Pictures from Mexico with a Rolleiflex 2.8F -- and getting films on an airplane safely!
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 25 июн 2024
- I made a trip. I learned a valuable lesson. I teach a valuable lesson.
New x-ray machines at airports:
thedarkroom.com/bringing-film...
I've learned that I never take really good shots when I'm travelling with my family. There's always compromises and considerations to be made, so my mind isn't where it needs to be for the concentration required. I get round it sometimes by getting up really early and heading out while everyone else is still sleeping; often the best time for photography anyway.
Another great video Ari.
I have the very same experience. Like dinners -- "let's find a nice restaurant and have a dinner at sunset" --- yeah, right :-)
Another great video.
I love the beach voleibol and the café pictures.
But that stack of books on the piano is mesmerising 🤣
Thanks, and thanks for watching. The books are from a parallel reality.
You got some great shots in the end. I especially enjoyed the backlit cafe scene. I think it’s inevitable that traveling with others who aren’t keen photographers themselves makes it extremely tough to do artistically satisfying work. It’s just too selfish an activity. I say spend time with your family and surreptitiously scout locations you can revisit, alone, when the lighting is better anyway. You won’t be burdened all day with gear, fear of its theft, etc.
This is a very good advice. There is a time for everything.
That _is_ good advice. I remember doing the same in Venice, the last day I woke up at 4.30am to get to an empty San Marco Square with great light, while the rest of my family was still asleep.
I somehow love the leaning pile of books on top of the piano!!!
:-)
It remembers me coming back from a holiday trip with wine and food I very much liked where I spent time under the sun and nice trees and foreign scents. But at home, everything tasted different and not so good and it didn't match the palatal memories I had. So it may be with pictures you take under a particular sky and sun and mood and you don't like them once you are at home and you look at them without the ambiance and feelings you lived when you took them. Maybe some contemplation that finds your consideration ... Oh, by the way, some very nice photos once again! Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, our brain is a mysterious thing. It doesn't preserve reality as it happened.
Even before you said “in the U.K.” I knew it would be the U.K. A few years ago I travelled back from Beijing via Uzbekistan and at no point did I have any problems having my films hand searched. Travelling from Heathrow, London to Glasgow, the male baggage check operative rather sneeringly forced me to put my exposed films through the x-ray. Welcome to the U.K.
So here we go ;-)
I send the film on and return by post, seems to work out well. Thanks for your brilliant RUclipss.
Thanks, thanks!
Don't be so harsh on yourself, Ari. You know very well that the process of taking a picture as much as important as the result.You have enjoyed it. Haven't you? Seems like enough for me...
Very true. I had an excellent trip!!!!
Sounds like you had a great time in Mexico with your family. I'm waiting for the sequel!...😀
Me too :-)
I haven’t flown since 2000 (a different world) but even back then I was careful to ask for hand screening of my film. Returning from England, the stress of the airport and getting through security caused me to completely forget that I’d handed over my film… I didn’t realize until 5-10 minutes later and went running back to recover the entire photo record of my three week trip, which included castles, final visits with family members, and some closeups of Prince Charles. That near miss experience still haunts me.
As much as I agree with the point you’re making about how the novelty of a situation can make everything look overly interesting, I think the example photos you presented are *far* above tourist photos. All of those have a certain beauty and show thought in how they were shot. So while I’m in favor of being our own harshest critic, calling these just messy tourist photos gives unjustly generous praise to tourists.
It’s a funny thing: RUclips is saturated with film photographers who film themselves taking tourist snapshots that they present as finely crafted masterpieces just because they were recorded on film, while the better photo-tubers like you shoot beautiful work and present them as tourist snapshots! You are a *very* fine photographer and it shows even in the photos that aren’t what you’d hoped.
