babylon 13
lomography kino film
2020 Nov 10
It began in the Earth year 2020, with the founding of the last of the Babylon films, located deep in neutral space. It was a port of call for refugees, smugglers, businessmen, diplomats... and travelers from a hundred worlds. Could be a dangerous place – but we accepted the risk, because Babylon 13 was our last, best hope for peace.
The packaging
So Lomography has created another "new" film stock. They took ORWO DN21, "a film for the production of black & white intermediate negatives," put it into 135 canisters, and now sell it as "Babylon", a Kino film at ASA 13. Lomography claims this film "captures life's most emotive moments in detailed tender renderings" and "delicately imbues frames with nuanced nostalgia". Uhhhh... what? They also say its panchromatic, and has "sharp detail, low grain and subtle gradient transitions," which at least hints at some specifics. For what it's worth, the official notes on DN21 say it has "panchromatic sensitisation" which produces "well-balanced grey values," but since this isn't exactly DN21, all bets are off.
look at the weird blue color of the film
So how is it?
Well, at ASA 13, it's among the slowest photographic films in production. So be prepared to shoot long exposures, wide open, or with tons of light. It was a fun challenge shooting this way in my Contax S2. The Babylon does have these absolutely lovely dark grays to it's rendering. If you're looking for a moody, dramatic film, this Babylon is a candidate.
But then there's the Lomography aspect to this... the film stock seems maybe intentionally damaged? As if they tried to make it look aged? Or maybe it really is aged? I do not know. I found plenty of weird banding, specks, and smearing in my photos. But it's a Lomography film. They're not seeking perfection. Don't shoot Babylon if you want immaculate negatives.
some dust and random smears for you, and no it's not a light leak
notice the horizontal banding across the image
A film this slow lets you shoot at maximum aperture pretty much no matter the condition. So these photos I shot at f/1.4, and with my lens's halation, this resulted in a dreamy, soft-focus effect. Neat! I didn't expect it, but I liked it. It's a look well-matched to the film's contrasty grays.
soft focus and some overexposure samples for you
I made a Flickr group
I posted some photos on Flickr and went to add to them to the matching group for the film, only to discover that it doesn't exist. So I made it. Join. Put your Babylon 13 photos in it.
(Warning: many of the upcoming links contain 18+ material.)
Do not be fooled by the pretender groups proclaiming the false Babylons, for Flickr's search algorithm cannot distinguish between our fine new film stock and the keyword-laden Black Hebrew Israelite community or the Alternative Mormon Swingers, amongst others.
But what are these groups haunting Flickr's nether regions?
Via the False Babylon groups, we discover the internet realm of Franklyn Victor Beckles, Jr., also known as Azariyah Ben Yosef, at various times a professed Reverend, Doctor, Pastor, Elder, Lieutenant, Captain, and/or Bishop. For those unfamiliar with this legend, he's a "notable internet icon" and a "renown church pastor" and "christian celebrity" who says he has worked as a cop, firefighter, "true" firefighter, and actor. He's a "famous daycare director" and a "movie star" and "reality TV star" and "Renown Published Book Author and TV Evangelist" and "More of a Hero & Firefighter than anyone in AMERICA!!!".
As if that resume isn't impressive enough, he further was a Christian minister who left the church after he "discovered that Christianity is based on Paganism and lies by the Roman Catholic Church." Nowadays you can find him applying his considerable self-publishing talents to creating immense walls of text in service of the Black Hebrew Israelite community.
Please stop
No.
A studied stroll through his megaparagraphs is left as an exercise for the reader, but luckily for us with a short attention span, he has ALL CAPSed the important parts. This allows us to quickly learn of his "BATTLE AGAINST THE CORRUPT RICHMOND COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION" and his quest in "EXPOSING THE BEST KEPT SECRET IN AMERICA" and about "THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE ISRAELITES" and also how "THE BLACK WOMAN IS THE SEX SLAVE AND SERVANT OF THE BLACK MAN!!!!"
Wait, what?
Beckles, like all true wall of texters, has self-published many walls of texts in many mediums. Including the once-and-future book publisher, Amazon.com. Many of his books are free. But the one that most attracts my attention features a picture of massively pregnant yoga lady on the front, costs $2.99, and has no reviews: BABYMAKERS: "A controversial story about charismatic religious leaders who start a anti-feminist movement and become famous."
I need to read this. It is my destiny. It is my life's purpose.
I put just shy of three of my hard-earned dollaridoos down and purchased this novella with its promise of six action-filled pages. My dollars were, to say the least, well spent.
The book opens with a dedication: this text is for his "parents, wife, and children". Then we jump right in to the story, immediately setting the stage by repeating the well-known truism that modern feminism is destroying God's biblical principals, and that in response our (unnamed) true believer characters "carried on the sacred tradition of polygamist [sic]."
Yes, that polygamy
Polygamy, unfortunately, seems to be the crux of the story. But who should qualify to be our still-unnamed protagonists' sister wives? Why, the text declares, "former sluts" and "beautiful human sperm banks and luscious sexy women," for the "men had exceptional taste in beautiful and sexy bastard women." We learn that our anonymous holy men can only "inseminate the bitches after marriage," because only then do they have the right to "inseminate as many of their sexy wives (whom were former whores) as they could."
Oh, no
Oh, yes.
After repeatedly describing how "busty" and "sexy" the wives are, Beckles takes the reader through the list of their names and progeny. A list, which by pure happenstance, has many of the women with names similar to those of pornographic actresses. And this is no short list, either. It goes on an on, unconcerned with abridgement in any form, in naked glory, for about half the length of the full text of the book.
And then, the list traversed, we arrive thankfully at the dramatic conclusion. Events wrap up quickly, perhaps too quickly. Yet the ending is happy, since the children were "conceived by over one hundred beautiful female models, busty bitches, and only luxurious women of their community" with our characters' fates being that they "eventually gained worldwide fame and fortune, becoming multi-billionaires!!!!"
Four exclamation marks
Will there ever be a sequel to this heart-wrenching story? Will we ever learn what the fates have in store for our undisclosed protagonists? Perhaps if Beckles is ever so inspired. Which he may be, we learn, since he is kind enough to, in an endnote, share with us the divine guidance for his incredible tale.
"BABYMAKERS," it turns out, drew its influence from the movie The Babymakers (similar title a coincidence). Further mentioned are the TV show "Sister Wives", "Adult Entertainment websites for men" (remember, this book is dedicated to his parents, wife, and children), and lastly, other books written by Dr. Franklyn Beckles. Ah, the mark of true genius, drawing inspiration from his own earlier works!
Five stars.
So... photography...?
Oh, yeah, Babylon 13. Whatever. It's fine.