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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
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
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
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
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
Thursday, August 1st, 2013
These shots are from a photo shoot I had with Alice last month on the last day of term, right before she was leaving Oxford for the summer. We had been trying to find the time to shoot but for one reason or another we never managed it but I’m so glad we got to arrange this at the last minute. The first time I photographed Alice was for a 1920’s themed promo shoot which I thought she was the perfect choice for and I’m hoping we can shoot some more when term starts again in October especially as Alice is a really good stylist with a wonderful collection of fabrics and clothes that will be fun to photograph . These shots were all made with a medium format camera, the 35mm shots will follow at a later time.
[Tech info:] Mamiya 645 ProTL, 80/1.9 lens, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), processed in Kodak XTOL 1+1.
Posted in film, Oxford, Photo shoot, Portrait, students | 2 Responses »
Tags: 645, black&white, film, oxford, portraits, students, summer, Tri-X, xtol
