Block Copy Coders

Downstairs in the car is a spindle and wrapped through its spiral track a roll of negatives we developed last night at photography class last night Simple stuff I know but it’s plastered a great big grin across my face even though we’ve yet to make the final prints. The process is mostly easy involving dunking the film in and out of various chemicals for set amounts of times.

The hardest part was threading the film onto the spool, it needs to be done in complete darkness. Usually you’d use a bag with armholes in to let you . As this was the first time for all of us the tutor had us all in the darkroom plunged into darkness which was slightly creepy

Very much looking forward to how the prints come out next week. Had a quick squint at some of the prints hanging around made by another class and they looked pretty bad. I hope ours won’t be like that.

Something cool turned up in the post today which I’d forgotten about until. A week or so someone pointed me in the direction of a service that moo.com offer that ties in nicely with your flickr account. Through a very nice interface you can select some of your favourite photos and turn them into mini business cards, up to a 100 different images for $19.99 inc international shipping

They look really cool Thinking of getting a load post wedding with photos of the nuptials on to use as thank you cards You can get your own here.

Picked up a Epson Picturemate 500 last week. They’re pretty cheap but the output is really nice. Means I can print out and frame my own photos which is very nice and exactly what I have done. The printer is the blurry blob in the background

Bought a sketch book, some pens / pencils, prit stick and more photographic paper and got a student discount I’d like to think it was my youthful good looks but the lady in the shop twigged I was doing a photography course

Pretty nice and relaxed weekend made a little bit tense (in a very goodway) by the excellent Children of Men. Some crappy dialogue, a slightly hokey plot but all forgiveable as it also has some of the most amazing and immersive single shot steady cam sequences I’ve ever seen. Long and intricate scenes where the main protagonists are in intense peril as all manner of orchestrated mayhem kicks off around them, I couldn’t figure out what it reminded me off until I got outside of the cinema. Its got a very similar feel to Half Life 2 Stirling work.

Great film though all in all, real dig your nails into the armrests entertainment. I won’t say anything about the plot, slightly disappointing was knowing too much about it already from having seen the review on Film 2006.

And after that white water raft ride of a movie we decided to chill out a bit by watching The Shining

Pretty keen to see The Queen sometime this week though now Suze’s teaching in back in full flow and I’ve started the photography we’re only getting all of Friday evening together during the week. Roll on half term.

Buy it. Completely ace. Finished it yesterday and have been 100%’inf some of the earlier levels for afters. Best game I’ve played for a long time and great fun co-op.

Very much looking forward to the Batman game from the same team

Some practical work last night. We all had to bring along some photographic paper to make some photograms. They’re basically silhouettes made by arranging objects on top of the photographic paper and then exposing your composition to white light. We then developed them. Simple fun stuff but it taught us how to use the projectors and how to make prints. Seeing your print develop and an image slowly appear is really great.

One of the students said that the photographic paper that they’d got from Jessops was the from the last batch they’re planning to get in and they had no plans to sell it once the stock had run down. You could see it made the tutor a bit sad. Outside of this course I can’t see myself ever using film much but from what I’ve seen so far I must admit enjoying the physical process of making prints. Given he’s been at this 20 years now I can see how this sort of change in the his vocation could be hard to move with.

This week the class expanded to include the A2 students, people studying for the 2nd year of their A level. Not sure how the tutor is going cope with a split class but from a purely selfish perspective I’m glad the numbers are weighted heavily in favour of the AS level.

It was also good Jon was there, nice to have someone I knew in the sea of unfamiliar faces

Next week it’s onto taking photos and developing film. I bought a Canon film camera 2nd hand from the Photography shop up on Bedford place and will take a few pics on the them Plant Life over the weekend. I bought a EOS 1000f for £49, no idea if it’s any good or that’s a bargain but the interface is pretty much the same as the Canon digital cameras I’ve used and I can use my lens on it too. Result Took a couple of pictures and muscle memory caused me to look on the back LCD to see what I’d just taken which wasn’t there of course

Had a great few days with this on heavy rotation. And yes, it doesn’t work on paper, a reggae dub cover of Radiohead’s Ok Computer.

Fuck knows how but liberated from Yorke’s vocal these songs have taken on a new lease of life and, in places, a surprisingly uplifting and life affirming quality.

These lyrics:

Let down and hanging around
Crushed like a bug in the ground
Let down and hanging around

I have no idea how they now manage to coax out goose pimples and plaster a great big shit-eating grin all across my face but performed this way, well that’s exactly what they do.

Gyratory awards for delightful and wholly unexpected genius go to Toots & The Maytals and Jr Jazz in particular for Let Down and Subterranean Homesick Alien respectively.

Honestly buy this now. And not from ITMS as previously recommended. Bleep have it for slightly cheaper, better quality and without any DRM nonsense.

Try some of the tracks on the bleep player below

• Box of 50 10×4 Ilford photographic paper
• 125 ISO FP4 black and white film
• Foliage
• A3 sketchbook
• Pen and pencils

Back to photography school tomorrow night

Actually the mrs bought me a pen for class already.

