Robbie Becklund Photography

I just got the very sad news that Hideaki Sekiguchi, a.k.a. "Billy" of GuitarWolf died of a heart attack today. We toured with Guitar Wolf in Japan and when they were in Austin we always got together. Since Billy and I both played bass guitar we got along quite well. He was a great person, so full of life and so much fun to be around. Even though I hadn't seen him in a few years, it's horribly saddening to know I never will and that he is not somewhere touring the world, playing bass and being Billy. Here's a few pictures.

I've worked through a couple of rolls from shooting in Duluth and they all having scratches from the inside of the camera. I know there are ways to fix this but it's such a hassle and these fixes weren't meant to be used on every negative. I'll switch inserts and hopefully that will fix the problem.

I was thinking, maybe the reason for the popularity in the holga camera is because of the increase of negative scanning and photoshop. I know if I was scanning my negatives and printing with an inkjet printer the scratches and light leaks wouldn't be issues--I'd photoshop them and the world would be a better place.

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There's an ad in Outdoor Photographer for Photoshop and the big caption says "Spread lies."

I realize, that while I like using RC paper cuz it's cheap and fast to work with, I've got to stick with fiber paper, even for test prints. The tonal range is so much better.

These three were from last weekend at the Como Park Zoo in St. Paul.


Palm - 2005 - holga


Cloud and Conservatory - 2005 - holga


Clouds and Conservatory - 2005 - holga

Well I think it's time to switch to a new blog system. Blogger is dead in the water again! It's happening regularly. I've been trying to publish a minor change to my template and it won't post. The typical crap of a great company being ruined by being bought by another company and of course one that is publicly traded--Google.com. Money Money Money, lets' make more money, let's see how much money we can make.

I've got to find a new one. There's Movable Type but I think that costs $$. See for some reason I haven't been charged for blogger in many years so I've gotten used to paying that amount of money. This is rather annoying. The idea of switching everything seems a tad daunting. Or.... I sometimes debate with myself the positive aspects of not having a blog... I could just push the "delete blog" button and my problem would be solved--hmmm...

I just got back from a day in Duluth. Shot 6 rolls with the Holga along the shore just north of town and around the aerial liftbridge. I'm real interested to see what I got. I'm mixing my two styles of photography for the first time--North Shore/Duluth and Holga. There was a decent amount of ice still on Lake Superior north of Duluth and by the Duluth lighthouse there were at least 30 foot tall piles of ice.

Brooks Jensen of LensWork Magazine had a posting in his audio blog about his experience as a formal portfolio reviewer at Photolucida in Portland Oregon last week. He saw 60 portfolios and he said that 1 was platinum, 1 was photogravuere (sp? (too lazy to check...)), and 6 were gelatin silver. The rest of the portfolios were all inkjet prints. He is a gelatin silver photographer and he was shocked at how commonplace inkjet printing has become.

I see that I have archives for over a year now. And actually the oldest archive has posts that are two years old. It's nice to see I've stuck to one thing fairly consistently over the last year. Well there is a second thing I'm sticking with--shooting with the holga.

It's spring break here in Minneapolis and I took my son to the Minnesota Children's Museum in St. Paul (I like St. Paul, it has an older feel, I've thought of moving there if I remain in the land of 10,000 Lakes indefinitely) and did some shooting with the Pentax 35mm.

Oh and Saturday we went to Como Park Zoo in St. Paul (of course). There's something special about going to the zoo in the winter and watching the Giraffes pace in their small indoor enclosure. The polar bears, tiger and grey wolf were digging it though. And yes I did some shooting there with the holgas--mainly in the conservatory or big greenhouse taking pics of the plants and flowers, right along side the women with their digital cameras. I wonder what people think when they see me with my clunky plastic cameras covered with the Bad Batz Maru and Sponge Bob stickers, velcro, masking tape and felt. I did see someone who was trying to be a serious photog give me a serious double take as I was loading my holga.

If you like some of the recent images I've just posted here on the blog, I've listed some of them for sale on ebay Cattails 4 and Pilings. There are many more of my photos listed. Currently I'm selling 8x10s matted to 11x14 and 11x14s matted to 16x20.

Into very cool and hard to find photo books and monographs? Check out Vincent Borrelli Bookseller on eBay. He's got a bunch of great stuff including Diado Moriyama books!

