All Through a Lens: A Podcast About Film Photography

This week on Dev Party we’re trying a new-to-us developer! Well... that’s not quite true. You’ll see.

It was Vania’s idea to give Pyro a try, so we both picked up PMK Pyro by Photographer’s Formulary. And well... you’ll see.

Here on Dev Party, we are certainly used to and even welcoming of failures. They can lead to more knowledge and better days. And this failure is no different. It was just weird and unexpected. Again, you’ll see.

This was the first time we ever tried this developer. You’ll hear us reading from the instructions, talking a bit about what Pyro is, and witness our first experiences with the developers. Basically.

The important thing is that we both liked the results.

And speaking of results, here are some scans...

On this episode, we talk a new old emulsion, we ask (and hear) about your first film camera, we dig into a few Depression Era photographers, have some more good news, and give a call to Texas photographer Kat Swansey.

The New Old Emulsion: Fuzzy Pürrito!

Get It Here!

Following up fast on the heels of The Slow Meow, we’ve got another limited run of new old emulsion. This time it’s a rebranding of Svema MZ-3, another Soviet-era film that’s been kicking around for a few years.

If you want dreamy and soft photos with quite a bit of haloing in the highlights, Fuzzy Pürrito – FuzzPürr for short – is the emulsion for you!

Our batch of this emulsion shoots at 12iso. This might seem a little limiting, but on a Sunny 16 sort of day, you’d shoot this at 1/100th of a second with an aperture of f/5.6 – three stops slower than 100iso. So give it a shot – push yourself to try something new. We’re offering a 3 pack for a pretty affordable price.

And developing it is pretty easy too, but you’ll need HC-110. For the FuzzPurr, you’ll have to use Dilution H (1+62). Do this with normal agitation for 9 minutes and you’re good. This doesn’t do well in stand development. It might be tempting, but you’ll definitely get better results with this formula. And of course, it fixes as normal.

We have three-packs of this film for sale on Eric’s etsy store for $18. Each roll has at least 24 frames on it, though the way that Eric rolls, you’re more likely to get 30. And at $6 a roll, that isn’t too bad. You’ll also get a few stickers, postcards, and an All Through a Lens button.

Here are some sample shots:

Firsties!

Vania’s first film camera (destroyed by a fall from a horse).

For our answering machine question, we asked:
What was your first film camera?

And we got a ton of replies!

Hello, Kat!
For our interview, we give a call to Kat Swansey. She grew up in a small Texas town outside of Houston, but now calls Austin home. With her 35mm Canon, she explores her smalltown roots, capturing them in vivid color.

And here are a few more:

Depression-Era FSA Photography

We dig into the early FSA photographers and discuss a few of their photos.

The early days of the project brought together Dorothea Lange (who ran a very successful portrait studio in San Francisco), Arthur Rothstein (president of the Columbia University photography club, and star pupil of Stryker’s – at first he was just used to set up the darkroom, but he eventually picked up a camera), Walker Evans (a well-known documentary photographer and pal of Earnest Hemmingway), as well as Carl Mydans (a photojournalist for the Boston Globe) and Ben Shahn (Evan’s former roommate and a well-known painter – Evans was really pulling for him).

Here are the ones we cover:

Dorothea Lange – Toward Los Angeles, California Arthur Rothstein – Heavy black clouds of dust rising over the Texas Panhandle, Texas Walker Evans – Floyd Burroughs, Alabama Sharecropper Carl Mydans – “Damned if we’ll work for what they pay folks hereabouts.” Crittenden County, Arkansas. Cotton workers on the road, carrying all they pos...

We are twinning today! On this episode, we both shot on Ilford HP5+, we’re both devving in Rodinal, and we both try to talk you in and out of making the switch to large format.

Not exactly offering helpful advice, we wander through the ways that large format is different from the smaller formats. For instance: it’s larger.

Basically, large format is a new hobby. But it’s a new hobby where you can take much of what you know and a little bit of what you already own.

We don’t get into lenses though. It’s already confusing enough without us mucking it up more. Intrepid Camera did a fine write up on that.

Vania: IG, Flickr, Zines
Eric: IG, Flickr, Zines

All Through a Lens: IG, Website

On today’s episode Spring is in the air! We’re walking around our neighborhoods like Fred Herzog, we’re cleaning our springs like it’s spring cleaning, and we’re finding zines that we should have reviewed months ago. We’re doing a lot of things, okay? We’re also giving a call to Jana Obscura!

After Eric and Vania check in on each other, they check the answering machine for some good news.

For this episode there wasn’t a question – there was just a plea: Tell us your good (film photography related) news. The calls came in and we were of good cheer!

Walkin’ Talkin’ Fred Herzog!
More and more we’re picking out a photographer for a bit of inspiration. This episode, we look at a few Kodachrome photos taken by Fred Herzog in Vancouver. He had been shooting since the 50s, but got his first show in 2007.

Since many of us have been only getting out of the house for walks, we thought it would be a fine time to take a look at a photographer who was mostly known for just that. Fred Herzog from Vancouver, British Columbia, would take nearly the same route through the city every day.

Through much of the 1950s and 60s Herzog tramped the streets after work and on weekends with a Kodak Retina on his hip. He had been given a large format plate camera when he was young, but tossed it for the small 35mm.

The body of work he produced is extraordinary. At this point in photographic history, color was seen as sort of cheap and gimmicky. Fine art photographers as well as street photographers used black & white almost exclusively. Despite the tradition, Herzog fell in love with color. And not just any color, but the uncanny, vivid tones of Kodak’s Kodachrome.

His photo “Paris Cafe” from 1959 features a man looking out of a cafe window. He’s framed by Christmas decorations and menus. Of this, Herzog later said, “The man in that picture looks somewhat disengaged, but I like the Santa Clauses and I like the price list of food.”

This is a simple enough explanation. He likes these things. But he went on: “The whole atmosphere is somewhat in contradiction with the high-flying name Paris Café. And I like that kind of inherent contradiction in many of my pictures. Every picture, I’ve sometimes said, has a curve ball in it. They’re not just pictures of pretty scenes. They’re pictures that have a curve ball in them which makes you think.”

You can find more of his work here.
We also suggest the book Modern Color, which you can find here.

Let’s Call Jana!

Jana Obscura (@jana_obscura on IG) grew up in Honolulu and now lives in Seattle, and shoots a ridiculous array of cameras, and is mostly known for her instant and pinhole work. She’s also bok-choy’s biggest fan.

We talk to her about her cameras, her walks around Seattle, laundromats, how she’s dealing with the whole plague days thing, and plans for a possible zine.

Here are a few photos by Jana:

Spring Freakin Cleaning!

It’s technically spring and usually that means cleaning up the cobwebs, tossing and donating things you don’t use anymore and just giving your home a solid deep clean and maybe sanitizing in the more recent times.

We thought it would be fun to talk about this whole spring cleaning jazz and how it pertains to photography. We’ll talking not just cleaning, but exercising your cameras. But we’ll also talk about storing your gear and maybe talk you into getting rid of stuff you no longer use. Oh, and we ramble on a bit about film.

We mentioned a page written by a fellow with a lot of love for camera storage. Here it is.

Zine Reviews

Vania reviewed O’ahu by Dave Brotch...

It’s another faceoff! On this episode, it’s a battle of the pyros!

PMK vs. WD2D+ – who will come out on top?

We both shot Ilford FP4+ and here are the results:

Eric:

Vania:

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Music by Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers

Vania: IG, Flickr, Zines
Eric: IG, Flickr, Zines, ECN-2 Kits

All Through a Lens: IG, Website