It appears to me, that i must have forgotten a lot of images I took during the year of 1995. I mean in terms of scanned, high quality images - there aren't many. (Only older, more or less low resolution scans). So last night, i start to realize, that 1995 was in fact one of the more active years in my photography - with many portrait sessions. And more sensual photography, as well.
As usual - in a simple, personal style. nothing driven, or super sophisticated way. As i said many times - the latter just isn't my thing. I like it simple. If possible, beautiful in its simplicity
I just find it so strange, that i almost forgot about 1995. My folders with thousands sheets of negatives, are more and more in disorder lately, along the road of re-scanning them in high resolution, i toss then to toss them out of its orignial (loose-in-order) placement.
Every sheet gets a clear printed date-based ID label with some basic info - and of course the goes for the digital equivalent, for every single images, as well. (quite a lot of work).
But over time in this transition to digitize all negatives, an increased chaos preveils (until all scans are final, and i can start to bring all negative sheets in order day by day - in each album / folder / years. I will likely transfer them into special negative archive folders which are dust proof (instead of the open ones I have used in the past 35 years).
At least I know which film negatives have been scanned in high quality; all those who have a new printed label.
A bit chaotic film negative archive
So, it seems that i lost track over my negative archive during the latter years.
Most of them are stored in a large shelf with doors - the old style whose doors you can roll down all the way. Probably furniture from Swedish offices made in the 60s and 70s (in Sweden !). I got one for little money back in the early 90s, when Per-Olof and I went to a place where you could buy office furniture and shelves.
A truly sturdy, solid creation that last for ever. The type of quality you don't see anymore, neither at IKEA or anywhere else. Not pretty exactly - more like 60s office boring - but oh, so well made - it's incredible ! A perfect storage place for my negative archive.

Another Olof

The main photo above, was made around September 1994 i believe.
In Johan Westin's studio, in the late afternoon, when we assistants were allowed to do our own photo projects if we wished so. I only did this a couple of times - with two different Olof's. One was my boyfriend - and the other was a request from a guy with the same name. I can't remember how he took contact with me. Perhaps it was Olof T who was recommending me to take his portrait photos ? The other Olof guy needed images that the photo agency of his requested.
He was really well trained - in ways I had never seen. Well, i never seen a naked, really well trained guy - and remember that i felt very shy inside. I didn't know him, and he was straight - and very friendly and kind. Not anything like the buff guys of today, with big attitude and strange radiation. Just a normal, straight, kind guy - who needed his pictures taken.
So I said yes, I'll do it.
Unusual Darkroom Print quality
When everything was done, and he held he darkroom prints in his hands - he later said, that the photo agency was very much surprised over the quality ! With a very slight nutty brown selenium tone (on Orient Seagull RC paper, which reacted with a more yellow-nutty-brown tone, compared to other photo papers. I absolutely love it). The woman at the agency told Olof, that almost nobody makes prints like that anymore.
Since I used the large studio, which was in essence two levels high, with an absolutely huge, motorized light box - and a humongous background fabric - I have all space in the world - where even a car would fit in and still leave plenty of space.
So, Placing Olof in the middle was easy - and then i started to place the lights on him. The image above is actually a scanned print form the original, but low res - so i enlarged it with AI. I still have to find the negatives, in order to rescan them with the VALOI 120 scanning device.
Uh - those other boring negatives...
I noticed for example that during 2003-04, I seemed to have made so many "pinhole" and "Holga" toy-camera exposures, filling almost a whole, thick album of negatives. You know, Lo-Fi type of negatives, without real or much sharpness. Lots of vignetting, light leaks, and so on. Most of them are so boring to scan, that i wanna barf. Just abandoning them.
Every time I pass by the "endless sheets" of Holga camera negatives, especially from 2003-2004 i feel like "oh no", No i don't want to deal with them.

Holga 6x6 plastic toy camera
Most Lo-Fi images are let's face it... Crap
I guess, i like good photos, but am not stimulated by low quality, crappy negatives. Some now and then - is fine. But not 50 negative sheeds or more.
You see, when scanning film negatives, here too i wish to get a little bit of stimulation, really WANTING to deal with them. But that is unfortunately not the case with these negatives (or other boring trivial negatives). There is simply too much crap among my film negatives. I have to force myself, to scan them...
You can do amazing things... but I didn't really do that
I am not saying all Holga and Pinhole camera negatives / motives are bad. You can do some really amzing things with these types of cameras !!! Some negatives are interesting - but to be really honest: most are not.
I can't believe that I would waste many precious film on such BS. Or maybe i used the Lo-Fi type of cameras wrong... Without much creativity, really. That's likely the problem ! I used them like stupid iPhone crap shots. Hence, i got crappy results.
Imagine TODAY, to pull though one single (!) 30 € film roll with a plastic toy camera. You'll better do something exciting motive-wis, so it is worth it.
Gosh, lovely where the days when one roll of 120 medium format film cost 30 SEK / 3,75 Euro. The closest price you can get today, would be Hungarian FOMA films.
They can go for 70-80 SEK, dependent on where you buy it. At Berlin's Fotoimpex they cost around 4.59 Euro today (19% german tax) for FOMA 100 film in 120-format. That's about the lowest price you can get today. The Swedish price tag would be 60 SEK with 25% tax, bought at the same place.
In Stockholm, at the very few places left to sell film (brunosbildverkstad in Gamla Stan), one rolls costs 79 SEK a roll, though. While Kodak T-MAX 100 in 120-format there, costs a whopping 170 SEK.
T-MAX 400 costs 179 SEK
One single frikkin' roll of film. 
Advice: Never buy film at European / Swedish Amazon
Those films are ALWAYS overpriced (and you don't even know what it is you get in terms of storage, quality, end-date). There is a lot of cheating (wrong descriptions, or insufficient description leading you to wrong conclusions about the product). Weird film types whose name nobody ever heard of, almost as somebody just did home-labeled stuff on the film cassettes; offering 35mm film rolls with only 12 shot on it, for something like 250 SEK a piece. What a cheat !! (it would be like buying one 36 frame filmroll for 750 SEK / 65 €) Who the duck buys films with only 12 film frames on it, instead of 36 ?! I mean what kind of China crap is that.
So. Just don't !
Yeah, with European or Swedish Amazon, you need to be skilled, attentive and careful - before you hit the button. Read things 5 times, instead of one time. And don't believe everything you read, see or hear. It really take experience to navigate through the "offers". Don't forgot to check a product at other places . you would be surprised, that sometimes Swedish stores are better, selling the same product more affordable.
Not always of course. But sometimes it is surprising, how inflated the prices are at European Amazon, in particularly at Swedish Amazon (with they utmost crappy translation). China sellers simply don't know how to describe products in a correct way, it seems. It is sometimes just garbled or plain wrong info.
So. Do you homework. |