The ‘Fringe’ is supposedly the world’s largest performance arts festivals. Held annually in August, it spans over a number of weeks, with Scotland’s capital playing host to tens of thousands of performers, and many more visitors – lining the pockets of AirBnB hosts handsomely. I’ve written about it already here, and even did a daft video that you can watch here.
As a Glaswegian, it is my honour bound duty to remain staunchly indifferent to the goings on of our East Coast cousins – something that extends to their wee ‘festival’. I’m not even exaggerating, for what it’s worth. The percentage of tickets sold to folks in Glasgow is miniscule, despite the fact we are about 45 minutes away on the train.
A few years back, Al and I decided to take the train through to Edinburgh to take advantage of the liberal bylaw differences between our fair cities which allows their far more civilised inhabitants to drink alcohol openly on the street, mix with the throngs of folk, and take some pictures.
It ended up being a very pleasant experience. The sun was out, and people were in good spirits. Given the sprawling nature of the festivities, it felt much easier to strike up conversations, and capture portraits on the street. In just a few hours I had burned through a whole bunch of rolls of film, and felt more comfortable out and about than I had in a long while. ‘Why have we never done this before?!‘, we both cried, as we downed yet another can of extra strong rum and coke from Marks & Spencers. ‘This is just on our doorstep!’.
By the time we got home, I felt fired up and passionate about shooting on the street again, and using film in particular. It seemed like there was the beginnings of a flicker that might signal the stirrings of a new golden era in my relationship with photography. I couldn’t wait to see the pictures, and resolved to develop them as soon as possible.
… Fast forward about three years, and I am only just now beginning to share these pictures. With the exception of some medium format that went through the Rolleiflex, I had largely been using the Leica M6 (which was freshly serviced), along with a Canon 50mm f1.2 LTM. The film of choice was Kodak Double-X 522 – 35mm cinema film that I had bulk rolled myself.
Unfortunately, the results were generally pretty disappointing. This particular film stock is supposed to be ultra contrasty, but it came out very flat and grainy. The highlights in particular seemed to bloom in a detrimental fashion… which probably came down to my choice of lens. The 50mm f1.2 is well known for having haze build up internally, but my copy had recently been cleaned, and the results should have been much crisper than this. Perhaps I had under-estimated just how quickly it could gather. I’ve since given it a deep clean again, and will do some other test shots. It’s straightforward enough to do, but a bit of a pain in the arse. I guess that’s what I get for using ancient gear.
Disappointingly, these pictures almost single-handedly killed off my interest in shooting film for about 18 months. There’s nothing quite like developing a bunch of rolls and getting crap results to remind you of why shooting film can be such a thankless task. The problem is that when film looks good, it looks excellent – and plus, nothing quite beats the feel of a rangefinder. At least I am now finally at a place where I might be getting over it. Maybe. Oh what a rollercoaster ride this all is.
As it turned out, I did manage to get a reasonable number of semi-acceptable shots to put together in a blog… but I did have to play about with them a bit more than I would like to get them in a presentable state.
Confirming my theory about the lens being at issue, the results after I cleaned it all up were much better. So I guess I spat the dummy about shooting film needlessly. Ah well. You live and learn. The prospect of having to clean the damn lens every time I want to use it isn’t exactly all that appealing mind you. So we’ll see.
