Retro Foto Film

In this episode learn about our stop in the village of Zednick part of former Yugoslavia and the wonderful family we met. Special guest Lena on this episode.

The student journey has continued and their story leads them to Budapest.

Wenceslas Square, Prague

Today we're going to talk about Leipzig, Germany and Wroclaw, Poland and continue our student European trip. We decided to take a day trip and go to Leipzig, Germany, which was still in the eastern sector communists were still there. As we got into Leipzig, the cities on the eastern sector at this time, were very gray. They weren't lovely, beautiful, blossoming crazy cities. I mean they were very kind of drab and gray. Of course, being that it was in the spring, didn't help out any that there weren't any flowers blooming and the trees were bare. It made the city just a little bit more gloom and kind of overcast.

The fall of the Berlin Wall. I took 22 of my University students to Europe to take part in a photography journey called "Project Discovery". We start the journey with taking our part in knocking chunks off the Berlin Wall and much more.

It is the ghost photo from the train shoot in Ely, Nevada. For the past three days you have seen photographs from the same shoot. Because there is a ghost in this photo I talked about it in my podcast. I’ve had two of these ghost incidents show up in my career, I’ll show the other one another time. Enjoy the train and the ghost.

I'm going to talk about a photograph that I took in 1973, with my Hasselblad after a snowstorm that kind of snowed all night long and in the morning, and when we got up, it really was it. When you've seen one of those Winter Wonderland, it's awesome because the snow sticks to everything. Now, if there is sunshine in the forecast, then that snow melts really fast. These were pretty cold days, and it was in January. And so there was no sun and no snow was melting very fast at all. I called up a friend. And his name was Dwayne and I asked Dwayne, I said, Do you want to go down and photograph Liberty Park, it'd be really cool. I was snowed in. But he got out, the main roads were open. But all the streets and the side streets were all pretty much closed. So I met him on a main street that was about a block away from my house. And we drove down to this huge big park in the middle of Salt Lake City called Liberty Park. And no one was there. It was really bitter cold. So we had to park the car outside the park basically hike in. And we were going into areas where everybody Park, as you can see is filled with lots and lots and lots of trees. Underneath that is just a lawn. So it's beautiful in the summertime. And in the wintertime. Since it was no one out there. We had no tracks, nobody's footprints. And normally in a park. Yes, you'd have footprints everywhere dog footprints, everybody's footprints because you want to go out and play in the snow and be there. But being It was so cold. And it was early in the morning. It was probably about 830 in the morning. So even more cold. Why would you go out at 830 in the morning, kind of want to make sure that we beat the traffic, which we realized nobody was dumb enough to go out there and photograph trees in this Nope. That early in the morning at Liberty Park and nobody really cared. 

So we were the only ones in the park, walking around and photographing. But as you can see, from looking at the photograph, that it was lovely, it was beautiful. And we could not take pictures fast enough. Now, there is a trick to taking pictures on film. I know that when we have our digital cameras, we can look in the back and go, Hmm, I need to take and stop this down as an extra stop because it looks too light. But then we had only two things to think about as a trick about photographing in snow and in sand. And that trick is that whenever you photographed white like that, you always stop down one to two stops. And then when you've got it, you would be able to see the details. In this note, as you look at the picture, you'll see the shadows, which can casting shadows, but there's no sun. The shadows are the depth and kind of a great part of the snow. And even the white white is not white, white. If you wanted white, white, yes, you could put that in there. But snow is not pure white. It has that grayish look to it. And he can remember that when you're looking at a scale. White is basically kind of like an 18% gray. That's what kind of is there. So when I printed them in the darkroom, this is what I printed for. So you're looking at a print that I did print and then I scanned it later on. If you can see the shadows, you can see the snow as at 18% gray. Now the other trick that you use, and I still use that today, even when I am shooting digital is to bracket bracketing is where you take and go one step above. And one stop below. 

For example, if the shot that you're looking at is an F 16 and you go one step up, f 22. One step below f 11. So that means that you know are taking three pictures of that same shot. Now it's best to do this on a tripod, but you don't have to. I've done many without tripods. But this particular day, we actually did haul around our tripods as we trudge through the snow. That way, when you get it, it's like maybe we need it a little bit darker. Maybe we need it a little bit lighter. And when you look at those three prints, In the darkroom, on the negative, you look at it and go, Hmm, I like this contrast better, or I like this non-contrast a little bit better. So that's what you print from. And so you have those three negatives. So what happens when you're shooting a 12 exposure rule with a Hasselblad camera, therefore, you only got four different shots up the 12 exposure role, because there's three of each one. So it used up a lot more film, but trust me, it saves your bacon in a long run. And again, I still do this and in the HD mode that you want to do some of the HD things in digital, you can bracket as high as five stops to above and two below and it does that for you. And then you can take those and sandwich them all together. You have to do this on a tripod, but you can sandwich them all together and get these beautiful ranges that you have. 

