The Magic of Analog Photography Returns (Revised 2024)

Robert Maddox-Harle

by Robert Maddox-Harle – Australia

For those of us fortunate enough to have had a wonderful childhood certain magical

moments never leave us. At about age seven my uncle gave me a Kodak ABC Photo Lab Outfit (Model A). No “Paterson Super-System-Tank” to develop my Brownie Box camera negatives, just a glass rectangular dish on the shelf in my “darkroom” – a large closet – I had to pass the film roll from left to right and back again for the correct amount of time. Making sure the film stayed under the developer fluid in the pitch black was no easy feat. Then, into the Stop bath and Fixer. Opening the darkroom door I stood transfixed, my images were all there on the wet, slippery film roll. This was the first magical moment.

 

Kodak ABC Photo Lab Outfit (Model A) (circa 1955)

 

The second piece of pure magic was watching the image “manifest” before my eyes in the developer tray after exposing the photographic paper in the contact printer. This “miracle” has never left me, as I suspect is the case for most film photographers.

I wanted to be an intern photographer after I finished high school, ha! “Get a real job

son, undertake an apprenticeship in a useful trade.” In my late teen years and early

twenties I became a serious amateur photographer with my own darkroom, SLR

cameras and so on, working most nights till late on various projects including some

fashion portfolios, wedding photos (always the unofficial photographer) and my own

artistic orientated black & white images. It was about this period I fell in love with Ilford 100 ASA fine grain black & white film.

Coal and Candle Creek NSW Australia. Pentax 35mm SLR
Ilford 100 ISO film – Red Filter, photo by Robert Maddox-Harle

 

I moved from the city, leaving my darkroom equipment behind, for a more peaceful and less stressful life in the “bush”. This allowed me to explore my artistic inclinations and aspirations, specifically stone, wood and ceramic sculpture. I took numerous photos during this period, mainly for documentation of both my own and other sculptor’s work.

Sound of Silence Somersby sandstone 1.5m high. Photo Pentax 35mm

SLR. Photo and sculpture by Robert Maddox-Harle

 

Creating and producing The Sculptor’s Guild Newsletter throughout this period is

interesting in hindsight; typing everything on an Olivetti manual typewriter and using

dot-screens overlaying the photographs for reproduction using a photocopier (they

were called Xerox copies then).

After too many years of hard physical work my spine told me seriously, “enough is

enough”. (I recently underwent major spinal surgery and now have titanium/polymer

artificial discs.) Serendipitously at the time of finishing with sculpture computers and

the first digital cameras were becoming available. I took to the computer like “a duck to water” but the one megapixel digital cameras left a lot to be desired. As the technology improved I became more and more involved with computer/digital fine art, utilising numerous computer programs such as Bryce, Poser, and Photoshop. I used both digital and scanned analog photos, black & white and colour with these computer applications. Rather than explain at length the philosophy and processes involved with my digital artwork please see the following essay link which covers it very well, together with photographs.

http://www.setumag.com/2017/06/Digital-Artwork-Rob-Harle.html

 

Plato’s Ghost Haunts the Matrix Digital computer image by Robert Maddox-Harle

I reached the stage a few years back when I felt that my whole digital artwork practice was somewhat sterile, partly because of the techno-machine-like subject matter, it lacked the palpable, textured reality of analog photographic production. Even the chemical fumes of the darkroom add to the holistic experience!? Maybe this need for the sensory satisfaction of handling materials harks back to being a sculptor.

Now the wheel has come full circle. Recently I clocked up “three score and ten” (70) +6 years so decided to “get back to the basics of love” (Waylon & Willie). Love of all things to do with analog photography, especially the darkroom processes – the magic never leaves! I have even started collecting vintage and antique cameras. I particularly like the Zeiss Ikon Compur, medium-format (circa about 1931) camera which is still in perfect working order.

Zeiss Ikon Compur Medium-format camera (circa 1930)

 

Here is a link to a very recent photo-essay “In the Arms of Middle Brother” I did for

Setu Journal. This bilingual journal, published online once a month, comes out of

Pittsburgh, USA. Setu means “bridge” in Hindi.

 

https://www.setumag.com/2018/04/photo-essay-Rob-Harle.html?m=1

 

These photographs were taken with a Ricoh 35mm camera, a nice camera but not

exactly top-shelf professional, but as the saying goes, “The best camera in the world is the one in your hand when the action happens!”

 

Jetty at Googley’s Lagoon Ricoh 35mm SLR Ilford 100
ISO film by Robert Maddox-Harle

Now the “grit of time” has worn down my memory and I have to re-discover all sorts of lost vital information. How long to develop the film? What’s that stuff in the second tray called? Vague bits of memory haunt me, I seem to remember making my own Stop Bath and Fixer, wonder how I did that? Enter Tim Layton! I searched the net for a “home brew” Fixer, Tim saved the day with all sorts of Brain’s Trust information. I

subscribed to his weekly Darkroom Diary and he asked me to write this short article

about my journey from Analog to Digital to Analog photography for Darkroom

Underground Magazine. Thanks Tim for sharing your extensive knowledge and

inspiring many of us in the love of all things “old school” to do with analog photography.

 

I guess it’s timely and only right that I return to film photography and processing as I

think this must be in my genes. My great grandfather Dr Richard Leach Maddox was

the inventor of the gelatino bromide dry plate negative, this became the basis of the

modern film we now use. He also pioneered photo-microscopy. Perhaps this could be the subject of a future Darkroom Underground article?

 

I believe 35mm, medium format and large format film all have their specific strong

points, however at this stage I am most interested in medium format black & white

work. I am especially interested in, as subject matter, “industrial grunge” – obsolete

bits of machinery, deserted factories and the artefacts of the last phases of the

industrial revolution. My quest is to produce the “perfect” black in analog photographic prints, and to continue my exploration and experimentation with light in photography. I will make a rather bold statement and suggest that, “Light is everything in photography.” Understanding the complexity of light is a life-time task. I recently reviewed a brilliant book for Leonardo, The Practice of Light: A Genealogy of Visual Technologies from Prints to Pixels by Sean Cubitt which will be of interest to all serious photographers. Here is the link to that review:

https://www.leonardo.info/reviews_archive/apr2015/cubitt-harle.php

 

I dreamed back in the early years of owning a medium format Hasselblad, Mamiya or

Pentax, but being an apprentice tradesman (ha!) did not allow such extravagance.

Now these cameras, in almost mint condition, are within the reach of most individuals. The photo below was taken with my Mamiya medium-format camera using the eye-level viewfinder (it has the luxury of an accurate exposure meter), the negatives were processed by a professional lab. I live in Australia (big country, small population) which makes finding second-hand darkroom equipment like enlargers and so on a rather difficult task, however, after much searching and bargaining I am all kitted-up and ready to experience the magic once again.

The Trains Have Gone Mamiya medium-format camera Il

 

The first unrevised copy of this article was first exposed in Tim Layton’s

Darkroom Underground Magazine 2019.

Robert Maddox- Harle
https://www.maddoxharle.com

robert@maddoxharle.com

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Setu, November 2024