Cindy & Sam wed: June 2016

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Sam & Cindy wed in June 2016 and I had the pleasure of framing up their day. This is what I felt free to capture.

Nikon F2 / Delta 400
Kiev 60 / Delta 400

Shelter Belters

Captured facing south on a piece of land called Whitetail Meadow near Niverville, MB in November 2016.

Take two.

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Olympus SP-35 partcam self-timer edition: Fujifilm 400

Flip, Flop and I go to Chiang Mai: a single roll photo essay

Train travel is one of my favorite modes of transportation. 

Banpin Station, north of Bangkok. Captured through a train window. We made many stops on the journey from Bangkok to Chiang Mai; Banpin was one.

When I look at this, I see my past, present and future. I can hardly wait to print this. Bust out that cloud story.

Bright side, strong side. I love the sense of community and solidarity that presents itself in the morning following a long night ride on a train. People photo snappin' and tooth brushin' right out the windows. A moving house speeding / chugging through the Thai countryside.

I fell in love with this Australian gentleman. I wanted to scoop him up and hear all of his tales over a glass of scotch. 

A softie of a portrait of my brother over brunch at Libra House. December 2016

A side shot of Libra House. The lovely guesthouse we stayed at in Chiang Mai! An excellent place I highly recommend!

My view within the Old Town of Chiang Mai on Moon Road. Dogs, tuktuks, bikes and greenery.

Whoosh!

My sweetheart scoping the breakfast menu.

This scan does this frame no favours. I will remedy this disgrace shortly. The tones on this negative are bonkers! 

A portrait of my brother Michael. Or as I like to call him, Milky.

A portrat of our official navigator of Chiang Mai. I praise the moon for Iain's internal compass on a regular basis.

Fence still life / end of the roll pin punches from the negative weight!

All photos shot on my old faithful Kiev 60 / 120 FP4 pushed to 400. I have full intentions of printing this entire roll. Those train shots get my train wheels 'aturnin'.

Last Roll of December

Folded hands at the beginning of the roll. Would've been a nice portrait.

Whitetail Meadow near Niverville, MB.

Natalie makes a drawing on her mudroom floor.

Back roads with the one who patiently waits as I pause to compose from the shoulder.

For Jer, wherever you may be.

Arlo's second Christmas on the farm. She unwrapped her new doll cradle and made herself at home.

A quilt for Atlas' fifth Christmas from Granny Tammy. The ultimate gift in my opinion!

Sweet times on the farm.

Holiday girls. Rebecca and her young Lula at home.

Lil' Water and his mama Stef.

James, young Walter and Stef on their stoop.

Walter, giving it away for free. 

All photos captured at the tailend of 2016 on my trusty Kiev 60 / FP4 pushed to 400; processed at home.

Having a hoot in Chiang Mai: 35mm colour edition

First morning in Thailand. Family portrait, self-timer edition on the steps of our hotel in Bangkok.

Parting ways with my parents in Bangkok as they began the next leg of their journey to Koh Samui. 

First 'rays poolside in Bangkok. Iain still attached to his socks at this point in the journey.

This photo does not do these colours justice. Captured mid 14 hour train ride to Chiang Mai.

Hour X of the long train journey. Iain was thrilled to be able to stick his head out the window enroute.

Milky captured in the eleventh hour of zero sleep. His face does not portray his true excitement.

We arrived to our beautiful hostel called Libra House in Chiang Mai. True to form, Iain discovers the best vantage point.

True to form, I bombarded his solitude and mocked his socks. He could have thrown me over the railing, but didn't!

This is us in a nutshell. Milky captured this magic while dining in Chiang Mai at a nice wood-fired pizza joint we stumbled upon late one night. I couldn't get enough of that icy cool white wine.

Iain found a bar in the middle of the Night Bazaar I was purusing and I joined him for a brew. We befriended these talented Thai folk crooning brothers. I asked and this is what they gave.

All photographs captured on my trusty Olympus SP-35 partycam / Portra 400.

Intensification

Experimental self portrait in a makeshift studio. Printed at home on 5x7"  Ilford Pearl. November 2016.

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"I am concerned with photography and since printing is fundamental to photography, it must be considered, but only as a craft. Printing is to photography what grammar is to literature. When I hear someone brag that they labored for three days in the darkroom to produce a print, my first impulse is to suspect them of being either a terribly incompetent printer or a totally inept photographer. I can't believe that any print is worth three days out of my life. People often make a mystique out of printing to compensate for lack of substance. 

I used to go to a gym and the guy who ran it had about five thousand dollars worth of photographic equipment. He would always say, 'Listen, what do you think of the Gazebo 17B and their f/4.18 lens?' And I'd say, 'What the hell are you talking about?' I never knew what he was talking about. But then I would ask, 'Well, Lenny, when was the last time you took a picture?' And he'd reply, 'Oh about two months ago.' And I'd say, 'What was it of?' He'd say he photographed a dog and then he'd bring in these prints of his dog. Somehow something got lost in the shuffle. Values got confused. This is a mistake that schools make also. You go to these schools and these kids all show you gorgeous prints of water running over pebbles. I'd rather see a not so gorgeous mistake of a brilliant idea, an idea that maybe the kid didn't even know how to solve technically. But who cares, because he's talking about something incredible. It's not the medium, it's the message for me.

Once upon a time I was a fanatic too. I would spend a lot of time on printing and get really hung up--do twenty prints of one negative trying to get some little corner right. Then somebody would come in and I'd say, 'Now here are twenty prints. Which one... can you see what I did?' And they couldn't see a thing. It would be this little blemish over here that had to be smoothed out. 

