This photograph is of my paternal grandfather William Lionel (Len) Clark at 22 years of age. He served 5 years as a reserve sailor aboard HMS Dart (1910-1915) and saw active service from 12 August 1914 to February 1915 in New Guinea. He then enlisted in the Australian Army at Leongatha in Victoria on 5 July 1915 – 24th Infantry Battalion (1-8 Reinforcement) – and left for war on the HMAT Afric A19. His service number was 3688. He never spoke of the War.

The 24th Battalion (1-8 Reinforcement) began reaching Egypt in July / August 1915. In September, the 24th Battalion went on to fight for 16 weeks at Lone Pine, Gallipoli. However, the HMAT Afric A19 left Melbourne on 5 January, 1916 and on arrival in Egypt (24/2/1916) my grandfather was transferred to the 8th Battalion and then into the 14th Battalion. Like many Australian soldiers, he already presented with repeated bouts of dysentery that revisited throughout the War.

The 14th Battalion arrived in France on 14 July, 1916.

From then until 1918, the battalion took part in [two and a half years of] bloody trench warfare. Its first major action in France was at Pozières in August 1916. Along with most of the 4th Brigade, the battalion suffered heavy losses at Bullecourt in April 1917 when the brigade attacked strong German positions without the promised tank support. It spent much of the remainder of 1917 in Belgium, advancing to the Hindenburg Line.

In March and April 1918, the battalion helped stop the German spring offensive. It subsequently participated in the great allied offensive of 1918, fighting near Amiens on 8 August 1918. This advance by British and empire troops was the greatest success in a single day on the Western Front, one that German General Erich Ludendorff described as “..the black day of the German Army in this war…”.

The battalion continued operations until late September 1918. At 11 am on 11 November 1918, the guns fell silent. In November 1918, members of the AIF began to return Australia for demobilisation and discharge.Australian War Memorial

At the end of the War my grandfather was a Sergeant in 14th Battalion.

I remember my father telling me repeatedly that his father hammered one thing into his son’s brain about the War. He said “Never volunteer for anything”. Because everybody who volunteered died.

People have scoffed when I said that anecdote to them in the past. I can only say, tread in my grandfather’s footsteps and you may well have told your sons the same. Volunteerism is much easier when it’s not a daily sacrifice of lives.

William Lionel Clark earned the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

My grandfather was a hard man. He died at 78 years of age when I was aged seven. He lived in Winnaloo Street, Waverly (in Launceston, Tasmania) and he always scared the living pants off me. I carry his middle name.

Battle Honours of the 14th Battalion AIF: Landing at Anzac, Anzac, Defence of Anzac, Suvla, Sari Bair, Gallipoli 1915, Egypt 1915-16, Somme 1916-18, Pozieres, Bullecourt, Messines 1917, Ypres 1917, Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Passchendaele, Arras 1918, Ancre 1918, Hamel, Amiens, Albert 1918, Hindenburg Line, Epehy, France and Flanders 1916-18
Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Think of those moments for a second. Customer email. Customer phone. Customer face-to-face. Customer enquiry. Customer complaint. Customer invoicing. Customers on social networks (Facebook, Twitter).

There are a huge number of situations where your business has an opportunity (where the rubber meets the road) to put a comforting hand on the customers’ shoulder for reassurance, support and to remind them that you exist.

So you can look at those points strategically and ask yourself what experience, what impressions, what outcomes arise from each of those touch-points? How can you, the business, create value or maximise the customer’s impression of your business (product / service)?

Was the customer offended and treated with dignity? Did the representative at the counter trash the company brand by being curt or petty? Was there an opportunity to use the touch-point as an up-selling or cross-selling opportunity. Could you develop relationships? Could you put coupons or theatre tickets attached to certain invoices as a reward program for continual prompt payment?

Here’s a classic e-marketing example. Somebody registers on your website (a touch-point) and leaves an empty shopping cart with two books (another touch-point). The following week, if the cart remains idle, you could reach out and remind that registered customer that they haven’t revisited the cart – maybe they’re interested in something related, perhaps they were absent-minded? If the cart remains idle, two weeks later you reach out and touch them again to raise awareness of a special deal. One month later you reach out and simply say we appreciate the opportunity to do business and hope they return for the Summer / Winter / Easter Sale.

