The Auto-Portrait!

Last saturday, january 28th marked the airing of the first Generation Art, Photo Edition episode, in which yours truly takes part as a representative of the more advanced age group, to say it diplomatically.

In fact it was the presentation of the candidates and the announcemnt of the very first Challenge. For those who want to watch the episode, all 30 minutes of it, here’s the link.

Sorry, luxembourgish only (apart from the commercial at the beginning), so you better learn the language, hehe.

Each weekend we met, got our challenge on saturday morning and had 2 days to complete it until the verdict on sunday afternoon. Everything had to be done in the studio (except some shootings of course). For my colleagues, working digitally it was quite a bit easier. Shoot, Chimp, and off into Lightroom or Photoshop.

Today’s challenge can be seen HERE!

As I work with film I was never certain my photos would come out as intended until they were developed. That takes time of course, and time was critically short. Then again the locale I had to develop my film, a barely usable, unheated and dirty bathroom was hardly appropriate to securely develop film. Ice cold water only… my thermometer didn’t even go that low was a real problem. How to develop even very tolerant black and white film (Ilford HP5+) in ice cold water?

What’s more, I shoot MUCH less frames than my comrades, so my choice would be much more restricted.

I decided to bring along bottles of temperate water for the second challenge… if there was one for me.

Anyways, I doubled the development times for the film in Rodinal and hoped for the best. Fortunately, the negatives came out reasonably usable. Somewhat underexposed… or rather underdeveloped, but still usable.

I was relieved to at least have something to present to the jury.

Now the auto-portrait is not an easy task for me. I always tend to disappear and not put myself forward. I like my photographic subjects but I don’t think that I am interresting enough for a portrait.

Well that’s why it’s called a challenge I guess.

Something else that was quite stressful, at least on the first day was to be constantly followed by cameras. Constantly interrupted for featured shots and ‘annoying’ questions. But with time you just forget the cameras.

Here are the alternate candidates for the ‘best’ photo, still not fully worked on:

Seems that everything worked out all right as I’m still in the competition…. though I’m not entirely happy with my photograph.

I’s too classic, too simple. Focus is on the camera, not on me. Something that seemed logical to me at the time as I am just the guy that hits the shutter, hiding behind the camera. I should have used deeper focus to include my face…. but what’s done is  done. If I used digital I might have chimped, decided to try a different aperture…. but I’m a film guy, so what the heck.

Anyways, I’ll meet you for the second challenge, same time, same place!

Thanks for being here!