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End of an era

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So I finished my Masters.  I submitted my dissertation piece last Tuesday, and also at the same time resigned from my university job which has reduced my hours over the last few years to just nine a week, which had become a bit of a joke.  These are not the only changes in life at the moment, WordPress wrote me that my yearly payment was due and I declined it so my .com blog will come to an end in a month.  That’s not to say I won’t ever blog again (although my recent record is terrible) but I’ll just have http://www.manchestersartisticson.wordpress.com

It’s a big change blog wise, so I’ll take this opportunity to say thanks guys to all the folks who passed through.  The photo enthusiasts who found the site through the tags and Twitter, and the nice ladies who followed the 100 challenges in a 1000 days task, I hope all y’all are getting on better than I did. And my friends through book club and in real life, THANKS!

So cheers for following my two year meander through photo, art and writing.  What will Post-masters hold for m? , I hope I keep scribbling, but I don’t see me publishing much (Duotrope has gone to a pay site and I never made enough to make it worthwhile anyway) but I’ll keep producing something.  Photo-friends check out my flickr which is now going to be my main photo upload site

http://www.flickr.com/daveschoie

And if anything momentous happens I’ll promise to drop a note in here.  Thanks for all the comments guys!

 

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Buying a used film SLR – Suggestions -

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Hey, so I haven’t blogged in like forever, but I was just ten minutes ago feeling the restrictions of the interwebs and I thought to myself, I wish I had a platform where I could post pictures and words together in unlimited space and Facebook not have the rights to it… and I remembered I own a dot-com.  Whoop.  It’s like finding money in your coat pocket, except not as useful.

So here goes.
Jarbon supermix 005 Jarbon supermix 006 Jarbon supermix 007

You just bought a film camera off the Bay, imagine, and when it turns up its less than perfect so you rush to tell the seller you hate him, but wait. All it needs is some TLC.  So take the lens off, and the neck/wrist strap and take the batteries out of the battery compartment and throw them away, unless the seller told you they were new.

Get a duster and lay the camera on it and assess it.  First thing you might check is the leathers.  Not only do these go wrong over time, but they are easy to replace, fun to replace and they make the camera look brand new.  The picture here shows the Minolta leathers have shrunk away from the rim around them – that’s kinda what Minolta leathers do.  So you’re gonna want to check out Rikuo’s website or Morgan’s.  Buy a leather kit and then strip off the old leather which comes away easy.

Now the next picture shows how your light seals might look – basically like a coal miner has sneezed them up.  You basically soak them with lighter fluid with a paintbrush, then use a wooden BBQ skewer with a flat edge that you sharpen yourself, to scratch them off.  Take care here, keep some baby wipes and Q-tips to hand and make sure the miner-snot comes out, and doesn’t drop in.  I think it’s okay to gouge pretty hard, but when stuff drops on your mirror Jarbon supermix 008or viewfinder or shutter curtain you take it out piece by piece carefully.  You gradually soak and remove all the bad stuff like this and if alternatively it looks like nice springy black foam leave it be, someone has already replaced it

Now you ideally need some black foam, but I’ve seen all sorts of household stuff used, like black wool, string, bits of black felt, soft black fabric or rubber.  The foam costs about £3.50 a sheet off ebay though.  Camera will look a bit like this now (below)- be warned with this specific model you’ll need to take the self timer off before you fit the new leather but that’s pretty easy.Jarbon supermix 010Replace the bits of foam which you stripped off, around the door.  Actually, just do the strip along the door hinge where it meets the body, that’s the only bit I redo and I’ve never had a light photo times 002leak.  So you’ve found some black felt and done it with some PVA glue, took five minutes right?  Now the hard bit.

The inside of your camera, behind the lens needs to be amazeballs-clean.  So what you can see in the picture here has a dampener of foam around it, if its sticky you need to replace it with tiny strips of the same black felt. Meh, its not easy.  Keep checking the viewfinder as you go to make sure you’re not obscuring the clear view.  But what is important it needs to look as clean as mine, ahem, yep mines pretty clean and now it has its yellow leather on from Rikuo!! And since my Minolta has film in it now here’s a picture photo times 007of my Ricoh with some new strips of foam on the backdoor, but its overkill really you only need to worry about the hinge strip.

