or 5x7 if you’re being really generous. And I’m not usually a stickler for technical capability in film - though I did love acros (original acros, not acros II - It doesn’t look the same no matter what anyone tells me - the tonal scale is distinctly different), when it was still alive and available. Honestly, there’s nothing I do with the original agfapan apx 400 that isn’t basically garbage - Will Hopkins (who’s got a travelogue in the works for us) seems to have had great results - so I dunno, but personally, between the flat and strange (strange bad) tonality, and the fucking miserable bowing that the film does, making it flat out soulcrushing to scan, I will never buy another roll of it to shoot myself, even if I can get it for cheap. Actually, if I were going to shoot another “budget” option it’d probably be a fomapan. They look nice, and dry flat - which makes it a clear pick if you want to buy a lot of film cheap - and you employ a scanning/hybrid method.

APXSpezial20200415_0661.jpg

Anyway. Thanks for giving this a read - really the words (and gear talk) is just here to push my seo ranking, so thanks, and sorry for any bloviation. If you like the content, subscribe to our patreon, throw me a donation, or pick up a zine - if you subscribe or donate all the funds go towards hosting content, rather than help me recoup from projects. 

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Houston, Texas (Going Places) - September 2018

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Houston, Texas (Going Places) - September 2018 

This was actually meant to be a print zine, or like a printed photo essay, under the name “Going Places.” 

It was very much about my relationship at the time, and a lot of the anxiety around meeting my ex’s family, what does the future look like, etc. I dunno at a year in that stuff is important. I like way too many of the photos, and the project to shelve the thing in my hard drive, but I also feel weird committing it to print, so the blog here seems like a solid compromise.

I think it’s an important set of photos to share (for me), and maybe one of the bigger steps up in quality/skill level/polish for me. I’m not really inclined to say too much about the project or what I made of the environment or much else, but I’ve structured the groupings/blocks of images in the same order I would’ve had them in the zine.

If you’re really curious as to what the zine would’ve looked like, I can shoot you a PDF copy, you can find my contact over on the contact page.

The other thing to note is that this is the last batch of photos I willingly mixed film stocks on. From this point forward, if I used different film stocks on a project or trip it’s because I ran out midway through shooting and needed more/backup, etc. I like all the different films/looks here but really, honestly, I would’ve been better off with a more cohesive overall tone.

Notes for film community folks (that non-film shooters know is pretty unimportant): 

All the color film is Fuji Superia 800. I think the greens actually look really good here, and the speed/grain fits in nicely with setting, and was really useful. I shot it at box speed.I’m working on a review of Superia 800/1600 (NB: Natura 1600 is Superia 1600) and what the viable replacements in the current market are. Hopefully I’ll have that up next week.

The black and white is really where I got into the weeds/into trouble. First of all, alternating color and black and white is really not working for me these days -- like a year later -- it hasn’t been that long -- but I ended up mixing three types of black and white film, with acceptable, but not cohesive results. The imagery itself is fine, but because I waffled around too much the feeling drifts. I think this was one of the first big outings I had with Agfapan APX 100, left un-pushed in post -- which is actually probably the look I’d prefer for the thing. I think the next black and white I shot was one of my few remaining rolls of Acros in 35mm, but pushed to 400 because 1. You can push Acros to 400, and 2. It looks good pushed, and because of the amount of time I was spending in the car, having those extra two stops really helps, when you’re shooting up at 1/500 or 1/1000. I think I had the common sense to bring one roll of Bergger Pancro 400, I know I pushed it to something fast, either 800 or 1600, but I couldn’t tell you off hand. Despite being very different films on paper, the contrast of Pancro 400 when pushed hard matches well with Acros at base, and even more so, when pushed -- I have a hard time telling the difference between the images made from those two emulsions from relatively small images.

Camera details: 

Minolta XD-11 and Rokkor PG-MC 50mm f/1.4. This is where I started to really lean into the “One Camera, One Lens” philosophy, at least as far as travel photography is concerned. The second trip to the Huntington is what really finalized that for me. 

Thoughts on the location:

Texas is weird. Or as Yankee scum I find it weird. It’s probably actually pretty normal.

For more e-zines and regular zines, please pick up a print zine in the shop!

Going Places

Downtown Los Angeles -- 11/18//1/19

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Los Angeles 11/18//1/19

My primary mode of image making (yeah, I know it’s cringy to put it that way, or I find it cringy) -- generating work? -- is to go walk around and look or hunt for for sights or landscapes to adequately express both my own feelings and thoughts, with the feeling of the place integrated into that. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t. I’d wager most of what I do ends up getting buried on my hard drive or dumped here -- not because it’s bad, but because I feel like it’s just better viewed as a large dump of images, and it’s not necessarily my “strongest” or most directly competitive work. But I still think a lot of it is neat, and I like to get into the habit of sharing stuff so it doesn’t completely rot away on my hard drive. Also notably most of that day-to-day practice is shot in and around Downtown Los Angeles, so this is maybe two of my more serious, more real sets or studies, on an area I shoot often.

Walk 1: I try and shoot the Bonaventure.

