Oxford
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Saturday, March 1st, 2014
Oxford’s Town Hall is a great venue for a fashion show, I’ve photographed quite a few there in the past and earlier this week that was where The Benefactor Charity Fashion Show was held. Here’s a first set of images but there are lots more to come. I decided to experiment a little and for these shots I combined a grainy film (Ilford Delta 3200) with a developer that is known to exaggerate grain (Rodinal). The film expired in 2007 and has lost some of its low light sensitivity but I like the results.
[Tech info:] Bronica ETRSi, 80/2.8 lens, loaded with Ilford Delta 3200, processed in Rodinal 1+25 for 9mins.
Posted in Fashion, film, Oxford, students | No Responses »
Tags: 645, backstage, black&white, bronica, fashion, film, oxford, portraits, students
Thursday, February 27th, 2014
These portraits of Filippa were made last June (2013) but they got a little lost in my mountain of negatives so I’ve only just scanned them. All from the same roll of 10 frames with not a duff shot between them. Less is more. Zero retouching on these. Filippa was extremely easy to work with and it was a very relaxed shoot as I recall in tricky lighting which was rather flat. I think it worked out well in the end and I really like how these turned out. I hope I get to shoot with Filippa again, perhaps with large format next time.
[Tech info:] Mamiya RZ67, 110mm and 180mm lenses. Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired) film. Processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.
Posted in film, Oxford, Photo shoot, Portrait, students | No Responses »
Tags: 110mm, 6x7, black&white, film, hc110, oxford, people, portraits, RZ67, students, Tri-X
Monday, February 24th, 2014
A couple of weeks ago I met with The Oxford Revue to make some portraits for them to use for publicity. It was at the end of one of their rehearsal sessions at the Burton Taylor theatre and there was not a great deal of time but it was a fun session with a really nice group of people who I hope to work more with in the future. We shot a variety of different expressions but I prefer the more serious ones especially as that’s not what you’d expect for a comedy group. The list of previous members of The Oxford Revue is quite impressive so keep an eye out for these guys (and girl), they’ll be touring soon. My thanks go to George (the director) for contacting me.
[Tech info]: Nikon D700, 50/1.4D. Fake Ilford HP5 filter applied to look less like digital and more like film. Not a chance!
Posted in Oxford, People, Photo shoot, Portrait, students | No Responses »
Tags: D700, digital, oxford, oxford revue, portraits, students
Sunday, February 23rd, 2014
These shots are from November 2013 when there was some filming going on for Endeavour series 2 episode 3. Hopefully it won’t be too long until the second series is broadcast, I’ve got a feeling it’s likely to be around April but I have no concrete information to go on. The scenes I saw being filmed were in King Edward Street and Catte Street, both day and very atmospheric night scenes with plenty of fog. During the filming of the scene with the red bus in Catte Street it was a pleasant surprise to see Colin Dexter arrive for his cameo appearance. He’s sitting next to the window on the lower deck. I’ve really enjoyed it when the Endeavour crew have rolled into town and not only am I excited to see series 2 when it’s broadcast but I look forward to hopefully seeing series 3 being filmed.
[Tech info:] Nikon FM2, 50/1.4D, loaded with Kodak Hawkeye film, dev and scan at ASDA, Swindon. My thanks to Simon for superb service.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: asda, endeavour, film, filming, fm2, hawkeye, oxford, people, portraits
Wednesday, February 19th, 2014
This set of shots is from the beginning of the Town vs Gown boxing competition where you can see the boxers weighing in and looking a lot more relaxed than they did later on. With these shots I wanted to try out using on camera flash and with some of the shots I was going for that harsh old skool newspaper photography look, similar to the photographer Weegee. The light levels were very low but I like how these turned out.
[Tech info:] Nikon F100, 50/1.4D, loaded with Ilford XP2 (expired), rated at ISO 400, dev & scan at ASDA, Swindon.
Posted in film, Oxford, Sport | No Responses »
Tags: asda, black&white, boxing, f100, film, nikon, oxford, portraits, sport, students, xp2
Tuesday, February 18th, 2014
The Oxford vs Cambridge Varsity competition takes place in Oxford every two years (the venue alternates between the two cities every year). In 2012 I photographed some powerlifting but I found out a bit late and most of the other events had already taken place so this year I’ve been doing some research to try to photograph as many events as possible.
Oxford won the Jitsu competition this year which took place in the dojo at the Iffley Road sports centre. I went along to photograph some of the training the day before the competition and then the next day which was the competition proper. The b&w shots below are from the training session and the colour shots are from the competition. The action was fast paced so I didn’t mange to shoot many frames but of the handful that I did shoot these are the ones I like best.