I think the next job is to get a pencil with a clean eraser on the end and give the battery compartment a rub to remove any grease and nasty bits.  Use a Q-tip and some camera cleaning fluid (buy on ebay) to clean the mirror and any fragile parts.  Then I get some baby wipes and wipe down the whole camera, apart from the fragile bits.

photo times 004

So your camera has new leather, new light seals, an internal clean and an external clean.  Avoid using brasso or polish on the steel because it gunks up the dials.  Baby wipes are pretty good at getting it shiny.  Fit your new battery and a film and you’re ready to go.  However if its newly bought off the Bay you might want to check the dials all work before the film goes in.  A fresh battery should get your light meter working, check it against your digital camera.  Shoot a few frames with the back door open and no film in so you can see the curtain opening and the mirror flipping, then adjust the shutter speed and look for the difference.  Lastly check the aperture blades on your lens.  Its a real pain to clean inside a lens, although its possible.  Hopefully your blades are free of oil and smudges and move easily.  Just use a lens cleaning cloth to buff up the glass and then attach it to the camera.  finally get back on eBay and buy the right skylight/UV filter for the end of the lens, and maybe a leather case so your camera is well protected.  Now you’re ready to shoot with film, ask any questions below.

 

 

 

100th POST!!!!

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YEY

So its the big 100 and it coincides with my 33rd birthday, yey!

we had cakes and triangle sandwiches and fun for all, the ginger beer flowed.

I’m taking loads of pics at the moment, and have some cool shoots lined up for the end of the month.  But for now I’m just gonna bask in the joy of being old, and having 100 posts of waffle to my name.

Pinup Style Shoot and a catch up

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So I’m still on Model Mayhem, Flickr and 365project, and still trying new things with regards subject and equipment and technique.  This is where I’m up to:

New cameras – I bought a Zorki 4 on ebay, $50 from a chap in the Ukraine.  Very excited, the Zorki 4 is a copy of the Leica III and its supposed to be very nice, and the lenses seem to imitate Leica m39 lenses quite well.  It doesn’t have a light meter but meh, I can either guess or keep my OM1 with me too.

 

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Happy Birthday to me!!

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So we’re there, its been a long and rocky road, we sprained our ankle and got lost (we’re still lost actually) I don’t really write anything of any quality anymore but I take more photos…I don’t do any art.  So I can either pay for another year or set up a new blog called Manchester’s photographic son.

Yeah, I’ll do another year. 

Past record shows that the minute I cough up for Manchester’s photographic son I’ll lose interest in photo and start printmaking or cross stitching or something.  That’s my style.  I never do anything long enough to make any money at it.

So whats in year two for MAS?

More photo – more Model Mayhem shoots, more beautiful models.

More writing?  Yes, I hope so, and better writing.  Probably more poetry than prose.  My Masters finishes pretty soon, the taught section at least, and next month we;ll have Cutaway Magazine tied up pretty much.  I’m thinking of putting together a  coffee table book of beautiful portraits, but I’m a bit of a way off yet.  I might get into a bit of self publishing with the old poetry and stories too and sell a few copies through the blog.

But for now, its balloons, cheese and tinned pineapple on sticks and cheap white wine.  Manchester’s Artistic Son, a year old.  My next post might be some highlights, or it might not, I haven’t decided.

BTW if anyone wants to buy a compact 35mm camera I have about 5 left and I’ll post them to your if you paypal me £3 (in UK) they’re just gathering dust here.  Email me.

Free stuff is cool

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The picture below shows most (but not all) of the cameras I’ve been given this year.  In fact add to this a Canon T70 and Pentax MZ7 from my friend Liam (whose lenses I have used on my DSLR thanks to an adaptor ring) and a Praktica MTL50 and darkroom equipment from my stepdad, and tons more.  My entire collection of cameras in fact has been donated, with the exception of my Holga and my Canon DSLR.  That means a lot to me since I don’t have a surplus of money most months, and photography has become very important to me.  It also allows me to spend the money I do have on developing - for each roll of 12 shots, of 120 film it costs £10 and for the roll of 110 I’m shooting at the moment £11, not to mention £20 for 8 photos when it comes to Polaroids.  That mounts up pretty quick.