So here’s (I guess a re-do) of part of my Agfapan APX 100 review -- broken into two primary walks. The first walk was with the Minoltina AL-S (I mean another re-do review?) -- up into a part of downtown or the financial district I haven’t really explored too much before -- ideally to get a good shot of the Bonaventure -- but also to kind of explore the corporate parks that seem to crop up around the financial district. I know public space seems to be required for a lot of zoning laws here in Los Angeles, but I’m slowly slipping into the opinion that I’d rather have a real park be easily accessible via direct taxes on those buildings and have it well maintained than some weirdo corporate park that, unless you’re willing to hunt for it, nobody knows exists. Unless the corporate parks are private property that exist for no discernable reason aside from some kind of vanity.  It’s a strange phenomena, and I’ve only ever seen it in Los Angeles. Food for thought.

For the camera -- I dunno. I’ve inherited another couple “compact” rangefinders between last year and this one -- I’d wager it’s getting dangerously close to a year since I shot the first batch of photos -- the AL-s is really actually a nice rangefinder given that it’s compact, cheap etc. The frame-lines are pretty accurate (if there’s only one set of framelines is it frameline?) and on top of that the finder itself has breathing room around the lines, which to me, is the single biggest advantage to shoot rangefinder over SLR. There are other advantages, but being able to see what’s around your image while looking through the finder is a huge plus, and it made me second guess a lot of these photos way less than I would normally at that point in time.

The film itself -- on that first trip/walk I know shot at 100 I developed all the Agfa APX 100 in Rodinal 1:50 and pushed to somewhere between 160 and 240 via semi-stand development (agitate normally the first 3 minutes, then 1-2 gentle rotations every third minute) The look is pretty good, or like I like the baseline, but it’s grainer than I’d hoped it would be, or like I wish I’d gotten more grain masking -- though I wonder if that only comes into play via true stand development. Either way, I was happy or proud enough to go see an area near my house (apartment) I rarely if ever actually go explore or see. In it of itself there’s no strong feeling or thought here, but it’s interesting enough to warrant posting up.

Walk 2: the one where I get a cold, but it’s worth it because it never rains here, and I get to capture Downtown Los Angeles in exactly as depressing and cold a manner as it feels, figuratively.

Yeah basically read the title on that one. I dunno. I was saving this and the last one for the megabus I was going to called “bury me in LL Bean” but I’ve nixed that project. It’s super fucking narccistic to think I actually need or deserve a retrospective of the last five years (almost six?). I dunno, I’ve gotten significantly better but it’s not like I’m a big enough deal, even in my own mind these days, to warrant any kind of retrospective.

(APX 100 1:50 to the left, Tri-x 1600/3200 below)

So much belated, this is probably the last chapter of that five year period. Unimportant as it is. I’m sure I need to purge it somewhere. So why not here, on the home of Wasteland Books, which is simultaneously a zine and or idea graveyard for myself, and maybe a platform too. Have y’all bought anything? 

Anyway, I tried to keep a consistent profile across the walk, which, after my camera (I was running with the XD-11) got shorted out -- and started having extreme technical difficulties -- I was stuck shooting the built in mechanical shutter at 1/100 and crutched at f/4 -- which while not  particularly slow or particularly wide open, is still less control than I’d ideally like to have had. And the camera still went ersatz again towards the end. Notably I did throw in a roll of Kodak Tri-X pushed to 1600 or shot at 1600 and pushed to 3200 (either way in xtol 1:1) in the mix, along with a roll of Kodak T-max 100, developed in rodinal 1:100, in my then totally crippled camera at the very end, because I’d finally burnt the XD-11 to the ground.  (Agfapan APX 100 1:50 Below)

You’d think the repair techs at my local camera shop would be happier to see me back as often as I was during that period. Mostly they seemed annoyed Which I guess is also fair -- the XD-11, according to them at least, is pretty miserable to fix. 

Again, I encountered more corporate parks on that walk. Or I guess because it’s attached to government buildings, government corporate parks. Just badly designed civic features. Most of my focus was on banal tired construction and the undercurrent streets between downtown and chinatown. This was also before I figured out canned air was a thing, and at this point I can’t really be bothered to re-scan everything, as this is now non-essential or competitive work.

So that’s downtown in the rain, or around the rain. A bunch of good photos, and photos that’d probably otherwise be clipped out. It’s basically just a way for me to show work in progress.

Overall, I like my results, give or take some fallibility. I also prefer the look of one developer/film combo, one lens, etc, over shooting a smorgasbord all at once, but it’s okay here. I do really love the inky black you can pull out of Agfapan APX 100. 

If you like this content or even just want to support me please buy something in the shop. 

(T-max 100 below)

Return to the Huntington -- November 2018

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Return to the Huntington

The Huntington is by far one of my favorite places in Los Angeles — I actually have an earlier less organized set on this blog from my first trip around the Huntington — Clickthrough here. I mean, I know The Huntington Gardens and Library, etc, are in San Marino, which is really just Pasadena, which is really just Los Angeles. Go Figure. I’m not really a huge history buff, so I’m far far too unqualified to talk much about the history, but the whole thing is pretty fascinating. I’m not usually a fan of collectors or flexers, but The Huntingtons really knew how to do it right -- Money can’t buy taste -- but it helped. 