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On the Canonet front. It doesn't work. The shutter stuck/froze/died etc. I got my money back and still have the camera so that's cool. But I checked and it'll probably cost $100 to get it looked at (frowny face). I know I can buy a mint one on ebay for that price. So I think that might be on hold for now.

Maybe what I should do is get a wide angle lens for my Pentax K1000 and just use that. I have been shooting some with it, but the 50mm lens doesn't suit me, I need something wide angle.

Here are some from the last couple of weeks. Yes I'm running with the cattail thing. But ya know, winter is the only time to get at some of this stuff because of the ice.


Cattails 4 - 2005 - holga


Cattails 5 - 2005 - holga


Pilings - 2005 - holga


Reeds Snow - 2005 - holga


Tree Snow Shadow - 2005 - holga


Cattails 6 - 2005 - holga

Hip Hip Hooray! Ilford Photo is born... reborn?! As long as they ain't dead!
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News Release
Ilford move secures black-and-white future
Date: 9 March 2005
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It's good news at last for black-and-white photographers - following last month's management buyout, Ilford Photo says that not only will it continue its current range of monochrome products, it also plans to reintroduce abandoned lines.

According to managing director Phil Harris, the company will retain all existing film lines except SFX200, as well as all existing papers and liquid chemistry. Dry chemistry products, warmtone developers and a number of abandoned papers will be reintroduced over the next few months, and the company hopes to enter new markets such as glass plate coating.

Harris explained: 'The current item list was generated by the receivers for maximum efficiency, so we will reintroduce old lists. For example, we are the only company in the world that can coat glass plates, so while it would not be a big part of our business, we want to consider it. We are committed to black-and-white.

Ilford Photos was created last month after Ilford Imaging Group's UK arm completed a management buy-out. The team acquired the manufacturing and sales and distribution of the Mobberley plant and, according to Harris, will retain the 380 staff now employed there.
Harris was optimistic about the future, despite Ilford's difficulties over the past year. He said: 'Ilford Photo is profitable and solvent.

The receiver had to decide whether to keep the company trading or not, but we had such great support from our customers that the business came back up off the floor. Black-and-white has been declining by 5-7% per year, and last year it declined by 20-30%. I think next year it will be the same, then the decline will flatten out as we reach the core market of fine art, student and specialist black-and-white photographers. We plan to be the last man standing in black-and-white imaging.'

Source: © Incisive Media Investments Ltd 2004

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Well I guess I don't have to give up Ilford HP5 film or their multigrade fiber paper that I use. It's nice to see that there is a core group of companies that will stick with black and white, it's good because not everyone's going to switch to inkejet and digital.

From "Kertesz on Kertesz" referring to the photo scene when he moved to the U.S. in 1936:

"I was out of place. Here they want technical perfection. At this time modern photography was what the f/64 group represented. Look, if you want to learn how to write, you study the alphabet and exercise every day. And in the end you have a very beautiful alphabet. But what are you writing with the alphabet? Perfect technique but expressing nothing. This is what I call "calligraphic photographs a l'americaine." That was the formula here. A good subject killed by millions of details that you may not need for a picture. You need expression to create a picture, not simply technique."

His comments are as appropriate now as then.

Here's a good op-ed piece by David Brooks, (who usually I don't agree with) about what America has become--lily livered -- Saturday Night Lite.

Man, let's all fly to New York and have a photo hoe-down!!

And here's an Arbus review - They're not saying anything new really, just different words, but it's fun to read anything about her.

and more about the show. The Revelations show is coming to Minneapolis--oh happy day!

Here's a bit about a Lisette Model show in NYC. Model was Arbus' mentor/teacher.

Here's an NY Times (kind of) review of the Larry Clark retrospective at the International Center of Photography in Midtown NY. I've seen his books, but I'd really like to see his actual photos. If Rudy was still Mayor I'm sure he'd lay an egg.

I got the Canon Canonet today and shot off a test roll, I'll process it tonight or tomorrow. All seems to work okay. I did have a few nervous moments when the shutter stuck--maybe that's an omen--but it worked okay. I'm hoping it just needs to be used. I suppose a clean and lube is in order. These cameras were made to use the now outlawed Mercury batteries, but with the help of The Web, I was able to find out that Zinc Air batteries are the closest thing and have consistent output, although the output is one tenth of a volt higher than the Mercury battery. I also read that you can get the camera adjusted to match the voltage of the newer batteries for the meter. Now I just got to find someone to work on it. In this age of digiphoto I get worried that the old pros at this stuff will become obsolete.

