The binding options were the real draw for me.  In addition to printed softback and cover wrap hardback variants they offer traditional cloth binding.  I went with a black cloth cover which complements the work perfectly.  The bindings are matched with a range of endpapers.  Head bands and marker ribbons are available in a range of colours.  This is a lovely finishing touch which makes the book stand out from the crowd.

Hardcovers can also be foiled or debossed with a design of your choosing.  I didn’t try this as it is rather expensive.  There’s a one off charge to make the stamp but then it’s relatively cheap per book thereafter.  It would be great if they offered letterpress debossing as this could be more cost-effective where all that is required is a section of type rather than an elaborate graphic.

They offer gloss, matt and uncoated paper stocks for the same price.  I much prefer matt to gloss for my work, the uncoated stock is intriguing too and would be of particular interest to illustrators.  The gloss finish isn’t as excessively shiny as some and provides very deep blacks.

Text reproduced well with sharp detail and smooth curves.  The pencil illustrations were well rendered. Image quality was very good and surprisingly faithful to the original colour profile (I used ubyu’s colour profiles and template for InDesign).  The print is slightly ‘pixely’, like most POD books, and not quite up to the standard I could achieve with a high-quality inkjet.  That said, for the original artists book, ink and paper alone cost around £300.

Overall I am very happy with the book.  It’s not obviously a print-on-demand book, which is useful as many galleries and reviewers have a knee-jerk dislike of ‘Blurb’ books.  It feels like a bespoke product and makes a very satisfying object.

First a roll of standard 35mm colour neg, this came out really well:

Fuji Superia 400

Cropped and processed

Then some half-frames from the Bencini.  I was surprised that the film base of the Kodak EPP was still orange, I had expected it to be clear.  Looking back at some lab processed E6-in-C41 I can see that it still has a slight tint but less pronounced than my film.  Longer in the BLIX might fix that, I will experiment with that next time.

Kodak EPP cross-processed.  Vertical half-frame Bencini Koroll II

Positive Image

And finally the same film but shot on a 6×6 Bronica.

Kodak EPP cross-processed in C41.  Bronica SQAi

As a positive

Overall the results are quite pleasing.  There’s a very strong blue-green shift which won’t suit some subjects but I rather like it.  Fully-corrected the images have a muted palette and lovely grain structure.

Osaka Apartment.  Kodak EPP cross-processed in C41.  Bronica SQ-Ai

]]> http://www.thecircleofconfusion.com/newblog/2011/11/colour-processing-continued/feed/ 0 http://www.thecircleofconfusion.com/newblog/2011/11/obituary-the-sunday-times-1989-2011/ http://www.thecircleofconfusion.com/newblog/2011/11/obituary-the-sunday-times-1989-2011/#comments Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:26:27 +0000 adam http://www.thecircleofconfusion.com/newblog/?p=437 I have been reading the Sunday Times since the late 1980s. When I was a teenager it was the household choice for weekend reading and I continued to buy it regularly though my university years and into my 30s. It was perhaps a surprising choice for a lefty such as me, it is after all very much a part of the establishment and leans firmly to the right. This was part of its appeal however. I believe it’s important to absorb opinions at odds with your own – the echo-chamber is comfortable but it doesn’t stretch you. The journalism was always of a high standard and the opinion pieces were from a wide range of contributors covering a broad spread of the political spectrum. Satisfyingly weighty with a multitude of sections, it could last all week.

I’ve tended to read it less in recent years mostly due to a lack of time to read it cover to cover. A few weeks ago I decided to treat myself, I would have a lazy Sunday lurking in my favourite coffee shop reading the paper. To be honest it was a bit of a let down, the coffee was great but the newspaper was not. Perhaps this was a blip? A few weekends later I did the same thing, and sadly it was not a blip.

The venerable Sunday Times is now a truly awful newspaper, sneering almost-propaganda masquerading as journalism. Where once the News Review was home to in-depth analysis and brave investigative journalism it is now shallow and one-sided. The Magazine is thin and frankly laughable. The Culture section was barely tolerable principally because it has changed little in content and design for about a decade. The Style magazine was composed more of adverts than content. To be blunt, the only bit worth reading was the still delightfully acerbic Mrs Mills but I’m not paying £2.20 for that!

So next weekend I’m giving The Independent a try. Fingers crossed.