Now. That's something you get with digital, but this was film and it's my true love. When you look at this photograph and you see the beauty of the blacks, grays and the whites that are there. It is just magnificent. at this particular time. It was the first time I had shot snow with my Hasselblad camera. I was so excited to be able to do this. I had purchased the camera the fall before well partition I think I bought a camera then as the day the truth now you those of you who know what also blinds cost, my Hasselblad cost me $600 I had put it on time payments, because it was a lot to pay for a camera at that time. So I was making payments on my cameras crazy part was that I did not have a darkroom. I could go down to my mentor, a man by the name of Borg Anderson. And I could use his darkroom and studio and way wanted to. He was my instructor at the University of Utah. He was a very generous instructor, very generous man. And he let some of the students come down and use his darkroom to process and print our photographs. I wanted to do this at my own home, I had found an old 1945 and larger with a little bell top on which was really kind of cool. still had that enlarge it to this day, I didn't have the developing tanks for the film, I didn't have the trays to develop the papers in I didn't have the chemicals, they didn't have anything for processing, film, or printing film. 

So the 1972 Christmas, I asked for all of that materials, those different parts of the darkroom equipment from different members of my family to give to me, luckily, I got it. So it was in that January after I shot this shot, I actually set up my darkroom, which was rather small. It was a one person walk in closet was not very big. I sat on a stool, and I could use the enlarger to my right, can take the print, move it over to my left and across my left side was the trays for everything to be developed the developer the stop bad the fix, and then it was a little tray there full of water, and I put the prints into that. And then once I had a bunch of prints in that, then I would take them out, head into my bathroom, which was not too far away, and put the prints in to a big bat in the tub and wash them in the tub. When I was developing film, I had to do the exact same thing. I would roll the film onto the reel, put it into the canister, take it and then I would go out into the bathtub, and I would sit in the bath......

I'm talking about Ted Kennedy in 1973 I was working for the Utah daily Chronicle. As one of the photographers, Ted Kennedy was coming to the campus to speak. And of course, I was being one of the photo journalists on the newspaper was assigned to go photograph him. I thought, how am I going to photograph Ted Kennedy, I have twin lens two and a quarter yashica mat 124 camera, which was a beautiful camera I bought a few years beforehand. When I left the army cost me 95 bucks was great. And it was a wonderful camera. I did great work with it. But you had to be up close to get anything. And there was a guy on there that his name was less and less had a 35 millimeter Nikon with a 200 millimeter zoom and a 500 millimeter Canon lens. And I mean, he had all of these things. And he was like, he could stand at the back of the room and get a good shot at Ted Kennedy. And I thought how am I going to do this? I have no idea. I went in there and the room was packed. Of course it would be I mean, it's Kennedy for heaven's sakes. But well, the only way I'm gonna get a picture is if I get up close. So I've put my little Chronicle badge on and I walked up close to the front and got up there. And I thought, wow, I'm still not going to be able to get anything. I noticed there was this little spot up behind him. That was kind of like up above. I thought I could go up above and I thought, well, it's better than nothing. I don't think I'll get anything really good. photographing his back. But it's like, okay, better than nothing. 

So I went to my little spot get up there. It was kind of like I think it was hanging on a ladder. I'm not sure what it was it made me give the elevation. But I got up I was looking through the lens. And I thought, yeah, I'm doing is getting his bag. And the guys in the front row course, you know, this is the 70. So this is the time when all of the early 70s when there were protests going on, and the Black Panther groups are going on. And so all this stuff. So it was like all the radicals who wanted to hear all the political crap was like, they're on the front row, they were around everywhere. I thought, well, getting the back at Kennedy is not as bad as they think it would be. Then I kept watching and watching and this roll of film has 12 exposures. And that's it. So have 12 shots. I didn't get to like have a camera, I could just quit quickly. Even the 35 would have had a 36 exposure in it. But no, I got 12 shots. And I'm going wow, I guess I could only get a couple of his back. And if you maybe if he turns. So I kept watching and watching and he turned a couple of times as he was speaking. And so I thought, okay, that's my opportunity right there. What I have to do is wait for him to turn at the right moment. I did a turn, I clicked up a couple of shots. It was got them and then I was going okay, so I just kept clicking when he turned when I had my 12 shots done. Because I could have loaded another roll of film. But I'm in front of everybody. I mean, the whole crowd could see me. So I thought well, I can't be loading another roll of film here. So I finished my 12 shots, climb back down. I think somebody else jumped up and took my spot because they thought it was pretty cool. 

