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Sunday, December 6th, 2015
One of my favourite things to photograph at the beginning of summer is when Oxford University students celebrate the end of their exams which is also known as trashing. I love the riot of colour and carnival atmosphere of pure celebration and relief all mixed together. I’ve got quite a backlog of pictures to post going back to last year. Here are some pictures from this year with lots more to come.
[Tech info:] Nikon F100, 85/1.8D, Fuji Press 400 film (expired), Rollei Digibase C41 kit, Pakon scans.
Posted in film, Oxford, students | No Responses »
Tags: f100, film, fuji press 400, nikon, oxford, pakon, students, summer, trashing
Sunday, November 15th, 2015
Last year I photographed the Remembrance Day ceremony is Oxford with only 35mm film so this year I decided to change things up and only use large format. There’s no sense in repeating things, right? After much deliberation I opted to use my Speed Graphic 5×4 and 7 inch Aero Ektar lens (aka The Burnett combo). Using a lens from WWII seemed somewhat appropriate and I need all of the speed I could get because the sky was very overcast and the light level very low. Once I had packed my camera bag I only had space for 6 film holders (12 sheets of 5×4 inch film) so that’s all I took. Some of my shots ended up with very strange looking focus shift so I think in my rush to set up I must have moved the lens from being parallel with the film plane. Overall I think this camera and lens combo is well suited to this subject and hopefully I’ll get a chance to photograph some more military parades when I’m not rushing so much.
[Tech info]: Graflex Speed Graphic 5×4, Kodak Aero Ektar lens, Ilford HP5 developed in HC110 1+31 for 5 mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 5x4, aero ektar, black&white, film, graflex, hc110, HP5, oxford, people, speed graphic
Friday, November 6th, 2015
Back in the summer some professional skateboarders from North America visited the OWP skatepark on meadow lane for a skate around as part of a European tour. I must confess I’m not a skateboarder so I didn’t know anything about the guys that were coming but a lot of people did and I’ve never seen the skatepark so busy. Here are some frames from the roll of film I had in my M2. The beginning of the roll had Lewis shots on it (see previous post). I think I have some other shots from a different camera which I’ll post at a later date.
[Tech info]: Leica M2, Voigtlander Nokton 50/1.5, Fuji Reala 100 (expired), developed in a Rollei Digibase C41 kit, Pakon scans.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Sport | No Responses »
Tags: film, leica, m2, owp, oxford, people, reala, skateboarders, skatepark
Monday, November 2nd, 2015
Some of my behind the scenes photography during filming of Lewis season 9, episode 2 in Oxford back in the summer. The was some very clever set dressing on this one when they converted the front of the Oxfam bookshop on Turl Street into a tattoo parlour. I came across it when the conversion was almost complete and it looked so authentic I was struggling to remember which shop used to be there. The university offices building was once again made to look like oxford police station and the crew spent the best part of a day filming different coming and going shots.
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voigtlander 50/1.5 Nokton, Fuji Reala 100 (expired), developed in a Rollei digibase C41 kit. Pakon scans.
Posted in Behind the scenes, film, Oxford, People | 4 Responses »
Tags: film, filming, fuji, leica, lewis, m2, oxford, people, reala
Monday, October 26th, 2015
This set of pictures are all from the same roll of film from the previous post. Behind the scenes during filming of Endeavour series 3, film 4 on Merton Street in Oxford. The last handful of frames are from the following day on the steps of the Clarendon building. This is a busy part of town at the best of times and it just so happened that filming took place at the height of rush hour with a minimal crew which didn’t include the usual crowd control staff. I lost count of the amount of times they had to reset and re-shoot.
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voigtlander Nokton 50/1.5, Eastman Double X film, developed in Kodak D76 1+1, Pakon scans.
Posted in Behind the scenes, film, Oxford, People | No Responses »
Tags: black&white, d76, double x, endeavour, film, filming, leica, m2, nokton, oxford, people, voigtlander
Thursday, October 22nd, 2015
I think I shot more film during the filming of this episode of Endeavour than any other. The action here took place on Merton Street which is very well preserved with period buildings and cobblestones so it’s fairly easy to dress it for scenes that take place in the 1960’s. This was the first time I had seen firearms used on Endeavour which made it quite exciting. There are more shots to follow from this roll and as before I’ve decided to split the shots across two different blog posts.
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voigtlander Nokton 50/1.5, Eastman Double X film, developed in Kodak D76 1+1, Pakon scans.
Posted in Behind the scenes, film, Oxford, People | No Responses »
Tags: black&white, d76, double x, endeavour, film, filming, oxford, pakon, people
Friday, October 9th, 2015
Behind the scenes during filming of Lewis IX on Catte Street in Oxford earlier this summer. This is a very busy location to be filming in and quite difficult for the crew to lock down during each take so it was quite time consuming to film a relatively short scene. Usually I don’t tend to focus my attention on the main cast when doing my behind the scenes photography like most people do because it’s the crew that I feel are the ones that don’t get seen and they’re the ones that are usually doing the most interesting things. Unfortunately some of the Lewis crew were not happy about anyone with a camera being near the set which made it difficult to document things. What a shame and a missed opportunity. Things got even more difficult on subsequent episodes because someone had filmed a key scene of Lewis and Hathaway making an arrest and then uploaded it to YouTube. I’m very careful about photographing anything that might be a spoiler and often only post my pictures here after an episode has been broadcast on tv, as is the case with these pictures.
