Keeping a loose but consistent schedule has helped us maintain a modicum of sanity over the past eight months. So, while pizza and a movie on Friday evenings has always been a thing for us, it has become nearly sacrosanct in 2020. This week's watch was a film about Moholy-Nagy called "The New Bauhaus". Zwei daumen hoch, Leute.
On Saturday morning, we went for a little photo walk, and I guess thoughts of Moholy had been percolating in my brain subconsciously overnight, because I came back with some rather Bauhausian images.
The instrument of choice this day was the Leica R6.2 with the 60 mm f/2.8 macro lens attached. This is a terrific lens, by the way, one that, in my experience, also pairs very harmoniously with digital sensors. Since it was designed to image up close, you have to be a little careful when focusing on subjects in the distance, but that quirk just serves to promote mindfulness, never a terrible thing.
The weather was crisp, clear and bright, so I grabbed two rolls of medium speed film on my way out the door.
I had a roll of Foma 100 loaded when I made the photograph below. This is a cheapish emulsion made in the Czech Republic and this was my first time shooting it. Very decent results, I would say, and I'll gladly shoot more Foma in the future. What caught my eye in this scene was the door to nowhere about 3 m up. Perhaps this is the smoking area?
By the time I made the next image, I had already blasted through the roll of Foma, and was working on a roll of Ilford FP4+. The Ilford tends to hold the highlights better than the Foma and generally behaves as if there is more silver in the emulsion, if that makes sense. The recommended development time for the Foma was 8 min in HC110 B, while that for FP4+ was 6 min. Being lazy, I decided to develop both rolls at the same time, so I split the difference and went with 7 min.
As we learned from Friday's film, at one point early on, Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind taught photography department at the I.D. in Chicago at the same time. Alas, I was born too late, but through the medium of film, I guess you could say I was inspired in the second degree.