It’s certainly a different way to look at your business. Rather than seeing it as a simple transaction in the marketplace you refocus onto all those touch-points and hone them into a great experience for the customer. The email gets answered within hours, not days. The social media comment is responded to intelligently – even when it is critical of your mistakes. You continually try to value-add, enhance and influence the minds of the market.

And you do this strategically. You sit down and codify the lot so that you know the exact response time for each touch-point. If you receive a complaint it ceases to be arbitrary… the response is courteous, appreciative of feedback and, if valid, the customer gets some free service or product or other opportunity that will turn them around.

Because those touch-points are the opportunities that allow you to go one-to-one with potential and existing customers. This is where you look them in the eye. This is where you discover, service and predict their needs.

Too many businesses are only interested in touching themselves under the counter.

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) was a legendary photographer best known for being a father of photojournalism and street photography and for the promotion of a paradigm he called the decisive moment. Along with Brassai, Cartier-Bresson is probably the most influential European photographer of the Twentieth Century, a trained painter, master of photographic composition and a founding member of Magnum.

Yet, the previous paragraph is a profound understatement of Henri Cartier-Bresson and the complexity and sheer life experience of the man behind the camera. This review can barely touch on Cartier-Bresson’s life story. To that end, the Internet provides ample anecdotes and history.

My copy of Henri Cartier-Bresson: Photographer is in constant use – a solid 338 pages measuring 30.5 x 29 x 3.3 centimetres and weighs 2.7 kilograms. It is a beautifully made book of 155 black and white photographs and worth absolutely every penny. The photographs within were selected by Cartier-Bresson and he gives insight into many of them during interviews for the documentary Henri Cartier-Bresson: l’amour tout court. This documentary is available on YouTube in five parts – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

The book spans work from the whole of Cartier-Bresson’s career and includes photojournalism as well as many iconic photographs made between the employed moments in his life. The prostitutes, the boy on the country road who walked on his hands, the social, tranquil and profound. The documentary mentioned above is great to watch for those explanations behind the photographs, too. It brings many of them to life like personal memoirs – his mother never liked him hanging out with the prostitutes; he took two photographs of the stairs but only showed the one with the child and not the one of the priest; he set up the scene for his most famous photograph – Plate 14: Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, 1932 – and fired the camera through a hole in the fence embracing luck as much as opportunity and preparation. That photograph was said to be the best taken in the Twentieth Century.

In my world Henri Cartier-Bresson: Photographer is everything that I’m looking for in a photography book. It has quality, durability and ongoing fascination.

My previous post – Commercial Quality Apple & Cinnamon Melomel – covered that ground. And for the life of me I don’t see how it serves the Tasmanian economy to lock my business venture out based on those constraints. I either make high quality local product, or I don’t.

Licensing, in this instance, is an insurmountable barrier that prevents me from capitalising on my core capabilities and it prevents the Tasmanian economy from becoming that little more sustainable.

The MBA in my head has been scrumming around for ways to circumvent this limitation. It’s what MBAs are trained to do – add up the numbers, figure the value and profits of a business and circumvent apparently insurmountable barriers to getting our products to market. Refinements to the business plan:

• Option A: Pass the business plan and product to a third party who would employ me as a mead maker. They carry the business licensing, they deal with the business finances and risk. I work solely as an employee with no say in the direction of the business. Sadly, mead makers are probably as replacable as infrastructure.
• Option B: Pass the business plan and product to a third party and finance them to achieve these outcomes. However, the limitation as an investor would be that I don’t join the industry but remain on the financial side as a shadow interest. This would give me no input into controls for quality, branding or product evolution.
• Option C: Move away from the licensing restriction and produce the mead overseas. This would mean importing the Tasmanian honey into that country and it trades off against losing the Tasmanian hand-produced product branding advantage that I would be interested in pursuing. This would in turn influence my ability in several years to market the mead – melomels and cysers – into the growing middle class of Asia, particularly India and China.

