What’s it all about?

This photo site is by Michael Waite, Sydney based artist, photographer and teacher. It is run pretty much to entertain myself & I put up whatever interests me at the time. It is not intended to be one of those blogs that gets updated every day. At best I will do a post or two a week and sometimes I won’t add anything for a month or so as I give priority to other projects.

Most of the photos you can click on to see a larger version in another tabbed window.

The title comes from something I read in a book about Andrey Tarkovsky’s Polaroids. In the introduction by Tonino Guerra he tells that he was with Michelangelo Antonioni, scouting locations in a remote area of Uzbekistan. Antonioni made a polaroid portrait of three elderly locals, then offered them the print. One of them looked at it and then handed it back, asking “Why stop time?”

Jan 2008 outside Bellas Artes in Mexico City, taken by one of the local Polaroid portrait photographers. This guy lay on the footpath & instructed me to stand very still. He used the flash to expose me & kept the shutter open for a couple of seconds to get the ambient light.

27 Nov ’08 – Hallelujah- I finally worked out how to disable that annoying snapshots window that kept popping up. Hopefully that’s the last we’ll see of them.

Movies (trying to keep a list of the best films I’ve seen)

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie – John Cassavetes

Fat City – John Huston

French Connection (I love the available light locations)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1950s)

Straight Time (based on the novel ‘No Beast So Fierce’ by Edward Bunker)

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah independent production)

The Killers (1964)

Pickpocket – Robert Bresson (1959)

A Man Escaped – Robert Bresson (1956)

Mouchette – Robert Bresson (1967)

Chungking Express – Wong Kar Wai

The Wrong Man – Hitchcock

Processing Data (this is for my reference but feel free to use it)

Agfa glass negs: 15ml benzo, 8ml Rodinal, 700ml water, 20 min at 20 deg C first 10 min agitate every min for 10 secs, 10-15 min stand, 15-20 aigitate 10 sec every min. water pre soak at 20 deg.

HP5 4×5 at 400 ISO, Xtol 1:1   12 min at 20 deg C

Delta 3200 120 at 1600 DDX 9.5 mins at 20 deg

Tri-X 400 Xtol 1:2   10.5 min at 20 deg

Tri-X 400 at 320 Rodinal or Adonal 1:50 13 mins

Forte 400 Xtol 1:1   12 min at 20 deg

Fomapan 200 (120)  Xtol 1:1  8.5 min at 20 deg

Efke 50 (120)  Rodinal 1:50  9.5 min at 20 deg

Neopan 400 Xtol 1:2  12.5 min at 20 deg

Neopan 400 Rodinal 1:50 10 min at 20 deg

Neopan 1600 Rodinal (RO9) 1:50 12 mins at 20 deg, (not 8 min as given in most data)

Fuji Acros 100 (120 & 4×5)  Rodinal 1:50  10 min at 20 deg

Tmax 400 Xtol 1:2  10.5 min at 20 deg = 1 stop pull.  12.5 min for normal

 

 

 

Fantasy Art Collection

On Kawara – date painting

Laurence Aberhart – photogragh

Modigliani – painting (nude)

Seurat – drawing

Linda Connor – Benares photo

Andre Kertesz – Martinique photo

 

 

Music I heard on the radio & liked

Richard Strauss – German Motet (Latvian Radio Choir and Accentus)

Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor, Op 30 (Adelaide Symphony Orchestra)

Palestrina Missa Ut re mi fa sol la: Agnus Dei (Danish National Vocal Ensemble)