The street with the fanning wires above particularly stands out to me, and the only thing messy about it is the unavoidably prominent presence of uninteresting modern cars. Cars aside, it reminds me a lot of Mexico photos I’ve seen for sale by a very experienced old large format photographer I’m aware of. The shot of the trees against the ocean is reminiscent of (but maybe a little less messy than) some of Brett Weston’s late-career Hawaii work. I think you comprehended those scenes better than you realize, because that subject matter looks undeniably more chaotic and random when shot by someone who truly doesn’t comprehend the scene and have an idea what to do with it. Of course whether you like them or not is another matter.
Interestingly, the shots you single out as the strong ones appear less thought out to me than the ones you call messy. The people sitting in a dining area have an ugly car with a prominent emblem peering from behind their knees in the center of the frame, and my eye goes straight to it and gets stuck there. Another car is cut off mid-tire on the right edge. This is a random and chaotic image to me, so your reaction to it perplexes me, especially in the context of your dismissal of cleaner compositions as irredeemably messy. We see so differently, even though I very much appreciate how you see overall.
You mentioned that the photos you didn’t like were the result of trying something new that you don’t feel adept at; I wonder if what you don’t like is merely the unfamiliarity-that it doesn’t strike you as an example of “your” work-rather than an actual lack in quality. Maybe it’s less that the photo objectively doesn’t make sense, and more that it doesn’t make sense to you that you shot it? They’re not “right” because you don’t see yourself in them, so you explain them as also being wrong on a more tangible level? Or maybe not, I’m just sharing my reactions as I watch.
I enjoy your minimalist shot of the lone bird over the ocean. I’ve been trying for months to shoot a minimalistic ocean photo with an attractive water texture and tonality, and no distracting elements, and I’ve found this simple goal surprisingly challenging.
Thanks, thanks. For some reason, RUclips doesn't always tell me about new comments. So, very insightful. I need to look at the pictures now again, with your comments in mind, now that there is a little bet time between the trip and now. :-)
This video is a reality check level 10k pro. Thank you! And some of these are way better than the average tourist pic, then of course it’s your taste etc but apart from the pics it’s the entire argument you make here that’s VERY interesting.
Thanks, thanks!!
Point of departure. I heard Ralph Gibson mention this in an interview. I find myself lost if I just go out to shoot without a point of departure. Everything becomes random. Thanks for the fantastic content!!
Very interesting concept. I need to look into it. Thanks!!
"Messy and meaningless," I'm thinking, yeah that's what I don't like about 90% of my photos. You have a way with words my friend!
:-) Thanks! I'm also good at shooting messy and meaningless.
Entertaining and so true. Those books! olympic standard I'd say!
Gotta have books. Gives an educated high-class impression!
nice tip on picking the younger agent - i have not had an issue in Europe with hand scans. back home in the USA even with enhanced ID there can be issues - i always put in a couple high ISO (800+) in the bag in case they try to tell me the scanner is safe - i can point to the high speed films - some complain but at least they do it.
On the way home one trip we were delayed and had a very short time to catch a connecting flight- I forgot to ask for the hand check and my 400 speed film was fogged when I developed it -
My daughter just came home yesterday and brought my other daughters film to me for development. At the airport the security agent got really excited. She said she is an avid film photographer and my daughter showed my Instagram account to the agent. So now the agent follows me on Instagram since yesterday. Needless to say, hand scanning was automatically proposed by the agent. :-)
The problem with the young security personnel is they may have never seen a mechanical camera before. Last autumn at the Helsinki airport they saw these weird boxes full of springs and gears on their scanners (I had a Pentax ME Super and a Meopta Flexaret V with me, along with a couple of digitals and a GoPro) and probably thought they were some kind time bombs and wanted to xray them again separately. They also swabbed them for explosives. Fortunately the cameras were not loaded so the films only got scanned once and were not harmed. On the way back in Croatia, no problem. I had 35mm Fomapan 400 and 120 FP5+ in my hand luggage, neither got visibly harmed by the two scannings.
I like to carry a small, pocket sized digital camera with me all the time on vacations, I use it to take the "tourist pictures", snapping away hundreds of frames during the week. The film cameras I only take with me when I specifically go to take pictures.
I always have my cameras empty for security.