I’m not sure if I have the nerve to take it along

Saturday was aces. First off the SECRET NUCLEAR BUNKER was the closest I’ve ever been to Chipping Ongar, a minor treat particular to my obsessions but somewhere that ranks highly in the pantheon of places I’ve never been but have always studiously wondered about.

Grow up at the other end of the Central Line amidst the many Ruislips (West, South, Manor, Gardens and plain old Ruislip) you can’t help but let your eyes wander along the red lined map to Chipping Ongar, in my young head it’s there the track runs up to and beyond the map’s limit, tube trains tumbling off into an infinite abyss.

It’s in a personal top 5 of places my only understanding of is through hastily driven past signposts or in this case, tube maps. The vacuum of information has got me jumping to ridiculously and obviously wrong assumptions. It’s number 3, the rest below in reverse order:

• 5. Panty Ffynon: I think they have panties there
• 4. Carmarthenshire’s Nanty Caws: some huge staggering sharp clawed Nan, probably knee deep in slithy toves
• 3. Chipping Ongar: see above
• 2. Nether / Middle / Lower Wallop: 24/7 Vic n Bob style punch ups
• 1. Birdworld: off the M3 and packed to the brim with “birds”. In mini-skirts. Probably.

And the SECRET NUCLEAR BUNKER would have made the above list, kicking out number 3, if instead of turning right at the massive signpost blaring SECRET NUCLEAR BUNKER the taxi driver had thundered on to Chipping Ongar.

Unfortunately the train station closed in 1995 making the central line a little bit shorter and a lot more poorer IMHO. I’m sure the kids of Ruislip now stare at Epping when sat and staring at central line map but it just doesn’t carry the same air of mystery that a Chipping Ongar does.

Anyway the bunker, THE SECRET NUCLEAR one. It’s buried in a hill behind a fake cottage. Tina greeted us at the gate and in I went and joined an informative but strangely depressing audio tour. After that Redpoint launched their album Protect and Survive with a live performance deep underground the Essex country side. I like their music quite a bit which I’m sure would still be the case if I didn’t know the people involved.

It’s a lot like Boards Of Canada but with a itchier raw and simultaneously tender side to it. You’ll be able to buy the album soon but you can already download a taster of what’s to come from here where you’ll find the Stay At Home free EP. I like Bipolar best.

Played in dark, accompanied by web harvested videos ranging from asteroids obliterating the earth, arcade machines in slow motion flames and the inevitable mushroom clouds it was oddly emotional, there was a palpable wave of empathetic response rippling through the attendees.

I took a few pictures, they capture none of that, but you can find them here. Hats off to Fuse and Sickboy for organizing such a singularly unique and affecting event.

I hadn’t been all that sociable at the gig, felt a little peaky and flushed and to be honest having grown up in the eighties with the assumption that WW III was a matter of WHEN not IF the SECRET NUCLEAR BUNKER was a little unnerving. In Southampton they do regular siren tests every now and then, they always make me look for the bright light on the horizon. Wish I’d felt a bit more chipper as there were a fair few people there it’d been nice to chat to a bit more.

I brightened up on the way home, Miles and Ynohtna both good company on the stretch from Brentwood to Stratford. Home at 1:30am to the lovely Suze. I’m quite sure I’d like to visit again sometime.

Took a little while to write this up but last Thursday I went to Highbury College in Cosham for the introductory lesson for a year long AS level evening class in photography. And it was good. Though a bit different from my original expectations it’s certainly interestingly different and fits in well with what I’m aiming to get out of this course. Which is:

To get out of a bit of a rut.

I’ve been playing with digital photography for a few years now but only with any real earnest over the last 11 months. I’m at the point now where I feel some comfort with the equipment I have and the technique side of things. Because modern cameras are so good by law averages if you take loads of pictures some of them will turn out very nice. I’m at the point where that % has increased to a point I’m happy with.

The trouble I have is a lack of the self discipline needed to provide any form of structure or big picture to the images I’m creating. They’re essentially snaps of the whatever situation I’ve been in when I’ve had the camera to hand. I’m getting pretty bored of them to be honest.

What’s good about this course is that it’s primarily an arts qualification with a near identical structure structure to painting, textiles or media courses at the same level. Technique is a part of it but not the focus, creative expression and a the process you’ve followed to create your work is the axis this turns around. The confounded expectation is that I’d assumed a greater concentration on photography technique.

And this is great because it’ll provide a framework for me to use the technique I’ve learned so far in a series of creativity led projects.

The 1st class was to go through all of the above and we also had a chance to look at end of year work from last year’s AS / A2 level students. A terms work progresses through four stages, Assessment Objectives 1 – 4, AO1 to AO3 charts the development of your idea for the project’s theme and AO4 is the final piece which isn’t necessarily a photograph. One of last year’s A grade students made a lampshade from 4 shots. It’s all a bit arts n crafty.

The tutor seems nice, as do the rest of the class though it being the first week most people were fairly quiet. I’m sure that’ll change soon. Also Jon is doing the class as well but was unable to make last weeks. It’ll be good to have someone else I know attending as well.

We start with making images next week in the dark room by projecting directly onto photographic paper and with some pin-hole cameras made of coffee tins The first term’s project name is platforms and we’re also to bring in some foliage

More news soon.