Masked Man - Chicago, 1985


Four People, Michigan Ave. - Chicago, 1985


Wigs - Chicago, 1985


Running, Lincoln Park Zoo - Chicago, 1985


Bag Pipers - Chicago, 1985


Wave - Chicago, 1985


Man and Store Window, Michigan Ave. - Chicago, 1985

For a year in 1985 I took pictures on the streets of Chicago. I think the next year I stopped taking pictures seriously. I've been looking at 100 contact sheets from that year. I'll be posting my favorites here and putting up a page with these images on my website with the best of the lot. It seems kind of strange to be digging so far into my past but it's an important excercise for me since I'll be shooting on the streets of Minneapolis very soon. It's helping me to understand what I want in this type of image.

I'm still shooting with the Holga.

The Photographer's Right - A Downloadable Flyer - Your Rights When Stopped or Confronted for Photography

I better get a new printer soon, since mine just bit the dust a couple days ago and a backup that was laying around didn't work either. I wanna print this and keep it in my camera bag (which by the way is a black Domke, which I LOVE, and holds two Holgas and film, or will very soon hold one Holga and one Canonet and film) so when I get stopped for taking pictures at the Mall of superAmerica or something I can refer to my rights so I won't have to hand over my film, camera, driver's license, library card and first born. Weeee! I can't wait to take pictures of people again.

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blogger is lame, it's taken 5 tries to post this post.

Parachute Drop & Cloud - Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, 2002 - Holga

Last night I won a Canon Canonet G-III QL17 on ebay. It's a rangefinder with a 40mm 1:1.7 lens. I hope it works alright. I'm very excited to get it and start shooting with it. Taking pictures with people in them?!?! Wow, what a concept. I wonder if I'll have the same cojones as when I was young shooting on the street in Chicago--we'll see.

Yesterday I mentioned how I was looking at 20 year old contact sheets and thinking about printing some of the images, and many of the photos I like now are not the ones I liked when I took the pictures.

So I was thinking, what if these were digital images. My 20 year old negatives are kept in five 3-ring binders. Would someone shooting digital keep all these images? Would they just keep the ones they like after they shoot them and delete the rest? How would they keep their digital storage up to date over 20 years and beyond. And don't forget about the new images. I've got three 3-ring binders full of recent work. I find it hard to believe that somewhere along the way images wouldn't get deleted to save space.

To give you an idea how technology progresses. Twenty years ago, personal computers barely existed. The first PC I used in 1986 (or so) was a dual floppy drive Compaq with no hard drive. How many times are digital photographers going to have to update equipment, and software to keep pace with progress and maintain their images.

Me, I'll just run down to the office supply and get another 3-ring binder.

Last night I looked through a bunch of old contact sheets from when I was shooting people on the streets of Chicago. It was pretty interesting because most of the pictures I thought were good 20 years ago are not ones I like now. I'm trying to decide if I should spend time working on these images because it's kind of like new work since in a way I'm seeing them for the first time. And there's some pictures I really like. Also, I will probably start back doing street photography very soon and spending time with these old images will really help me get a handle on what/how I want to shoot now.

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I'm so funny...don't believe the post from Feb. 27, that's changed. I don't think I'll be getting a pinhole camera. Doing street photography has been gnawing at me for some time now, so that will be where I'm headed.

Freestyle Photo newsletter with articles on the holga (this is a pdf file). Here's a great quote by a professor of art: "The anti high-tech aspects of the Holga's use freed students from the stifling nature of digital photography." Can I get a hallelujah brother!

I think I'll be changing this from a real blog to a place where I just post new work. I find I can't come up with new pictures on a regular basis. Also, there are other things I want to do with my photos then just hurry and post them on this weblog. I'm experimenting with larger sizes and presentation/mounting--these are not things that go over too well as a jpeg on a computer screen. I suppose I could write about my experiments. Another factor, I'm working more, so I have less time and the blog seems to be losing out to other necessity type things--cooking, cleaning, sleeping, being a dad, etc.

A very cool photo collector . . . And All That Jazz Memorabilia!