Great video Ari, as always! Your minimanlistic pictures and those shot against the light are stunning, but I also like the touristic pictures a lot. And thank you so much for the information about getting films though TSA control! This is most helpful. I am planning to go (hopefully) on a trip to Denver to attend a conference by the end of May and will add some days off and go to the Rocky Mountain National Park. My idea was to buy the film in the US and to develop it on site, but your method seems reasonable. Still not sure about what camera I should take. The FT-2 for sure, but then perhaps one of the Prakticas as I use the same lenses for the mirrorless cam that I bring anyway. .
At the security belt --- take one camera into you one hand, and your films into the other hand. Then they really get what you are talking about. :-)
Bach score ! thumbs up ! (nice trip report and nearly philosophical ramble, the book tower resembles your feelings, I guess) You have some nice photos from your trip, don't be so sceptical. I myself plan to travel north (at least to Gdansk, Baltic sea) on Sunday and hope to take some seaside winter photos, I think it will be also tourist / travel photos. You make me think how to approach this trip ... I hope too much thinking will not be contraproductive ....
Thanks! Happy traveling to Gdansk. Been there once :-)
I loved your collection of the images you photographed during the trip. Sometimes it's not easy to connect mentally to the new (seems messy) places - I always bypass the first day of my trips and start taking photographs the next day, when my eyes get used to what they see. Deepest I felt it in Ethiopia, even it wasn't a touristic trip. During this trip, I used a few internal flights and it wasn't possible to explain to any young or old person what these film boxes are about.
Same I felt in Prague - she said it's ok and put the film on the screening machine.
Concerning putin - I prefer plan A. I have my family related very close to Kiyev. Some of them already evacuated to Germany, but a small part is not ready to leave the country.
Let's hope Ukraine can hold on and plan A will happen!
Hi Ari. Thanks for always bringing us along for your adventures. IMHO, if you call it “tourists” pictures, the battle is already lost. 🙂 I don’t necessarily think the advice to shoot color is a good one, maybe just a comfortable one. Unless one has the opportunity to stay for a while at the location, I think it’s a lot about doing some prep-work before going. Photo books are always a good source of inspiration. Mexico has many famous film photographers (e.g. Alvarez Bravo…) that took fantastic B&W pictures of their country. Cartier Bresson B&W pictures of Mexico were amazing too. Then also with Google, Flickr and co there are many tools we can use to scout virtually. Another fun approach could be to pickup a guide book with pictures (not always the best) and try the challenge of shooting more interesting pictures of similar subjects. And ultimately if you didn’t take the pictures you wanted, it gives you another good reason to pay a visit to your daughter again 🙂.
I'll take the last suggestion. :-) But seriously, I agree I should have done some homework beforehand.
Even not asking for a hand search I had a guy in Austria who made me take my Leica M6 out of my bag and x-ray it separately on its own tray so it went through that scanner twice. And now you point it out he did look a bit like you! 😃. HP5+ was fine though.
Maybe my distant cousin?
What an interesting and informative video! You've done it again!!! I have two questions for you: Are you ever going to play that beautiful piano for us? and. Are you going to shoot a photograph of that Book Sculpture you have precariously perched on the end of your piano? Thanks again!!!
All the music played in this very video -- and on most of my videos -- I played with the very same piano :-). The book stack -- hmm, a very good idea!
Photography can have many purposes, like adverts, documentary, news, weddings etc. etc. It is much like writing, a car manual is not worse than a detective novel or a personal diary, they are incomparable. If you go on holiday and take pictures as a sort of diary, that is ok. But if one goes on a trip with the expectation to take "fine art" pictures, one should consider that they take a lot of preparation and time, if one doesn't know the place. -- Anyhow, when I view my tourist pictures I remember things that are not visible, like the smell or the weather, what I have done, eaten and seen before and after etc. Those "precious memories" can be triggered by not very good pictures that don't mean anything to other people...
This is so true. Well said!
