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Tuesday, September 17th, 2013
Some images I made at the Thursday Gloucester Green market to test out my Rolleiflex twin-lens camera. I don’t often go to this market but I think I might change that because there are lots of interesting stalls and people there. My Rolleiflex seemed to attract a lot of attention, I’m not sure if that’s because of the name written on the front in large letters or because it’s a twin-lens but I don’t mind chatting to people about it. The lady in the bottom images was very nice to chat with and I think she has great style, she used to work with photographers as a stylist and it was her stall of vintage goodies that caught my eye because it was so well laid out (the two middle images). Regular visitors to my blog might recognise Martin in the top two images, he features in quite a few of my blog posts when I have a camera, lens or film to test out. He used to play in a local rock band named Targa who were big in the 1980’s and a little known fact is they were the first band to play live on the opening night of Oxford’s ice-rink. The word around the camp fire is there could be a new band forming with a few of the original Targa band members but that’s just a rumour at this stage.
[Technical info:] Rolleiflex 2.8F Planar, 80mm lens, Ilford FP4 (expired) processed in Kodak Xtol.
Posted in Equipment, film, Oxford, Portrait, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, film, fp4, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, tlr, xtol
Monday, September 16th, 2013
On day 2 of St Giles’ fair there was less rain than the previous day but the sky was a lot more overcast which made the light level quite dark and dull for photography. Here’s a selection of my shots from day 2, there will be others to follow that I made with 35mm once I receive them from the lab (aka Asda). You can probably tell that the Rotor is one of my favourite rides to photograph and I think it looks great in both black & white and colour.
[Technical info:] Pentax 6×7, 55mm and 105mm lenses, loaded with Ilford FP4 (expired), processed in Kodak Xtol.
Posted in film, Oxford, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 6x7, black&white, fair, film, fp4, oxford, pentax, people, st giles, xtol
Sunday, September 15th, 2013
Just before St Giles’ fair rolled into town this year the weather turned autumnal which was a bit of a shock considering we had warm summer weather the previous week. On the first day of the fair it rained on and off which limited my photography so I only managed to do a fraction of what I hoped to. This set of images is from the same roll of film through my Rolleiflex tlr which I decided to use because of how pleased I was with the shots from my Mamiya C330f tlr I used at the fair last year but something I hadn’t factored was how limiting the fixed 80mm lens on the Rolleiflex would be. With my Mamiya I was able to change to the 65mm wide-angle lens to get just that extra bit into the frame without having to back up too far. I’ve noticed a strange anomaly in some of my frames which I hope is not a fault with the Rollei – a narrow light band across the bottom of some of the frames, visible in the top left frame and the one below it. My guess is that it might be linked to a certain shutter speed because it’s not on every frame. I’ll look into it.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8f, 80mm Zeiss Planar lens loaded with expired Kodak Tri-X 400 processed in Kodak HC110 1:31 for 7:30.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Street portraits | 2 Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, film, hc110, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, tlr, Tri-X
Friday, September 13th, 2013
The fair rolled into town last sunday and I went along to photograph some of the rides and stalls being set up, more specifically the people doing the setting up. St Giles’ fair is always held on a monday and tuesday at the beginning of September and the set up is always done on the day before. Last year I went along and saw the potential for lots of great portraits but I only had a small camera on me and from past experience that dramatically reduces the chances of me receiving a positive response when approaching strangers on the street to photograph. It was then that I decided I would go better prepared this year and so I did with my Rolleiflex twin-lens medium format camera. I’m still trying to get comfortable with handling it and I’m not 100% with it yet so I’ve been trying to use it as often as I can. Overall I think I only received a handful of rejections from people that didn’t want to be photographed which was a shame because there were lots of guys there that would have made really interesting portraits in black & white. Maybe next year. This is the entire contents of a roll of film that I shot, all 12 frames.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8f loaded with Kodak Tri-X (expired), processed in Kodak HC110B for 7:30.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, fair, film, hc110, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, st giles
Wednesday, September 11th, 2013
The Ashmolean Museum had a fashion themed event a couple of weeks ago and I went along to do some backstage photography for Clements & Church, the awesome tailor’s on Little Clarendon Street. The schedule didn’t allow much time for photography before the models had to head off to the catwalk but I did manage to make some portraits on Fuji instant pack film with a Polaroid passport camera that I’m beginning to really like – here are a few of them. Others to follow. It was nice to see some familiar faces at the show from previous Oxford Fashion Show events, you might recognise some of them from my blog. Please note that as this film expired in 2006 the colours are not 100% accurate.