The kit I used was Tetenal’s Colortec C41 (1 litre).  It’s available from Silverprint and Firstcall for less than £20.

Tetenal Colortec C-41 kit

It comes as a 3 part developer, 2 part bleach/fix, and stabiliser (all in liquid form).

3 bottles for the developer

2 for the bleach/fixer (blix).  1 for the stabiliser

When mixing, the developer starts off clear, turns reddish-purple, and then yellow.

Solutions 1 and 2

Final solution

The blix is a deep permanganate red and smells quite strongly of bleach, as you might expect.

Bleach- fixer solution

I mixed all of these at around 40C.  The temperature isn’t critical at this stage but you want the water warm to make mixing easier.

The rest of the process is very similar to monochrome just at a higher temperature.  Keep the solutions in a water bath at 38C, maybe a degree or two warmer.  Prewarming the tank/film is recommended.  I filled mine with warm water (~38C) and let it stand for a few minutes.  This is a good time to tweak the temperature of the water bath to get the developer to the perfect temperature.  Dunk a thermometer in the developer and when it hits 38C you’re ready to go. I found the prewash water was yellow orange with C41 film and dark pink with E6.  This is perfectly normal so don’t worry, your images are not washing away!

I followed the timings given in the kit:

Developer: 3m 15s
Blix: 4m
Rinse: for this is used Ilford’s rinse method.  Fill the tank with warm water, do 5 inversions, dump the water.  Repeat with 10 inversions and then 20.
Stabiliser: 1m

The times are relatively short relative to monochrome processing.  This made things feel a bit more of a rush and does mean that good agitation is vital.  I opted for an initial 30 second agitation (full inversions), then 4 inversions every 30 seconds.  Some recommend every 15 seconds.

The stabiliser is also the final rinse.  You should not rinse again, the chemicals are meant to be left on the film.  For monochrome I would normally do a final rinse in Ilfotol (wetting agent) to reduce drying marks.  Some sources suggested adding a drop or two to the stabiliser but as I noticed it frothing slightly during mixing I figured there was some wetting agent in there already.  In the end the film dried just fine.

My first roll was some Fuji Superia 400 C41 35mm.  This came out looking fine, negative denstity looks OK and the development seems to be even.  I can’t say anything about the colours until I scan it.

First film drying in the window

I also processed 4 rolls of Ektachrome EPP.  Obviously as this is an E6 film the result was a cross-processed negative.  The negs look very dense but then I did err on the side of over exposure when I shot them.  I’ll know more about the grain, contrast and colour shifts when I get them scanned.

Overall this first foray into colour processing was a success.  The process is relatively straightforward, especially if you’ve already done monochrome dev.  I was relatively careful with temperatures and timings but not obsessive as the film was all expired anyway.  If I was processing important images I would prefer to have a thermostatically controlled  water bath.

]]> http://www.thecircleofconfusion.com/newblog/2011/10/colour-processing/feed/ 0 http://www.thecircleofconfusion.com/newblog/2011/09/typhoon-talas/ http://www.thecircleofconfusion.com/newblog/2011/09/typhoon-talas/#comments Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:51:54 +0000 adam http://www.thecircleofconfusion.com/newblog/?p=392

Prelude to Typhoon Talas, Osaka-shi, Japan.  September 2011

Glasshouse World – Call for submissions

The Concept
The concept is to create a journal of new international writing that will feature unpublished writers, which will be distributed as an ebook at a price of £0.99 (in both epub and prc formats).
In the past few months Glasshouse has received quite a few submissions. As we are a small company, we are not at the stage where we can take on many projects, however we recognise that there is a lot of new writing out there and digital will give us the platform to spread this writing far and wide.

