August, 2013
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Wednesday, August 28th, 2013
These shots are from backstage at the Oxford Fashion Week Couture show which was held at the Ashmolean Museum here in Oxford towards the end of last year. I’ve been meaning to post these but didn’t get around it and as tomorrow evening there is another Oxford Fashion Week event being held there I thought it timely to put these up. The backstage area was in one of the massive halls of the Ashmolean but the lights had been turned off at the far end where all of the male models were waiting around to go line up for the catwalk which made it extremely difficult for me to manually focus my camera. It’s a miracle that any of these are in focus. I was holding my camera with one hand and a flash on a light stand with a big white umbrella with my other hand which provided the lighting in these shots and I’m very pleased with how they turned out. The outfits and styling was by the Clements & Church team who worked non-stop all evening.
[Tech info:] Bronica ETRSi 645, 75mm/2.8 lens, loaded with Kodak Portra 400 film. Developing and scanning by Ag Photolab.
Posted in Fashion, film, People, Photo shoot | No Responses »
Tags: 645, backstage, bronica, fashion, film, ofw, oxford, people
Tuesday, August 27th, 2013
These images are all from the same roll of film made on two consecutive days last week. There’s a big demolition project underway in Jericho at the moment which is close to where I work so I decided to head over there to make some images of the area before it’s all gone. While I was there I had a little wander around some of the Jericho streets and found it to be rather a nice little area to photograph with lots of interesting buildings and architectural details that would be easily missed if you’re not looking with photography in mind. So often we overlook things that are right on our doorstep and that’s certainly the case here. I’m going to make an effort to explore Jericho a little more in the near future.
[Tech info:] Bronica ETRSi 645, 75mm/2.8 lens, loaded with expired Ilford FP4, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 7mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 645, black&white, bronica, film, hc110, oxford, people, summer
Sunday, August 25th, 2013
Most of my photography is done outdoors but I really enjoy shooting indoors with natural light whenever I get the chance and this location was perfect – it’s a rented house that was empty because the people haven’t moved in yet. I love the film noir quality of these. This shoot was not about smoking, it was more about using smoke as an added element but as it turned out there wasn’t very much of it so we tried using incense as well. These are all medium format shots, I did also use 35mm which will follow at a later time.
[Tech info:] Pentax 67, 105/2.4 lens, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired) rated at iso800, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 9:30.
Posted in film, Oxford, Photo shoot, Portrait | No Responses »
Tags: 6x7, black&white, film, hc110, helen, oxford, people, portraits, summer, Tri-X
Friday, August 23rd, 2013
Usually when I’m on my lunch hour photo walk around Oxford city centre I notice a lot of people stopping to have their lunch. At the moment there seems to be a lot of construction projects on the go which means quite a few workmen are around. I think workmen (and women) make excellent subjects for portraits and if you look back at old photographs from the 20th century you’ll find many excellent examples. Here are two Fujiroids that I made on my lunchtime photo walk a couple of days ago.
[Tech info:] Mamiya Universal, 100/3.5 lens, Fuji FP-100C instant pack film (just like Polaroid).
Ship street
St Giles
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: film, fujiroid, mamiya universal, oxford, people, portraits, summer, workmen
Thursday, August 22nd, 2013
At long last I have the shots I made on colour film at the Balliol 750th Commemoration Ball and I couldn’t be more pleased that I decided to send these out to a lab to have developed and scanned. This set of images is every frame from two rolls of film. I find it very exciting to send off rolls of film in the post and then patiently wait for them to return which is something that you only get with film. Despite these films being past their expiry date the colours have turned out beautifully – thank you Ag photo lab in Birmingham for doing such a great job. I bought a good sized batch of this film from a fashion photographer that used to use a lot of it but as his clients request digital photography now he had no need for it.
[Tech info:] Mamiya C330f, 80/2.8 lens, loaded with Kodak Portra VC, developed and scanned by Ag Photo lab.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, students | 7 Responses »
Tags: 6x6, ball, balliol, c330, film, oxford, people, Portra, portraits, students, summer
Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
Here are some Fujiroids from a recent photo shoot I had with Helen. We lucked out with some gorgeous sunlight and a great location to shoot in. The great thing about the room we used for these shots is it had three windows in it, two facing south and one facing west. The great thing about this in terms of photography is if you’re in the right place in the room as the sun is starting to go down in the early evening you end up getting lit from two different directions. I’m very pleased with how these turned out considering the film expired in 2007. Film shots will follow at a later time once I’ve had a chance to develop them.
[Tech info:] Mamiya Universal, 100/3.5 lens, Fuji FP-100C instant pack film.
Posted in film, Oxford, Photo shoot, Portrait, students | No Responses »
Tags: film, fujiroid, helen, mamiya universal, oxford, portraits, students, summer
Tuesday, August 20th, 2013
Here is a set of large format images that I made on 10×8 (green) x-ray film a couple of weeks ago on a stroll into town. I was glad to see the workmen on the steps of the Clarendon Building because I often see them there on my lunch photo walk and think to myself how nice it would be to make a group shot of them on 10×8 film. I took 8 sheets of film with me but only used 7.
