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Sony ILCEO ⍺6500 | Sony 20mm 2.8 (upper panel); Beseler TOPCON Super D | RE, Auto-Topcon ƒ1.4 58mm (lower panel)
I'm slowly building my film photo skills. Unhappy with the scan of my negatives I got from the camera store I decided to digitize the negatives a different way. I don't own a macro lens per se any more, but I have 3 macro filters that screw into some of my Lensbaby lenses. The only lens that makes sense to use (I think) is the Lensbaby Twist 60. Set to ƒ8 and considering the virtually flat surface to photograph I won't get the characteristic Petzval twisty background. The center of the lens is reasonably sharp and that's where it counts. The lower image is the result after I'd refined parts of the process. Makeshift with stuff I had around the house, but it works fine. The film was Fujifilm Superia X-tra 400. I feel good about my baby step forward today.
Canon F1 50mm 1.2
Agfa precisa ct100 slide film cross processed in Tetenal Colortec c41
These cross processed agfa slides looked very green, i scanned them as positives and let some of the green out to get back some colors. The edges from the negative holder turned pink, which I didn't crop because I kind of liked them.
Droplet, with little to say. I made several macro shots of a chive stem in low evening sunlight, buffeted by a brisk wind. I didn't hope for much, due to the swaying movement, but managed to salvage one or two images and combined the best of each. The 'speech balloon' is a genuine result of flare on the lens.
buy from bluetapes.co.uk/product/blue-twenty-quasiviri
C25 + download
It sounds like Morton Feldman playing doom metal. A ten-minute rumble of bass piano cadences interrupted by spirals of right-hand arpeggios. This playful-solemn solo piano-storm thunders along gracefully and we could happily release whole boxsets of this stuff, but this isn’t even the main gist of blue twenty: Quasiviri, which sees the tape series return to its beloved “one epic track per side” safe space.
Rather, the funereal baroque-gone-serialism of the piano piece is what the ‘proper’ music industry calls a B-side, as it is an instrumental run-through of Choro Tempore, the release’s ‘A-side’ pop song, arranged for piano.
And what does the real Choro Tempore sound like? Well, obviously not very pop, except by our warped standard. It’s a blizzard of time changes enacted by belly-slapping, octo-stringed fuzz bass, drums, vocal harmonies and psychedelic synthesiser. Yes, OK, it’s a Blue Tapes prog record.
A big monster of a song that builds and builds and double backs on itself in myriad internal musical conversations and could be at least ten separate songs - or a symphony - but is obviously best as this weird hymnal, minimal rock piece.
I find the best way to listen to Choro Tempore is endlessly, on a loop, as the piece flips mischievously between its ‘rock’ and ‘classical’ forms - the janus faces of Quasiviri, a preternaturally talented Italian trio, alternately grinning and howling at us, as they scramble the mind cells of the listener that little bit further with each iteration.
Choro Tempore also sounds like a pop record because it was mastered by the guy who does Muse’s stuff, but sounds like it eats Muses for breakfast.
Praise for Quasiviri:
“Superheroes should be psychedelic motherfuckers. Quasiviri sometimes sound to me like a pop Oneida – and if anyone are superheroes, then its fucking Oneida. It’s that muscular, fuck-you bass – which sometimes just settles into an up-middle-fingered stomp and then stomps all over your face. It’s those mind-scrambles of organ. It’s the fact you can fill up a fuck of a lot of space with just three instruments and a sound to die for. But it’s not just wig-out mayhem. Quasiviri is tight, clear-eyed, ultra-focused and purposeful rock that just happens to share a sound with your dream psychedelic record. It isn’t prone to noodling, or playing jazz chords with 20 notes when one note repeated 20 times will do just as well. Also it’s playful, and funny, and why isn’t it this stuff that people are obsessing over now? Be not apologetic. Play like a superhero. Walk like a motherfucker.” - 20 Jazz Funk Greats
“Think Ian Curtis and Primus. Then forget and forgive me about that, and press play. Quasiviri.” - Komakino
So...I had solutions left from tea toning more cyanotype fabric and decided to play around with some old cyanotype prints. I have had a stash of less than optimal pieces for just such an occasion. I was attempting split toning, working to keeps some of the blue in the print and not bleach it all out. On a few of these it worked. Often times, as per what seems to be my usual, I get more such results when I'm not actively trying! But that's okay. Just trying to get myself back in the swing of things.
I wanted to play along. Here is my contribution to the 'Our first attempts all kinda look like this' group. Trying to learn the pros and cons of Sunflow as a raytracer within Processing (Thanks to Mark at Hipstersinc for the library). Here I am exhibiting a complete lack of control over the clipping plane.
And sure, its cliché to do jumbled-boxes-with-ray-tracer, but its just sooo damn sexy, how could I not!
One day, I will get back to Sunflow, but gonna wait a bit longer.