Ari-this is truly a problem we all face. I get excited about trips and come home with crap! Someone else mentioned the need for a point of departure. To me that means knowing the place well enough to know what I want to come back with and what I want to leave there. Going on a trip scrambles my brain with too much information. Also…you’re dead on concerning security in UK airports! While the UK people are lovely, the security staff in their airports are absolute bullies!
During these times of crisis I just want to say we are not only supporting Ukraine in the fight against real tyranny, but also thinking of our friends in countries bordering Russia-thinking of you and Finland, Ari.
Sean, yeah, traveling is cool, but combining tourism and photography: not that simple.
Slavi Ukraine! We are living awful times. Russia attacks and starts a war -- just like -39, -58. -68, 79, 2014 -- and now, suddenly 2022. Absolutely unacceptable. My heart goes for Ukraine. As for what comes to Finland, it is scary close!
I would really have loved to see some pictures of frozen lakes in Mexico.
Next time!
Curious if that is you playing Steely Dan on that piano in the background of your set for this video? :)
Yes :-)
Well, I hear the whistle but I can't go, I'm gonna
Take her down to Mexico, she said oh no
Guadalajara won't do
More images needed! using a Rollei a mistake! I have one. S L O W ! Mexico is Color in super sense. A small digtal would really been better.. I love film but the problems of X-Ray, airport security made me go digital.. Phone for Family (Facebook forbidden) Daughter's Law. So quickies are fun, smaller obsolete digitals make life fun and wonderful. Nice video.
Thanks, thanks. For digital, i have my phone. But it is --- well, not really engaging to me.
Berlin's "new" airport - BER - is *terrible*. The hand screening X-ray guy said no, called over *two* Polizei, and they also refused to hand screen my films. Now, I will mention I shot a LOT of film in Berlin - enough to fill the US one gallon ziplock bag I brought over for this exact purpose. The airport screener guy said "it will take too long to check all of these films". He talked to the Polizei and they just repeated what the screener said. Meanwhile, in the amount of time the screener guy and the Polizei spent telling me no and talking amongst themselves they could have actually hand checked my bag of exposed film. I love Berlin; I really do. But that airport is an unmitigated disaster. Oh, and the only time I flew in/out of England was through Gatwick and they hand checked my film no problem!
You are being to hard on youself, example the horse back riders & church (both were framed). Years from now if you and the family viewof these, it will likely nring back fond memories. Thanks for sharing.
:-) Maybe so, dunno.
I liked your pictures better than you did. Consider the first three... The first one, I thought the house was interesting and atmospheric. I thought the geometry of the wires was interesting in the second one. I think the third one just needed to be cropped. Now, I freely admit that the images you singled out were better. And the one with the boat with the sun directly above it was breathtaking. But there is no sin in taking a picture that is less than perfect. But at least, I like to tell myself that.
Thanks, thanks. Interesting. I need to take a look at them again. I remember taking the first shown picture, the interesting house, and thinking exactly like you: interesting geometry and structure. But then, it was so much more interesting live than on film. ....
That pile of books is looking increasingly precarious.
This what Ilford says about the new scanners: 'Advice for Airport X-ray scanners: Film & papers
We are working with the DFT and Heathrow airport in the UK and will shortly be updating our information relating to the new CT type x-ray scanners being installed at major airports worldwide.
Based on our initial testing it is almost certain the new CT type x-ray scanners for cabin baggage will be deemed unsafe for any of our ILFORD and KENTMERE film products irrespective of ISO speed rating.
You must therefore ask for hand inspection of your films if the airport is using one of the new type scanners. We will be issuing more specific advice as we complete our testing and evaluation.'
I hope they educate security personnel well enough. In the UK, I mean. Ilford is a UK company :-)
@@ShootOnFilm Oh, I doubt it.
...again the bookstack on your piano, waiting for the big fall...released by a small fly.
no, no --- have a little faith :-)
@@ShootOnFilm I like the random nature and precariousness of that stack well enough that, were it mine, I'd take a well considered photo of it. Reminds me of some geological formation that sooner or later will collapse into dust. But then, I don't have to go to Mexico to find disappointment in my photography....