Aside from this being a ‘Hey thanks!’ though to people who have given me stuff, I wanted to blog very briefly about Freecycle.

Freecycle is an international community which is free to sign up to, and which helps people around the globe recycle their stuff, for free.  The website states:

“Our mission is to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community.”

There are nearly nine million members world wide.  Basically you register at your local city’s group, you stick an item on for the sake of generosity, say something that’s just in the way, then you can put a wanted add up.  I wanted some old cameras to mess with.  And I got four replies, totalling 10 cameras and a carrier bag full of accessories. 

Somewhere along the journey though you realise how great it is to be part of a community who give stuff to each other for free, then you’re searching your house for things you could pass on.  Saved jam jars, unwanted board games, I’ve established part of my dining room to a stack of things waiting to be picked up, and I check my email account everyday, like a child opening the lounge door on Christmas morning, waiting for someone to send that magical message – ‘Dave, I’ve got a Leica and a Hasselblad I don’t use’

Ah well, I can dream. 

All I’m saying is, join the community if you haven’t already, give your things away and then next time something breaks , or you have the sudden desire for a purple chair in the corner of the room, instead of running to those crumbling castles of capitalism to be fleeced for something designed to last 18 months before it collapses, you can always ask for it for free.  My old Uncle Silas used to say, if you don’t ask you don’t get.

Fish

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My housemate’s fish just died.  It was one of those little goldfish you get from the fair in sandwich bags full of water.  It was just on its side right at the top of the tank, at the hatch through which they’re fed.  Okay, I admit that’s not really a family tragedy only…

 My housemate’s in Turkey.

 I’m in charge of his fish while he’s away.

 Okay so I feed them once a day, but the tub says up to three times a day, but he just said once.  And who wants a pet which is in a glass tank anyway?  Aren’t pets a replacement for children or even lovers, someone to curl up with at the end of the day so you don’t feel alone?  What can a fish do?  You can’t cuddle a fish.  He may as well have a plant for what it’s worth, raising something and feeding it scientific amounts of food at regular intervals.  Or intervals not regular enough.

 So I’m left with the other fish, the final fish.  Something killed the first and I don’t know enough about fish environments, fish anatomy or physiology to pin down what went wrong.  I stare through the glass at the other fish, the traumatised brother or sister, or mother?  We stare at each other through the glass and it looks as though it’s gasping for breath.  I feed it and it picks at the food and swims half heartedly away from the hatch.  Its eyes are bulging and black, I want to stay with it and monitor it but I don’t.  I leave it up there in his room, in the tank, swimming in circles.

Had a cool lunch/afternoon in town today, took many – many pics!

A great afternoon

Characterisation

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I think characterisation is the most important thing in my work. Sure stuff happens, but it’s all pretty vapid unless there’s a character you can love.  Do you have to find a good character to read a book?  Do your favourite books stick in your mind because of the story or the character?  For me when I think of character I think of books where the players were extreme, often infamous characters, Bram Stokers’ Dracula, Patrick Suskind’s Grenouille, Charles Dickens’Josiah Bounderby and Sarah Waters’ Sue Trinder spring to mind.  Often villains, but loveable still.   (Can’t remember your favourite?  Wikipedia has a good list for reference, I couldn’t place very many of them). 

Arnold Bennet believes ‘The foundation of good fiction is character-creating and nothing else.’  For a writer the question is – do I establish the character enough, or do I just write his/her actions and hope the way they act is enough?  Whilst the golden rule ‘show, don’t tell’ must be kept in mind, (that is show through dialogue and action, rather than spend a paragraph telling us the hair colour and political views of someone) the character must be built and created whether through description, their own thoughts or speech. 