While I can’t currently move forward as a mead producer it suits me fine to continue experimentation and product evolution. However, as my issue now is replication of the product we are coming to the stage of choices about those three options. Within 2 years I will be at the stage where biting at the bit is a standardised high quality low-volume production that could be expanded.

There are always ways around insurmountable business obstacles. Usually with trade-offs. And there are probably more ways to skin that cat than Options A-C.

It would be nice in 5 years to be producing commercial quantities of exportable product from a Tasmanian property. But that’s probably a dream. And it’s a dream that would take a lot of external financing.

She wrote:

I wanted to let you know that your Apple & Cinnamon is amongst the best mead I’ve ever tried. I knew it would be nice when I took the cap off, the bouquet was magnificent; I have been in heaven having a sneaky little glass (or four) every night. Honestly, I have a friend who makes mead for a living and he would be proud to produce something like that.

So here I am with an MBA and the ability to produce a fine quality Tasmanian gourmet product at around the $30 price point. I would spend another year perfecting this particular melomel, riding on the back of local vineyards educating the visitor’s palate, and securing consistency of produce in the supply chain to follow through over the next few years with orange melomel, cyser and plain mead. The step to high volume production potential is in mixing a consistent plain mead and fruit juice blend marketed in highly differentiated frosted glass bottles available in four packs or as singles.

However, the Tasmanian government know this scenario could never be the case. I’m unable to be licensed to manufacture or sell fermented products. I’m unable to be a person of influence within an organisation that manufactures or sells fermented products. It’s the same legal barrier that prevents me managing a hotel or running a casino or being a bookie.

Meanwhile, the Tasmanian economy heads down the shitter because Rome burning hasn’t reached the common sense of the populace that there should not be one single local university graduate out of work. We don’t need a government that researches economic development – we need a government that creates an environment where we can do business. We don’t need a government that is one quarter of our State’s labour force. We need a lean, economically vibrant, entrepreneurial, supportive government that cares about small to medium enterprises with the vigour it used to reserve for certain large industry cohorts.

I mean, for Heaven’s sake, don’t Tasmanian politicians see the potential of a burgeoning middle class through India and China? Don’t they realise the small speck of that market that could sustain the Tasmanian economy over the long haul between now and 2030? There are people across the world rethinking their allegiance to the Walmarts and IKEAs. They are cashed up and demand quality products that are unique, hand crafted and have an exotic Tasmanian provenance.

If we can just stop looking inward for a moment we can dig our way out of this pile of crap economic situation. We’ve got the tools AND the talent. We just need the will to enable entrepreneurship and stop locking people like me out.

[End rant... 20:47 time for an imported coffee]

A Company is Legally a Person, but…

Before anybody sends me a factional ball-busting via my email address let me put you straight on one point. Business… is not… about… your politics.

Maybe you didn’t hear me so I’ll go to some length to explain that a company is a legal person in its own right. It’s a person without a vote. But it’s a person who can exchange goods and services for money; it can be stolen from and it can steal from others; it pays tax. A company can be ethical or unethical depending on the type of business and the people who engage it. But a company is still only a business. It’s not a real person; a company is a legally recognised pseudo-person created for business transactions.

This should give you a clue as to why personal politics doesn’t belong on that company car. The business isn’t the owner. Not legally. Not actually. And definitely not in the voting context. Even if their business isn’t a company, if they are a sole trader or a partnership, it still doesn’t make sense. It’s kind of (mostly) dumb.

The Marketing Message is Off Message

Now step back a moment and think about the business marketing message a few million Australian Labor Party voters take away from the political statement on that company car. Aside from the fact the business owner could be an aggressive political stooge with an agenda other than serving customer needs.

It translates as… “Labor voters are stupid”… “Labor voters are not welcome”… “We reserve the right to treat anybody who doesn’t agree with our political opinion as a lesser customer.” The message is OFF MESSAGE. The message is “Our brand is political. Our brand takes sides.” If our brand happens to sell pens, matresses, accounting services or dildos I can just about tell you for a fact that a brand shouldn’t take sides. Not in an election. Not on a hot topic like human induced global warming and carbon pricing. Not when it’s easier to serve both opinions in that debate equally for maximised profit.

Taking sides is just plain redneck dumb, unless they sell mining equipment or something justifiable to the long-term marketing strategy.