Before I met up with my father for lunch, I took a brief walk  around Downtown LA, near my apartment, and met him at his hotel -- which is by far one of the oddest most surreal places I’ve been to in LA (I stayed there while my building was fumigated two ish years ago -- the Hotel isn’t even one of the most mysterious or haunted ones in Downtown, but again another story/photo series for another day…) I did some street-ish photography, and met up with my father to get coffee before we had lunch.

After lunch, my father and I picked up Kristina and headed over to the Huntington. This round I walked around the grounds of The Huntington Library and Gardens was much different experience — I was going with other people. It was a very different experience roaming the grounds on a weekend, and with other people but not unenjoyable at all. It definitely was good to be able to compare thoughts on the gardens, and the art with other people. The grounds were magnificent as ever, and this round I even saw some interiors (not pictured here).

I believe (rough guess) The route we took was as follows: We Entered normally, cut through some of the grounds, skipped going into the greenhouse and back to the Mausoleum (which, let’s be honest is a pretty awesome way to stunt while grieving). Then travelled through the Chinese Garden (something my father is immensely fascinated with -- gardening, and to a lesser extent, the design and planning that goes into the elaborate Chinese style gardens and grounds.) Then through the Japanese Garden -- took a water break -- it was really unseasonably hot that November/October.

Shooting the Chinese and Japanese gardens were a bit of a challenge this round -- I quickly found that because of the abundance of tourists, I had to be very careful while shooting to get the shots I wanted -- and that within limited reach, I really couldn’t use a wide angle like I had done the last time. So, as has become the standard I slapped my Rokkor 50mm MC PG 1.4  onto the Minolta XD-11 pretty quickly, and it stayed there all day. The only other equipment note I can bother to give here is that everything you’re seeing was shot on Agfapan APX 100 during my test-period for that film. I think some of these photos have my favorite look I’ve ever seen/shot -- I know that for sure while the lighting helped the photos, I was using Rodinal 1:50, semi-stand, pushed to 160, and I think that really “made” the photos. I think while the gardens are colorful, after the major floral bloom it looks much more compelling in black and white too. Everything was scanned through the Epson V600 -- you can read my opinions on that here. That’s gonna be the end of me talking tech/equipment shit here -- there’s really not much else to say.

If you weren’t aware, the Huntington Gardens are large and sprawling complex. After we wrapped up our water break, we headed for the Desert Garden which was of particular interest to my father -- who, I believe if he ever retires, will likely move to a desert of some kind -- provided it has mountains. By this time, we were starting to get the really beautiful diffuse late-day light, you sometimes get in southern California, that’s somewhat like golden hour, but isn’t quite. Word salad I know, but bear with me here. By far the Desert garden is the most interesting garden, or at least it looks the most totally alien.

We walked the Desert Garden end to end, and headed on to the Lilly pond -- Which was likely the only place in the Gardens that day that I felt like the Agfapan APX 100 wasn’t quite fast enough -- don’t get me wrong; I really like the photos I got from it (that I’m presenting here) but some of them felt kinda jank while shooting. Like they worked, and I got more or less what I wanted, but it’s not *quite* optimal. After scaling up the hill, we worked our way back across the grounds once more and then ended up back at the main Mansion, and I suppose one of the three main art galleries. The collection they had was, is? Really impressive, specifically their portraiture gallery. Definitely food for thought for a portrait project. I should’ve taken photos inside, but lacked the film I needed to do it right.

It was late in the day once we’d finished up in the Mansion we were about ready for dinner. We exited out onto the lawn and walked the grounds, down to the Fountain. It’s long been on my must return to/to shoot areas, but that day was not in the cards for me shooting -- there were actors doing some community theatre tier play or something on the lawn, which made it near impossible to get the shots I wanted. So I grabbed a couple last shots of the statues and we all filed out back to the car, and headed for dinner at MHZH over in Silverlake.

There’s not much real technical photographic takeaway here -- maybe label your film so you know you need to push a roll or two differently than the rest. The real takeaways I got were as follows: a 50mm is more than enough lens for you for most applications. Just get clever. And carrying around a giant-ass or even medium-ass sized camera bag sucks, especially when you’re out with non-photographers and you’re really just trying to enjoy your day out, but also get some good shooting done, because you’re a compulsive shooter. Honestly, I had a very nice day shooting and walking, but I think it would’ve been dramatically improved for everyone had I not been toting that stupid bag.

Anyway, if you’ve enjoyed this content -- please pick up a zine or shirt in the shop. Every purchase helps keep the lights on here.

Thanks!

Andrew.

What I learned shooting... #4: Agfapan APX100 (35mm)

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A thorough review and overview of one of the last batch of Agfapan APX100 in 35mm. Tested primarily with the Minolta XD-11, and Rokkor MC-PG 50mm 1.4 lens, and to a lesser extent the Minoltina AL-s. Primary Developers used were Kodak Xtol, and Rodinal.

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