I think the problem lies in contradicting goals: Vacationing with the family on the one hand and creating great pictures on the other hand. Both at the same time is not really possible, either your family will be set back or the photography will suffer. I think, when you look at your good pictures you're doing at home or at any other places - how much family is intertwined with them? Surely, most of the time your family wasn't even around when you took those pictures. This obviously doesn't exclude the one or other really good picture when having your family around, but that is less the result of effort but of chance. Just my two cents.
Despite my old age - or maybe because of my old age, I'm a fighter against climate change. One effect of this is, that I don't fly anymore. So x-raying film at airports is of no concern to me.
True. And family is more important than pictures. Always.
Ari you are dead right about the UK airports, I am from the UK and and travelled a lot most other countries airports are much better than ours, I have one favourite airport here John Lennon Airport Liverpool,the scousers are a good bunch. Just got my shipping notice for my film in support of Ukraine.
Mick, I maybe just a policy question in the UK -- not an attitude. Dunno. Viva Ukraine!
First!
:-)
Flying with film and airport security, what a joke. You have been lucky, lots of airports I go through have a big suitcasr x-ray scanner at the front door and you have to put all your luggage through that to get into the airport, then another hand luggage scan in the airport, and a final suitcase scanner at customs which again you have to put all hand and check in luggage through again..
Not me. And I’ve flown up to 500,000 miles per year before Covid.
As I watched this video about pictures in Mexico that were painful for you, and the way you were able to find ones with the beauty you were looking for, it occurred to me that perhaps millions of photographers around the world spend significant amounts of time searching for the beauty that the world subtly invites them to find. And then I thought how tragic it is that two of the smallest-minded, most evil human beings to surface on this globe in generations, Putin and Trump, have put us all on the precipice of destruction. That's a picture that is painful for me and I cannot seem to get it out of my head.
Indeed. I find it kinda meaningless and almost wrong to post videos this week.
@@ShootOnFilm It's like there is a vacuum in the world that is centered in Ukraine, and all of our joy and hope is being sucked away into that void of burning hell created by Putin. If it weren't for my faith that God remains in charge of all that happens on this wobbly earth, I'd really feel bad.
Why lug around a huge, old fashioned camera then take dreadful images with it!!
Because! -- many reasons: life is too short for easy things, mistakes are more fun than success, Leonardi Da Vinci designed a helicopter that never flew, and I much rather drive in my 1971 fragile Jaguar than my neighbor'ss 2021 plastic easy Nissan. That's why :-)
Join the human race! Oh, I guess you just did.
:-)
The other reasonably safe/reliable way to get your film to and from your vacation is by mail (or courier service, like UPS, FedEx, or DHL). Mail is best, I think -- almost certain to be cheapest, slow but fairly predictable, unlikely to x-ray small packages unless they smell funny, are leaking, or are making noises. Never use DHL to send stuff internationally to the USA; they'll rip you off, and watch out for UPS charging import duty that isn't due (and in the process, adding weeks of customs delay).
Just mail a small box with your film to your destination, either "hold for guest" at a hotel, or in care of the family member or friend you're visiting -- or order your film online (ideally from a vendor local to your destination) and have it shipped there -- and before you come home, box the film (exposed and unexposed) back up and send it to your home. Another alternative for B&W is to include a package of Df96 dry chemical monobath along with the film, bring a developing tank and dark bag in your checked luggage along with some negative pages, process the film in your hotel bathroom or host's kitchen, discard the monobath (most places it can go down a home drain), sleeve the negatives, and pack them and in your check bags (along with the dried tank and dark bag) for the return trip.
Won't solve the issue with distraction and being out of your comfort zone, but at least your film won't be fogged... ;)
Unfortunately, based on our experience, there is no sending anything to Mexico. It just doesn’t work. Packages disappear, are opened and … regardless of the carrier. Unfortunately.
@@ShootOnFilm Yeah. There is that. I keep hearing "move to Mexico, you can live like a king on your (1/3 of what I'm earning now) Social Security." Sure, until stuff like this crops up...