This is literature with no borders, available everywhere on demand at a minimal price.
Ideally it will feature writing from east to west, in Issue One there will be 12 slots, to be filled by writers
from 12 different countries. There will be no restrictions on genre, however all stories will centre around
the theme of ‘Home’. The journal is aimed at the general reader, young or old, so it must not contain
excessive violence, sex or swearing.
The conversion process from PDF to epub and prc currently works best (on this side of the planet) in
English only, so for the time being all stories must be submitted in English.
Key Points
1. Will you be paid for your story? Not at this stage. The journal is priced to make it accessible to all, it is
not aimed to generate profit. The cost of £0.99 is set to help cover the design, typesetting and
conversion costs. All contributors will be kept up to date on download figures, and if the downloads
generates revenue at a reasonable distance beyond the break even point, then contributors will be paid
equally.
2. What’s you definition of an unpublished writer? Someone who so far has not been published in a print
anthology/novel; and/or has not been paid for their writing. Our aim is to promote your work, with the
hope that you will go on to paid work somewhere else, or perhaps even with us further down the line.
3. There is no restriction on genre, only that the stories contain the same theme, which is ‘Home’ in Issue
One.
4. The selection process is based upon writers submitting a 200-300 word synopsis of their story. The
reason for this is to ensure that there are no clashes across the 12 stories, and for us to assess the
content and style of the writing. It also saves you from the process of writing a story that does not get
published. We will make our decisions according to Schedule 1 below.
5. All synopsis submissions must be in English.
6. All submitted stories must be brand new. Copyright will remain with the author, who is free to place the
story elsewhere once Issue One has been published in November 2011.
7. The writer will need to be currently residing in the country he/she is writing about. The writer does not
need to be the same nationality as the country he/she is writing about.
8. All subsidiary rights – translation, radio, film, TV and theatre belong to the author.
9. We will aim to give reasonable feedback to all submissions that are not selected.
10. Publishers decision is final.

Glasshouse Books

Private view: Friday 11 March 6-9 PM
Normal opening hours: Sat & Sun 12-4 pm

Intervention Gallery is delighted to launch its 2011 season with the photography group show Continuum, curated by Kerim Aytac and Jeff Vanderpool. All work will be projected as slide shows in order to engage with the presentation of photography in a time-based format.

Continuum is a response to the challenge of showing work within such a distinctive historic space as Intervention Gallery: a disused chapel in the heart of a cemetery. As the building is listed, no work can be hung from the walls, which challenges a traditional curatorial approach. As exhibited photographers themselves, the curators are well aware of the challenges faced when trying to communicate the meaning of a photographic project on the sterile walls of a white cube gallery. It is also true that for many photographers, the ideal way to present a project is in book form. The curators sought a way of meeting these two challenges whilst also producing a show that engages with the concept of space – from a variety of different approaches, whether conceptual, documentary or narrative.

The resulting exhibition involves the coordination of a group of slide-shows – both analogue and digital – of differing scales, positions and durations. The slide-show format will synthesise the experience of seeing photography both in print and on walls. This format will also allow photographers to represent their series more closely within a non-print context, whilst also honouring the needs and spirit of Intervention Gallery: a respect for the fragile architecture the gallery inhabits and an emphasis on the site-responsive exhibitions. This method of presentation encourages a committed and sustained engagement on the part of the viewer; it complements the work rather than hindering it. Visitors will be able to travel through projects at their own pace and along their own route, as they too become participants in the time-based nature of the exhibition. Some slide-shows will require visitors to be seated individually; others are more communal. The sound of the analogue slide projectors provides a nostalgic soundtrack to the still – yet constantly moving – images on the walls.

Featuring internationally exhibited artists John Maclean and Gabriel Benaim amongst others (including some northern bloke) , this promises to be a really exciting event that is not to be missed.

Kensal Flea
Saturday 27 November 2010 12-5pm

Intervention Gallery designer-makers Violet Hustle, Caroline Thaw and Duplikate will be featured at ‘Kensal Flea‘ boutique fleamarket in aid of Contact the Elderly. Kensal Flea, hosted by the Paradise, brings together a creative and eclectic mix of independent local businesses, designers, artists, musicians and writers. The Intervention stall will offer limited edition pocket artworks, illustrated cards, hand-printed wrapping paper, unique accessories and hand-crafted gifts.

Other stallholders include Rag & Bow the roaming vintage store, designers Tallulah & Hope, the Lexi Cinema and Riverford Organics.

Also featured will be BBC 6Music’s Shaun Keaveny, hosting the Karaoke room (in aid of Leukaemia Research), Russ Cuban Brothers, Barry Ashworth (Dub Pistols) and Mark Rae (Rae & Christian) who will be playing music throughout the day.

This seasonal community event has been coordinated by ‘Park Life: a blog for Kensal Rise & Queen’s Park’.

from the twisted mind of Fresh Water Mole over at b3ta