A brand shouldn’t be about giving potential customer’s a quick punch in the face in the carpark. Unless, as mentioned, they sell mining equipment to Gina Rinehart.

Businesses don’t Vote

My point is that when a business owner sticks political messages to their company car it goes beyond a personal statement and becomes the marketing message of the branded business. Because brand is the perception in the mind of the market and that sticker affects that perception. Just like the way the business owner dresses for success instead of trotting out in flip-flops. Just like they don’t kick a stray animal. Just like anything else they do as a person in reference to being that business reflects back onto the business brand – the perception in the market – with a laser light of intense scrutiny.

Were I employed as their business consultant the first thing I would do would be to walk down to that car and remove the sticker.

Businesses don’t vote.

In a world saturated in images of every quality, taste and intention there is one skill that needs to be refined – how to look at photographs. This is as important to the general populace of consumer as it is for the aspiring or skilled photographer. On Looking at Photographs: A Practical Guide by Magnum photographer David Hurn in conversation with Bill Jay is about setting you along that path and, while I’m not sold that it’s as cut and dry as photography versus art, it was an insightful read.

They are concerned with the difference between what a photograph is OF as opposed to what it is ABOUT. These are two entirely different things. A photograph of a ship could be about a holiday brochure shot, the ship your family immigrated aboard or a study of large metal industrial behemoths. And the question arises within the photographer of what to show and what to exclude; itself, a manipulation of the photographer’s message. Hurn and Jay are interested in what makes a good photograph – the photographer’s intent, how well it’s been realised and whether it was worth the effort.

Because photographs are never definitive statements about anything. They are open to interpretation as much by the culture, beliefs and socio-economic standing of the viewer as from any accompanying text by the photographer. Photographs mean different things when you see them in different venues – for example, a photograph of a working man in the union trades hall may be an entirely different take on that same photograph on a widow’s mantle-piece. Rich versus poor, nationality, level of education, sophistication and political persuasion all come to the photograph through the viewer independent of the photographer’s wish to push their own agenda.

I particularly agree with a statement they made about style in photography because I see so many photographer’s trying to invent a Photoshopped signature in images that might be about consistency but not about their style. They write that style is not like a filter…

A unique style emerges in photography by ignoring it, concentrating on the subject, and allowing care, passion and knowledge to bubble to the surface through a lot of hard work over a long period of time.

A photographer’s style will become evident in hindsight by looking back at the work and noting the patterns and qualities of what their work produced.

This book covers a lot of ground and to balance it out I’d suggest you also read John Szarkowski’s Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art. Each book comes from their individual perspective and it’s just as important to understand the photojournalistic idea of a good photograph as it is to appreciate the work of art that hangs on a gallery wall with a hefty price tag.

1. After each developing session I tend to wash the spool in soap and water then dry it in a fresh breeze because any residual chemical or miniscule dampness causes the film to stick when feeding onto the spool.
2. A handy place to develop film is in the bathroom. Before a developing session run a hot shower for five minutes to capture dust. Then wipe down surfaces & quick damp mop the floor to collect the dust.
3. When loading the spool: use your fingers to drag the first part of 120 film into the spool for about 4 centimetres… the first part of the film has no images.
4. Consult a developing chart from the chemical manufacturer for mix ratios and corresponding times (ie. Ilford’s Film Processing Chart). Note also, these are starting points not fixed and fast rules.
5. Exact chemical ratios: buy a medicine measuring cup or a purpose designed photographic measuring cup for preparing your chemicals.
6. Measure the temperature of your chemicals with an oven thermometer (sit the jugs in a baking dish so you can add ice or boiling water to the dish to attain the exact chemical temperature – I place the thermometer in the developer).
7. Be precise: the three ways you can affect film development are time, temperature and strength of the developer. Precision is your control.
8. Consistency is also key to control: the more consistent you can make the developing process the more you will be able to predict the resulting negatives.
9. There is ‘good enough’ developer and there is ‘the best’ developer. Choice of chemical can be as important as choice of film – economically and for the quality of the negatives.
10. You can pull process over-exposed film and push process under-exposed film so understand your options while shooting (ie. 100 ASA film shot inside a building can be pushed 1 or 2 stops to either 200 or 400). The effect of pulling film in development is lower contrast and the effect of pushing film in development is higher contrast and grain.
11. The developer stage of processing film negatives is a lot more sensitive & unforgiving than the stop bath or fixer stages.
12. A portable film drying cabinet prevents a large amount of dust from reaching wet negatives.