[Tech info:] 10×8 Wista Field, 300mm Sinaron lens, CXS green latitude x-ray film (ISO50), processed in Rodinal 1+50 for 6mins.
Setting up (photo by Clive Jones)
Posted in film, Oxford, Street portraits | 2 Responses »
Tags: 10x8, black&white, film, oxford, people, portraits, rodinal, summer, wista, workmen, x-ray film
Wednesday, August 14th, 2013
These shots are from January this year that I’ve only just managed to get around to posting. I found out yesterday that Richard is being moved from the Oxford store to the Leamington branch in a couple of days so these shots are a little bit of history. This grid is an entire roll of film that I shot during my lunch break with Richard and Jason. Some of the shots were to experiment with freelensing, others are with a lens attached to the camera.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex SL66. I don’t have any other info to hand at the moment but I assume the film was Kodak Tri-X.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Photo shoot, Portrait | No Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, film, oxford, people, portraits, SL66
Sunday, August 11th, 2013
This is the second instalment of my pictures from the BMX Jam that was held at the Meadow Lane skatepark last month. It was a really fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon – even my wife and daughter stayed for the whole thing so it must have been good! I tried to photograph some of the action but with a maximum shutter speed of 1/400 it proved to be quite challenging to capture the peak of the action but I gave it my best shot.
[Tech info:] Mamiya RZ67, 110mm and 150mm lenses, loaded with Fuji Acros 100 and Kodak Tri-X 400. Processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait, Sport | No Responses »
Tags: 6x7, acros, black&white, bmx, film, owp, oxford, portraits, RZ67, summer, Tri-X
Saturday, August 10th, 2013
So far all of the x-ray film that I have been using has been of the green variety which I think means it’s sensitive to a certain colour of light when used for medical x-rays. Recently I acquired some blue x-ray film from the FPP online store and here are some of my first test shots with it. These shots were all rated at ISO25 and I experimented with two different developers, Kodak HC110 and Rodinal. This film seems very sensitive to over agitation and I think the Rodinal seems to be better because of the higher dilution of 1+100 and longer development time of 10mins.
[Tech info:] Wista 10×8, 300mm Sinaron lens, Fuji Blue x-ray film, ISO25.
The view on the ground glass screen of the Wista. It’s upside down on the camera when I’m using it.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Photo shoot, Portrait, Street portraits | 2 Responses »
Tags: 10x8, black&white, film, hc110, oxford, rodinal, summer, tamsin
Sunday, August 4th, 2013
Now that I’ve got a batch of C41 colour film chemistry mixed up I decided to use some large format colour film this week which I don’t usually get to use. My go to 5×4 camera tends to be a Speed Graphic because of its built in shutter and the choice of old lenses this allows me to use but the film I wanted to use has an ISO rating of 12 which means it needs a ton of light and the Speed Graphic doesn’t have a shutter speed slower than 1/30 so I ended up using my Wista Field camera which is a lot lighter and a joy to use. I bought my Wista brand new in 1990 and it’s still going strong. Back then it was a magnet every time I used it on the streets and it’s still the same now although the questions people ask me now are different, for example a common one is ‘can you still get film for that?’ The answer is yes.
These images were all made on film that isn’t designed to be used outdoors, it’s meant for duplicating existing film with the use of an enlarger and a tungsten light source but I’ve found that it works nicely outdoors. The Top image of the Ashmolean Museum and the left hand shot of the Triumph motorbike were made with Fuji slide duplicating film that expired in 2011 and the other four shots were all made with Kodak internegative film that expired in 1991. I’ve posted the two motorbike shots side by side for a comparison between both film types. The Fuji film is designed to be processed in E6 chemistry to give a positive transparency but here I’ve cross-processed it in C41 chemistry to see what would happen. I’m pleased with the results. Next I want to try using it for a portrait. Any volunteers?
[Tech info:] Wista field 5×4 camera and Schneider 180mm and 90mm lenses. Kodak inernegative and Fuji CDII slide duplicating film, both exposed at ISO12.
Wista Field 5×4 large format
Posted in Equipment, film, Oxford | No Responses »
Tags: 5x4, c41, cdii, film, fuji, oxford, summer, wista, xpro
Saturday, August 3rd, 2013
Today I had a little spare time just before midday so I went over to the Meadow lane skatepark to see if I could make some portraits before it started to rain. There weren’t many people there but I did manage to make these two portraits before heading back home.
[Tech info:] Graflex Speed Graphic 5×4, Kodak Aero Ektar lens, Fuji FP-100C instant pack film.
Skateboarder
BMX rider
Posted in film, Oxford, Portrait, Sport | No Responses »
Tags: 5x4, bmx, film, fujiroid, graflex, owp, oxford, people, portraits, summer