[Tech info:] B&w shots – Rolleiflex 2.8f, 80mm Zeiss Planar lens, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), processed in Kodak XTOL 1+1.
Colour shots: Nikon FM2, 50/1.4D, Agfa Vista 200 film, dev & scan at ASDA in Swindon. Many thanks to Simon for such great service.
Posted in film, Oxford, Sport | No Responses »
Tags: agfa, film, fm2, oxford, rolleiflex, Tri-X, vista, xtol
Monday, February 17th, 2014
These shots were all made during the filming of the fourth and final episode of series 2 of Endeavour. This episode has the least amount of scenes that were shot in Oxford but I’m still excited to see it. Most of the scenes on this particular day were inside a house in North Oxford and even though I didn’t manage to do much photography I enjoyed chatting with the neighbours who came out to see what was going on.
[Tech info]: Rolleiflex 2.8F, 80mm Zeiss Planar lens, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), processed in Kodak XTOL 1+1.
Posted in film, Oxford, Portrait, Street portraits | 2 Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, endeavour, film, oxford, rolleiflex, Tri-X, xtol
Sunday, February 9th, 2014
I have never photographed boxing so when I heard about the OUABC’s Town vs Gown competition that was being held at the Oxford Union Society I thought it would be a great opportunity to do some behind the scenes photography. The were already two official photographers covering the fights from ringside but that’s not what interests me. I’m more drawn to to what you don’t usually get to see before and after the fights and I have to say it was a fascinating evening. This is the first set of pictures, more to come. My thanks go to Jack, the boxing club president, for granting me permission and access and also to the rest of the club for being so accommodating.
[Tech info:] Nikon F100, 50/1.4D lens, loaded with Ilford XP2 film, rated at iso 1600, processed for 5mins in a home C41 kit.
Posted in film, Oxford, Sport, students | 2 Responses »
Tags: black&white, boxing, f100, film, nikon, oxford, oxford union, portraits, sport, students, xp2
Monday, February 3rd, 2014
Recently I’ve been using my Rolleiflex 2.8f quite a lot and I’m really enjoying it. These images are all from the same roll of film, shot during my lunch time photo walk around Oxford city centre.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8f, 80mm Zeiss planar lens, loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Street portraits | 1 Response »
Tags: black&white, film, hc110, oxford, people, rolleiflex, Tri-X
Friday, January 31st, 2014
Last Saturday I did some backstage photography during TEDx Oxford 2014 which was held at the New Theatre on George Street. I have fond memories of going to the New Theatre as a child and once even saw a double bill screening of The Spy Loved Me and Revenge of the Pink Panther there. A large white safety screen was hung over the stage and the movies were projected onto that. So, I was excited to be backstage and get a glimpse behind the curtain.
I did do some photography of the speakers from the wings but for me I most important thing was to photograph the worker bees that were making the event happen because without them there wouldn’t be much of a conference. These shots are all from the same roll of medium format film, made in available light.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8f, 80mm Zeiss Planar lens, loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), rated at ISO 800, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 9 mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, Portrait, students | No Responses »
Tags: 2.8f, 6x6, backstage, black&white, film, hc110, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, students, TEDx, Tri-X
Wednesday, January 29th, 2014
The Endeavour crew were here in Oxford last weekend to film parts of series II episode IV which will be the final episode of the second series. They were only here for two days which is a lot less than the previous three episodes. The weather was cold and very wet at times which limited the amount of photography I was able to do. Here are some shots from a night scene that was filmed on Turl Street.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8f, 80mm Zeiss planar lens, loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 9 mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, People | No Responses »
Tags: 2.8f, 6x6, black&white, film, hc110, oxford, people, rolleiflex, Tri-X
Tuesday, January 28th, 2014
These two portraits were made during my lunch break today, I wanted to test out a Polaroid 110B camera that I recently bought. This one has been converted to use instant pack film just like the Fujiroids that I enjoy using so much. This camera has a rangefinder for focussing which I’m not a big fan of but that’s how it is. I wanted to see if the rangefinder and lens were calibrated so I needed some test subjects and fortunately for me Amber and Freddie (who I’ve photographed before) came along. To eliminate camera shake I decided to set the camera on a tripod and I used a cable release to trip the shutter. So far so good, everything seems to be working. The interesting thing about these two shots is the exposure used is exactly the same (1/125th F4.7) with the lens wide open, the only thing that changed is the lens to subject distance. Look at the difference in depth of field when I focussed closer on Amber than I did Freddie.
[Tech info:] Polaroid Pathfinder 110B camera, Enna Werk Munchen Ennit 127mm/f4.7 lens, Fuji FP-100C pack film (expired 2007).
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait, Street portraits, students | No Responses »
Tags: 110B, film, fujiroid, oxford, people, polaroid, portraits, students