Once you have a strip of dry film negatives (usually the next day I open the film drying cabinet) there are several choices. The most romantic is to create prints in a darkroom. However, you could purchase a high quality photo scanner to enable the creation of digital files from your analogue negatives. It means you can take those files into an image editing program and treat them as any other digital product.

Most of all, I hope people read these tips and give shooting and processing black and white film a first attempt. It’s neither hard, nor overly expensive. And the satisfaction of creating analogue photographs is another world entirely to the easy graft of contemporary digital photography.

I’m finding the closer I can get to creating ink on paper the more challenging and satisfying photography becomes. My next step is to create a darkroom.

The Kit to get you Processing 35mm and 120 roll film

The Paterson Super System 4 will set you back around AUD$50 – mine cost $35 second-hand. The tank can process 35mm, 120 and 127 film rolls. You will need a reasonably large darkroom bag that will cost around $55 (mine is 27 inch by 30 inch). You will need a developer solution, a stop-bath solution and a fixer solution. They are used in that order – developer, stop bath and fixer. You will also need a few drops of wetting agent.

I use Ilford chemicals for black and white printing. Colour is a little harder and a lot more toxic so I suggest you stick to black and white; a good photo lab can still process any colour rolls you want to shoot.

Ilfotec LC29 (500ml) is a basic and stable developer… I use it at 1+19 (one part in 20) and at a cost of $38 it makes 10 Litres. This will process around 20 rolls of 120 medium format film, 27 rolls of 127 medium format film or 30 rolls of 35mm film. However, if you’re looking for the best Ilford developer the cost is approximately double – Ilfotec DD-X. This was developed for the Delta series of film but is recommended across the Ilford film range for best results.

Ilfotec Ilfostop (500ml) cost $20… it’s also used at 1+19 and makes 10 litres. However, I re-use this a second time so the value is doubled.

Ilford Hypam (5 litres) cost $55 and is used at 1+5 so it makes 25 litres. If you buy this in 5 litres it will cost about half per volume of the smaller bottles.

At the end of your processing you are going to need 2 small drops of a wetting agent before hanging the film to dry. Ilford Ilfotol 1 litre cost $31 but it’s a lifetime supply. If you can acquire it in a smaller and cheaper bottle then all the better.

You’ll also need (something similar to) three 500ml Pyrex jugs, a ceramic baking dish, an oven thermometer, a small measuring cup and a small medicine measuring cup, an eye dropper and a clock with a second hand. Finally, chemical resistant latex gloves.

The Process in Easy Steps

Assuming you have 120 film to process, you need to put the pieces of the developing tank inside the darkroom bag so your film won’t be exposed to light. Alternatively, you could do this in a pitch dark room. Feed back the paper until you reach the film and feed it onto the spool using the back-and-forth feeding motion.

Once in the film is on the spool and safely in the light-tight environment of the developing tank you can head to the bathroom.

Measure out the correct quantities and fill the three pyrex jugs to appropriate levels of chemical for the type film being developed (35mm, 127 or 120). Place the three jugs, in order, into your ceramic baking dish and submerge the end of the oven thermometer into the developer. The temperature needs to be approximately 20 degrees celsius (68 degrees farenheit).

You should consult the Ilford Film Processing Chart to see how long your specific film variety and speed need to be developed in the specific developer you are utilising. If your quantities, temperature and time are controlled the results are more predictable.

The process of using the developing tank is simple (Google will offer up a number of instructional videos).

Pour the jug of developer into the top of the developer tank and slowly rotate end over end for half a minute then tap the bottom of the developing tank three times on the sink to release bubbles from the film surface. Every 30 seconds slowly rotate the tank one more time and tap three times on the sink. For example, if you shot Ilford Delta Professional 400 then your development time as indicated on the Ilford Film Processing Chart will be 7 and a half minutes.