So I took it back and went to the darkroom straightaway and developed it. And as I developed that I saw this that was sharp and nice. And as you look at the print, you could I could read his notes on his page. I was like, wow, this is really cool. But I thought well, it's still not the headshot front beautiful picture, a political thing that the newspaper wanted and everybody liked. But I liked it. So I made up the print and submitted it to the newspaper. They loved it. And they printed it. And I got my 20 bucks. That's what we got. We got paid $20 per shot. Every time we got it in the newspaper. If we didn't get anything in the newspaper. We were working at the Chronicle for free. We had a place to kind of hang out if we wanted to. And they gave us a I think maybe a 20% discount on our tuition or something not very much. So I thought okay, well, this is cool. They printed I got my 20 bucks. This is great. Well, a little later on. I was asked to submit that photograph to a college contest for you News work. So I made a preprint we had an advisor who worked down at the Salt Lake Tribune, and he thought, you know what, this could be a good thing for you. He's the one that did all the work. I made the print, send it down to him, and he submitted it to the conference that they had for the photojournalist in the western United States came back in and I won the conference, first place, then they submitted it for the National of university, photojournalists, and I won the National Award for newsprint from now on. So it was like, I was like, Okay, this is really cool. But it didn't give me anything. No, I can be two certificates that were like run off on a copy machine was like, nothing beautiful, nothing big no money was like, but they the satisfaction is that you know that you have won the national competition. In news reporters amongst university students, I was happy with that. If you look at the Instagram photo of Ted Kennedy, giving the speech, you're going to notice that you see the front row with the people there. And ted kennedy speaking, what I did was in the actual photograph, the front row and the people behind them, were actually really predominant, it actually distracted from picture of ted kennedy himself. So I thought, what I need to do is burn that in the darkroom, you have the ability, once you, you can't see it on your print, because you just have a blank piece of paper there. But I knew exactly kind of where I wasn't. So I burned in I gave that top part more light than the bottom part, and burned it in so that their faces and their stuff would be they'd be there. But they wouldn't be predominant, they wouldn't be the first thing that you see. Because what happens is, when you look at this photograph, you'll see that the light goes directly to the paper first, that's what you see first is his page, because that's the lightest part of the print, then you pop up, see his face, then you pop over and see the other people who are on the front row. And so that's what you want is you want the light party a picture to be the most predominant part where your eye goes first. And it went to these people first. So I just took it went in, and I burned that. And then it took me quite a few prints to get it. So I burned it exactly right to where I wanted it. 

Then, once I got it was your beautiful print, I was happy at that point with how it turned out what it looked like I used the word burn on I'm talking about burning in the image on the print. And I decided I better describe to you what that means. In the darkroom. vernacular, the word burn means to take and make the light that you have coming from the enlarger go longer on one part of the paper than the other. So if I had half the paper, that was a 10 second exposure, and the other half of the paper that I burned in, I would burn in for maybe 20 seconds more. So one would have 30 seconds, the other would have 10 seconds, so one would be much darker than the other. Now, I also mentioned the word dodge. And dodge means that, okay, if I want this part of the image to look good, I have to have it less light. So then what happens is I take a little tiny tool that you either buy or you make I made most of mine. And I would take this little scrap of paper, tear the edges, so it didn't have a hard edge on it. And it would be maybe like within a half inch to a one inch circle and tear the edges and that would or if it was in a line, I would make a linear piece of look like I could burn it in....

When I graduated from the University of Utah, I needed a job. And so I put a proposal together and sent it to the Vice President of the University and said, For the past three years, I have been photographing all these different departments and all the doing brochures and headshots and all the things for people around campus. And so there is a need to have a photography department here, that services, just the University. He looked over the proposal liked it and said, I'll give you a job if the first year that you start up in business here on campus, that to make your salary. I had a lab and I had several people that work there with me, I was in conjunction with another department. It worked. So the first year I made my salary, and I continued on doing photography on campus that I love doing. In 1975, there came an opportunity to photograph and do a brochure for the University of Utah hospital, which is a place that I loved working out and photographing because it was so busy. 