[Tech info:] Nikon F100, 85/1.8D, Fuji Superia 400 film developed in a Rollei Digibase C41 kit. Pakon scans.
Posted in Behind the scenes, film, Oxford, People | 2 Responses »
Tags: angela griffin, f100, film, filming, lewis, nikon, oxford, people, summer, superia 400
Wednesday, October 7th, 2015
These shots were made during my lunch break yesterday, all from the same roll of film that I used to test a Contax G1 camera I recently bought. The weather has been very wet the past two days but fortunately there was a break in the rain just long enough for me to shoot this roll. In a few of the shots I was also testing an external flash (TLA 200) that I got with the camera body. It’s very simple to use as it only has two modes, manual and TTL. I left it on TTL. The light from it seems nice and balanced and it’s small enough to keep in the camera case without noticing it. One thing I did notice is the AF doesn’t seem to lock on very well if you try to focus on something that is low contrast or backlit. Some of the shots on the roll were slightly out of focus. So far I’ve been enjoying using the G1 as a point and shoot camera.
[Tech info:] Contax G1, 45/2 Carl Zeiss lens, Ilford FP4 film (expired) developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 9mins. Pakon scans.
Posted in Equipment, Oxford, People, Portrait, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 45mm, black&white, contax, film, fp4, g1, hc110, oxford, pakon, people, portraits
Monday, October 5th, 2015
Continuing on from the previous post, here’s the second set of my selections from the same roll of film that I shot during Endeavour filming on Merton Street back in July. This was quite a big sequence and the road needed to be kept clear which meant I ended up being quite far back from a lot of the action. I prefer to stick with using only a 50mm lens for my documentary style photography hence the wide shots in this set. Whenever possible I zoom with my feet and it saves me fumbling around with changing lenses instead of photographing. Yes, I could be carrying around a 70-200mm zoom but I much prefer the perspective I get with a fast 50mm along with the size and weight benefit. Not looking like a paparazzi is a bonus!
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voigtlander 50/1.5 Nokton, Eastman Double X motion picture film developed in Kodak D76 1+1.
Posted in Behind the scenes, film, Oxford, People | No Responses »
Tags: black&white, d76, double x, endeavour, film, filming, leica, m2, nokton, oxford, summer, voigtlander
Tuesday, September 29th, 2015
This was going to be a bumper post but I’ve decided to split the selections from this roll across two different posts because of the number of images. Please be aware there may be the odd spoiler in these shots, I can’t say because I don’t know anything about the storyline and I just photographed some of what I saw on the street. What I can tell you is this episode looks like it’s going to be exciting! Lots more images to come from this episode which was a lot of fun to photograph.
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voigtlander 50/1.5 Nokton, Eastman Double X motion picture film developed in Kodak D76 1+1.
Posted in Behind the scenes, film, Oxford | No Responses »
Tags: black&white, d76, double x, endeavour, film, filming, leica, m2, nokton, oxford, pakon, people, voigtlander
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015
I must admit I’m not a huge fan of shaving and usually go a few weeks between shaves whenever possible. When I found out about the Oxford Beard Festival my first thought wasn’t about entering, it was to make portraits of some of the competitors in a formal portrait kind of way. It took me a while to decide on which camera to take and in the end I opted for my Graflex Super D which is a large format SLR allowing me to shoot 5×4 inch sheet film. For this event I packed 12 sheets of film and used one sheet on each person below so making mistakes wasn’t an option. After arriving at the venue (The James Street Tavern) I scoped out a place to set up that would be both out of the way and would also give me consistent lighting during the afternoon and managed to find a nice shady spot in the corner of the beer garden. It was a fun event and I enjoyed photographing such a variety of beards but this was more than just about beards, I could appreciate the thought that had also gone into the clothes and styling for a lot of these guys and that made for better pictures in the end. My thanks go out to all of these guys for being so patient and for sitting very still for me.
[Tech info:] Graflex Super D 5×4, Pentac 8inch f2.9 lens, Ilford HP5 film processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6 mins.
Behind the scenes shots of the camera I used and some of the sheet film hanging up to dry.
Posted in Oxford, People, Portrait | 2 Responses »
Tags: 5x4, beard, black&white, festival, film, graflex, hc110, HP5, oxford, pentac, people, portraits, super d
Thursday, September 17th, 2015
These shots are from the first day of filming in Oxford for the fourth and final episode of Endeavour series three. As luck would have it, I had booked a day off work to develop colour film in the darkroom and while taking a break for lunch I managed to find the Endeavour crew who were finishing up a scene before also taking a break for lunch. After I had finished developing more films in the afternoon I returned to the set and managed to photograph one more scene before packing up for the day. The schedule suffered an unforeseen delay when a huge truck decided to reverse down St Johns Street (which was clearly too narrow with parked cars on both sides) right as the Endeavour crew had set up the camera and were about to rehearse the next scene. The crew moved all of their equipment out of the way and watched many failed attempts by the driver to turn the truck around a corner that was so tight you’d be lucky to get the truck around if it was half the size. Eventually the driver admitted defeat and parked the truck further down the street. It was while all of this was happening that I made the small group shot of some of the guys so now you know why they have the puzzled expressions.
[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voightlander Nokton 50/1.5, Agfa APX 100 film pushed 1 stop in Rodinal 1+50.
Posted in Behind the scenes, film, Oxford, People | 2 Responses »
Tags: agfa, apx 100, black&white, endeavour, film, filming, leica, m2, oxford, pakon, rodinal, st johns street