When it comes to laying out a character there is direct and indirect characterisation, direct being the author telling the reader something about the character, or indirect, the reader is allowed to work that information out themselves.  Short stories are always trying to save space so the more reading between the lines the reader can do the better, so indirect seems the best bet.

For me a good character is decisive, I can’t put up with weak, henpecked characters.   Everyone has a type they can feel compassion for.  EM Forster describes characters as round – and flat.  Flat characters are predictable and stick to their persona, they are close to stereotypes ( or archetypes like the typical policeman, the  typical mother, it is too easy for a writer to rehash a well used archetype, it doesn’t give the reader enough reason to want to read on).  Round characters are developing; they show change and can surprise the reader (Maud Lilly in Fingersmith).

My writing tips for good characters:

  • I hate unpronounceable names or names that are too obscure, pick carefully
  •  Background reading/writing is important get your facts straight, don’t contradict yourself
  • In the past I’ve cut similar looking people to who my characters are out of magazines as a visual reference, this makes description easier, looking at a strangers face can also give you ideas.
  • Give them positives but also give them negatives.
  • Remember aside from their actions – their voice, their smell, flaws, habits, twitches etc.
  • Keep some stuff hidden, they might be very religious and it informs all of their decisions, they may have just been dumped so they’re careful not to commit, hide some stuff and let the reader try to detect what is driving them.

Some other great tips for writers on character can be found here.

I shall post some fiction at the weekend, thanks.

Writers Group

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Attended a writers group tonight which was a fill-in for the MA whilst the university is closed for the summer.  Was nice to get critiquing again, I had one of my stories under the microscope. 

Basically a writing group goes like this:

Someone (or everyone) sends their work by email to the rest of the group a week or more before, there’s usually a set word limit.  Then on the day everyone brings in pre-written comments about what worked, what didn’t and possibly what could be changed in a later version.  The baton is passed around with everyone except the victim giving their piece, and at the end the writer themselves can offer some defence of the points raised.

The level of brutal honesty is debated – people want to hear how they can improve sure, but that has to be weighed against how much they have already put in.  So if you think telling someone their writing style is like a child’s and their grasp of English worse than most household pets will shake them up in future pieces, you also have to think how will they feel about the three novels they’ve already written. 

I like brutal critiques; I like people to say this bit here is absolute rubbish.  I must admit though I feel bad when lots of different elements of a story get that verdict, the cumulative effect does depress me.  The point of the writers group is this, anyone who did their dissertation at the end of their degree will remember how blind you go to your own work by the fifth or sixth draft.  Your eyes skim over the work because your brain is familiar with it and doesn’t have to read it intensely.  There’s a test you can do to prove this, you draw an equilateral triangle and in the uppermost point you write ‘Paris’ and in the line below ‘in the’ and in the line at the bottom ‘the spring’.  Give it people to read and they will miss the second ‘the’ because their brain will assume it knows what the words say, Paris in the spring.  Readers then will spot stuff you don’t, it’s good practise to do this with any writing not just fiction.

So what if two people disagree on something?  That doesn’t matter, you get a gut feeling about it, it’s the pointing out of a problem-passage which is the main thing.  To anyone who hasn’t gone to one of these things it’s an interesting experience.  I think if I had been critiqued in this way five years ago i might have given up altogether, but I’m much more resilient now.

I recently took part in my first book club and found it very different.  Obviously the writer isn’t there so there’s no element of advice, but more significantly the novel is published if it makes it to a book club so rather than the quality of writing being discussed we talked more about the issues at stake and how the book made us feel.

So if you’ve got that book hidden inside, join a writers group and they’ll probably put you off for life!  If they don’t there’s maybe hope.  I found www.youwriteon.com a good place to start, you can upload a story or 7000 words of a novel and other writers critique your work as long as you keep critiquing their’s.  And practice, practice, practice.  I write everyday, but not a set amount, and sometimes it’s redrafting not new writing.  I’ve been doing that since I was about 18, and with real intent since April 2009 but really I’m on a steep learning curve now and for a while I was just treading water and doing it for fun.  I’ve got my fingers crossed meanwhile.