We all have to learn how to print. It's essential to photography. Take lots of pictures. Work in the darkroom. Print a hell of a lot and learn just by making mistakes. It's good to have somebody around who will lean over your shoulder and say, 'Listen, you should use a number four filter.' But essentially you just have to get into the darkroom and print. Once you learn how to make a gorgeous print, forget it and go on."

- Excerpt from Duane Michaels' 1977 essay titled 'Camera as Darkroom'. 

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In July of 2011, I was walking east up Rue St. Viateur in Montreal's Mile End neighborhood (where I was living at the time) and came upon an outdoor book sale happening beside the St. Viateur Bagel shop. My hands found this old cloth-covered book titled 'Darkroom' compiled by Lustrum Press and I suppose I was drawn to it simply for the reason that it was jacket-less. I despise book jackets. It was summer and I was chomping at the bit to begin my Fine Art degree in Photography at Concordia that coming September. When I went inside to pay for the book which was marked $1.00, I didn't have anything smaller than a twenty in my wallet but the shopkeeper insisted I take it for nothing. I remember walking across the street to the Italian coffeeshop and reading until it grew dark.

Five years have past since I first discovered the book 'Darkroom' and I continue to go to it for guidance and inspiration. In retrospect, this book marks a funny beginning to my courtship with Photography. To say the least, I didn't last very long in my Photography program. Sometimes I wish I had pushed beyond my inner battle of wanting to say something meaningful through my work but feeling intense pressure to crank out meaningless, bracketed still life's in a city bursting with faces of incredible looking people I'd rather focus on. Sometimes I wish I had just done the damn boring technical work instead of abandoning it. But this old ram chose a different path. I bought myself my first darkroom in November of 2011 and got to work in my own way at my own pace. It all lead me to where I need to go.

Today I woke to a delightful message alerting me that I was not required to come in to work until one o'clock in the afternoon. I rose at 6:30 and enjoyed a strong pot of coffee while listening to an old Bon Iver album and observing the front parlor fill with morning light. The air and light have finally shifted in Winnipeg. That golden fall light is fading grey and soft. Winter is beginning to reach her icy little fingers around unsuspecting bare ankles in the mornings. It is an oddly relieving sensation after the freakishly warm temperatures we have been experiencing over the last few weeks in Winnipeg. Ahhh, there you are you old Devil, I think to myself as I run barefoot for my sheepskin slippers under the bed. 

Eventually I slunk down to the darkroom to get down to business. While all Margot Pollo photography shoots are complete for the time being, I now stand at the base of daunting Mount Print. Last night and again this morn I decided to begin with the most challenging of the lot: print contact sheets from two insanely dense rolls of 120 captured on Sunday of a beautiful woman. Once in a while, my pioneer tendencies cloud good judgement and such was the case on Sunday. Lessons learned: Do not experiment with fifty year old film during a professional shoot. Period. Do not process fifty year old film with Rodinal. Period. Do not push fifty year old 125 speed film to 3200 because your negatives will come out blank. Ding dong Maria. The most important lesson gleaned from my groovy experiment is to  ALWAYS process old film with same-temperature chemistry across the board. Developer, stop, fix and wash at the same temperature. Duly noted!

Miraculously, the 120 rolls came out despite my insane efforts to push HP4 400 to 3200 while using my tried and true ba-zoiling hot stop and fix method. All that said, the J-E-L-L-O jiggler-esque negatives eventually hardened enough to sleeve and print contact sheets. They were so GD slippery I could barely hang the damn things. The contact sheets alone needed 5+ minute exposures with number 5 filters. I can only imagine how long the prints will take. Harsh learning curve. Once those contact sheets were through, I moved into less intense territory and began printing from my travel, family and wedding photo cache all captured from August to present. Busy times. Baby's back in the saddle. It ain't all smooth sailing in this print factory. I reread Duane Michael's essay to bolster my courage before glugging developer onto those risky business rolls. As wise Michael's says, "Take lots of pictures. Work in the darkroom. Print a hell of a lot and learn just by making mistakes." 

Amen to that. 

My old Developer awaits me in the basement. Thanks for reading my one-track print ramblings, whomever you are!

xo Margot 

Up to the mark, or nothing

Motion study at Birdshill Park; October 2016. Photo thanks to IDP.

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"Brahms conducted and composed for the Hamburg Ladies' Choir. According to Bella they rehearsed in the garden; Brahms climbed a tree and conducted from a branch. Bella adopted the choir's motto as her own: 'fix oder nix!' - 'up to the mark, or nothing'. I imagined Brahms carving a line into the bark".

- excerpt from page 137 of Anne Michaels' "Fugative Pieces".

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I woke early this morn and listened to a Bob Dylan record in the front parlor. I moved down to the darkroom to work at the light table and chipped away at a mountain of negatives and slipped them into sleeves. I drank coffee and listened to Barna Howard and Ladies of Soul on tape. I thought about the present state of the world and I thought about the chores that need tending to. I thought about this strange, sad doozy of week and decided to move forward. Hi Marj, I miss you but I am doing well. Me and hundreds of others; we all miss you. I found some nice muslin and made a floral print from an old stencil for a new photography project. Now it is hanging on the line in the backyard and the house smells of spray paint.

Sunflower Man

Self portrait courtesy of Go-Go-Gadget-Long-Arms. In the wild, MB; October 2016.

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How lucky am I to have found a man who will pull over for me while out on a Sunday drive. He takes out his pocket knife and I watch him and those long legs of his saunter into the field of tall sunflowers that caught my eye in the first place. Their heads droop on his shoulder as he bends to saw a stem from its place. One, two, three, four stems. He holds up my prizes in question and I grin in affirmation. That will do, I think to myself while watching him take long strides back through the ditch, up the hill and then drop the long stalks into the truck box like it is the most natural thing in the world. While watching him, I easily imagine little children at school plucking seeds out of the giant flower heads with small tweezers. Content and proud.