[Tech info:] Polaroid passport camera, expired Fuji FP-100C instant pack film (bleached negative).
Posted in Ashmolean, Fashion, film, Oxford, People, Photo shoot, Portrait | No Responses »
Tags: backstage, diptych, fashion, film, fujiroid, oxford, passport, polaroid, portraits, summer
Monday, September 9th, 2013
The fair has just rolled into town along St Giles so I went along there yesterday to see some of the rides and stalls being set up. I can remember the images I made there last year, one of which was a man on a coconut shy stall who is back here again this year. When I saw him setting up yesterday I stopped to say hello and he remembered that I had photographed him last year. After looking back at my previous posts I notice that this shot of that man didn’t get posted for some reason so I’m posting it here so that he can see it. I’m hoping the weather will stay dry long enough for me to do some more photography at St Giles’ fair over the next couple of days.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex SL66, 80/f2.8 lens, Fuji Acros 100 processed in Rodinal 1:50 for 10 mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait, Street portraits | 2 Responses »
Tags: 6x6, acros, black&white, fair, film, oxford, people, portraits, rodinal, SL66, st giles
Sunday, September 8th, 2013
These are the last set of portraits that I made of the Giffords Circus performers while they were in University Parks here in Oxford. They were performing their last show while I was making these portraits and I’m extremely grateful that they gave me the opportunity because what you can’t see in these shots is the backstage area being dismantled by the performers while the performance was going on and this was on one of the hottest days of the summer. It was a little tricky to stay out of peoples way while looking for areas of nice light to place my subjects in because the sun was very harsh but it all worked out and I love how the colours have turned out with this film. I really hope that Giffords will be performing again in Oxford next summer.
[Tech info:] Mamiya RB67, 90/3.8 lens, Fuji Pro 400H film, developed and scanned by Ag photo lab.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait | No Responses »
Tags: 6x7, backstage, circus, film, giffords, oxford, people, portraits, rb67, summer
Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013
Here are some more shots from my photo shoot with Leonore & Cosima at Christchurch. These were the last ones that we did and the light level was falling fast at this point so I had to shoot with an extremely shallow depth of field which is tricky when you have two people in the shot. I did my best to find little pockets of usable light and overall I really like how this set turned out.
[Tech info:] Nikon FM2, 50/1.4D lens, loaded with Ilford HP5 rated at iso800, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.
Posted in film, Oxford, Photo shoot, Portrait, students | No Responses »
Tags: 50mm, black&white, film, fm2, hc110, HP5, oxford, people, portraits, students
Monday, September 2nd, 2013
On my way to the Keble ball earlier this summer I cycled through Radcliffe Square and came across a group of students waiting to go into the Brasenose college ball so I stopped to make some portraits. The combination of gorgeous summers evening light and the splashes of colour from the various dresses that were being worn made for some great pictures. I don’t know any of these students (apart from Amber with the headphones) so if you recognise any please pass on the link to my blog so that they can see these. The couple in the last picture were sitting patiently watching the fashion show so after everyone had gone I thought it would be nice to include them in this set.
[Tech info:] Mamiya C330f, 80/2.8 lens, loaded with expired Kodak Portra 400 VC. Developed and scanned by Ag Photo lab.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Street portraits, students | 3 Responses »
Tags: 6x6, ball, c330, film, oxford, people, portraits, students, summer
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
