The insoluble pancake

Another trip to Montsouris. I never tire of the fact how ordinary objects can appear mysterious when photographed. Remember that Gary Winogrand quote: “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.” Photography is not a faithful reproduction of the world, and black-and-white film photography even less so. And if on top of that you’re not using lenses, film and developer known for outstanding truth-telling, well, you can end up with wonderful situations like this.

In real life these are just some unexceptional worn-out trees at one end of Montsouris. Actually I tried to print this image in the lab on very large paper, in the cupboard there is a box of Kodak film paper that dates from I don’t know when. I cranked up the enlarger to the highest setting and then some, exposed the paper, discovered of course the paper was much too big for the development bath, poured the dev bath into a big bath I had found under the sink (which hadn’t be used for years either and was full of small dead insects), realised of course I’d need some stop and fixer too, poured back the dev, poured in and out the stop and fixer, somehow managed to dry the print. Now, after a few weeks, not surprisingly, the print has turned grey, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away…