Then remove the top cap to pour out the developer. Pour in the stop bath solution and continually but slowly rotate the developing tank for two minutes.

Again, pour out the stop bath solution and pour in the jug of fixer. Rotate the developing tank for the first 30 seconds and tap three times then continue to rotate the tank once every 30 seconds for the next 9 minutes. Don’t forget to tap the bottom of the tank three times onto the sink after each rotation. At the end of the 9 minutes, pour out the fixer solution.

At this point the film is processed. Unscrew the top off the developing tank and, under running water, agitate the roll of film inside the open tank for 15-20 minutes to remove any traces of chemical.

Finally, fill the open tank with water (you may use distilled water if necessary) and add two drops of the wetting agent to stop the film drying with unsightly water marks. And hang your film overnight… or until dry. I use a home-made film drying cabinet to prevent unnecessary dust on my negatives.

The next day I use an Epson Perfection V600 scanner to bring the images into software for minor editing & dust removal. Voila.

Developing Film is Easy & Affordable

The big take-away from this article should be that processing black and white analogue film is easy and affordable. It costs somewhere between $3-$5 to process a roll of film into negatives… a little bit more if you want to use the best developer Ilford offer. I have a small jar and every time I process somebody’s film I just drop in $5 to help replace the chemicals.

Yes, there are initial outlays for kit including the tank, the darkroom bag and ongoing consumables. But compare that to the cost of going to the processing lab with every roll of film you want to shoot. And factor in the benefits of owning the kit – just like you own and control your own camera equipment.

All I can do is encourage you to give shooting analogue film a go… the worst that can happen is you get a few flat photographs and give up. The best? You discover the tactile experience of analogue photography. Also, if we shoot film they’ll continue to make film… if we shoot only digital then we’ll lose the choice.

My next article will be a number of small tips on getting the best out of your experience at processing your own film in the developing tank. Small things that can save you from bumps and bruises along the way.

OK I’ve been known to shoot a little street photography. It’s the dance of total strangers among the light and dark corners of our city streets. People selling things, buying things, drinking coffee and captured (even stolen) moments of intimacy in the right place at the right time. The trick is to be open to luck and to embrace it when the opportunity knocks.

More often than not I’ll be coming home with my hand on my forehead thinking about the missed shot. The one that got away.

Portrait is a little more scary. I really don’t do portrait that well and keep telling myself this is the year that I’ll start putting in 20,000 hours of hard graft and grind to master the craft of photographic portraiture. It’s difficult because you have to cross the human relationship barrier and actually get involved with human beings – moving from observation to description and hopefully onto a ‘response’, stealing Ricky Maynard’s line.

Having good gear, good technique, understanding light and the exposure triangle will only get you so far with portraiture; you have to mesh with other human beings. You have to be likeable and to like other human beings. There is a whole skill-set in portrait photography that comes well before you pick up a camera.

But I put that out there… I’d love to be better at portrait photography. I’d love to have the Diane Arbus way with people where they would feel comfortable inviting me into their homes and including me in their human experiences.

I also radically culled my social circle some years ago so good old friends with deep relationships over decades are pretty much right out of the picture. When I meet old friends we’re pretty much all on that wavelength – we were never good for each other. Times have changed. We’re older and wiser and too tired to look for trouble. But hey, those people would be absolutely fascinating to pursue for portraits. If only we were still friends, which we’re not.

What I do enjoy and often shoot are still life photographs of surprisingly mundane objects. A few bowls. A pot. The fascinating way light can be bounced and manipulated across various surfaces and textures within a simple composition. It’s more challenging than most people think… and even more fun if it happens to be a piece of original three dimensional artwork that I can attempt to extend.

Still life is about control. Still life is about construction of an image with the limitation being you have to breathe life into the lifeless. Almost the opposite of dealing with human beings.

I guess what I really wish is that I were better with other human beings. I only seem to take good portraits when I’m that third wheel photographer at somebody else’s event. Still observational. Only slightly connected. But I admire people with those human qualities. I really admire them.

That’s my five minutes of introspective reflection for the day on the subject of photography. One of the many ways I could improve.