So fun and even though it was a lot of trauma and and a lot of emotion, it was still was a great place. And so this brochure was for the premature babies that were being born. And they needed to tell the mothers how to take care of them what to do. And they didn't want to just write words. So they wanted photographs to go along with everything that was going on. So they hired a director, they hired models, and they hired me. And we started this long project to do this, it probably took us about six months to complete the whole project. Because in that six months, what I was doing was writing in ambulances, from other hospitals to the university hospital because they had this specialized unit there, I would ride along in the ambulance to take pictures of the baby as it was being transferred to just not so much the physical photograph of the baby, but just the act of what was happening in the ambulance and picking him up at the hospital and bring him to the university. So I got to do that. Plus, then once they were there, it was the care for the baby. 

And so I spent a lot of time intensive care unit for the babies. That was very joyful, because what they had in that unit was all these little premature babies who needed attention all the time. And a lot of them were in these little small units that kept them alive to give them the correct amount of oxygen, and light and warmth and everything that they needed so that they could grow properly. But the one thing that they also needed was a lot of love and attention. So they had a program where grandparents, not the real grandparents, but elderly people would come up and sit in rocking chairs with these little premature babies and hold them and love them and give them the warmth that they needed because mothers and fathers couldn't always be there all the time. It was a great program. And so I actually got to sit many days while we were waiting for things to happen to put on a gown and pull these little tiny babies in your hands, not so much in your arms because they were little but hold them and love them. And so this became actually the focus of the whole brochure was their life at this unit. My model was wonderful, beautiful girl by the name of Lindy. As you can see from the photographs, she had beautiful long hair. And one of the days that we were shooting there, she was holding this little tiny baby that had just come out of its little incubator type thing. She was holding it and loving it. Our director was off somewhere else and scriptwriter was somewhere else. And it was just Lindy and I. And as she started to hold this baby, she got feeling of how wonderful this was. All of a sudden I'm like, scrambling to grab my camera, which I always had with me anyway, but I was scrambling to get it so that I could capture this before she moved on and did something different. I had to just tell her to just stay there keep doing what you're doing and loving that baby. And as she did that, I was snapping away trying to get this beautiful shot that I could see the emotion between Her and that little baby that she was holding, because it was so amazing to see her emotion. It wasn't just a stage photographs it okay, hold up, pick up the baby and make like you're loving the baby. That didn't happen. 

She was really holding this and her heart was really there, loving that little child. So the picture then became the iconic picture. It was the front of the brochure and became the photograph that they used in all kinds of publicity to for the premier unit. There are all kinds of other shots that I did, for example, we photograph someone having a baby, but not in all the intricate parts just from just being in the operating room. We photographed the father and mother, you know, kind of there holding the baby afterwards, of course, they were actors, we photographed the emergency room. And as they came into the hospital, from the ambulance, we've had all of these different pictures, and spent all these days with these babies and with the actors, trying to make everything look as real and as sensitive as possible. So that in this brochure, they could convey to the mothers that their preemie baby is being taken care of and that the hospital had all the right equipment and had everything that they needed. 

This was a brochure that was supposed to convey love, intimacy, and beauty, and tenderness, instead of just the clinical. Here's what happens to your baby. Here's what we do. Here's how things work. Here are the rules. Here's this, here's that we took extra precautions, and did extra time trying to make sure that everything in this brochure, conveyed love and emotion. And the photograph of the baby and Lindy, totally showed that. And the same with the ones throughout the rest of the brochure, with emergency rooms and all that there was care, even in choosing the paper for the brochure, the colors for the brochure, and everything so that it conveyed this warmth. For these new mothers who had just delivered this baby, small enough that would fit in the palm of your hand and wondering if it was going to live, when no one was going to happen to it, wonder how things were going to work. This was the ultimate kind of brochure for this, it was probably one of the best projects that I had worked on to my career at that point and still highlight of my career to this day. Because we spent so much time most of the time when you do a brochure as a photographer, it's quick, quick, quick, might take you a week or two weeks to shoot everything and get it done, turn it in, give it to the art director. And they probably should. And it's done. When we spent as much time as we did in this, like six months getting this thing shot, right...

Today, you're going to have a good time listening to the crazy story of the beaner babes. In 1994, I was traveling the country photographing for the upcoming book that I was doing called rendezvous back to a simpler time. So I was spending a lot of time at rendezvous is all over the country. This time I was in Red Lodge, Montana. And it's a small rendezvous, but a really nice one and Red Lodge is a great place to be it's just a small little fun town. As I traveled to all these different rendezvoused, the people that I made friends with the most because they were the ones who were at every rendezvous, where the traders, the traders were the backbones of the whole rendezvous, because what they had was with called traders row, and you'd walk up and down this and on both sides of you, there were traders selling all their wares, from cloth goods to moccasins, to guns to clothing and hats, and you name it, they were selling everything you needed to have it rendezvous or to stock up on the things that you needed to have a nice rendezvous.....