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Oxford: Lunch time session – Alice

Tuesday, February 17th, 2015

These two shots were made during my lunch break today on Fuji FP-100C instant pack film (just like Polaroid) and are as they came out of the camera. The shot on the right was accidentally over-exposed but I decided to post it here as a comparison because I quite like it. To me it looks like expired Polaroid. Usually I under-expose Fuji pack film because I like to bleach the neg which gives 2 extra stops of detail in the shadows but as there wasn’t much detail in the shadows on this shot I decided not to under-expose. I also used some b&w film on this shoot and those shots will follow at a later time after I’ve developed them.

[Tech info:] Graflex Super D 5×4 camera, Pentac f2.9 lens (from WWII), Fuji FP-100C (expired) instant pack film

Oxford: Kimono Fujiroids

Saturday, February 7th, 2015

Last weekend I photographed lots of beautiful vintage kimono’s for ITO to use in their online store. Each kimono is a one of a kind and it was hard to believe from the amazing condition that most of them are from the 1920’s. For the final images I used a digital camera but as is usually my way I took along some film as well. The shoot went really smoothly but we had a lot of kimono’s to photograph so there wasn’t much time to do a lot of film photography but I did manage to make these two shots with a Polaroid camera. The shot on the left was made with just the window light, the shot on the right was a mix of window light and a Nikon speedlight through a white umbrella which I balanced to look natural. Many thanks to Catriona for organising everything and for keeping the shoot running smoothly.

[Tech info:] Polaroid 190 Land Camera, Fuji FP-100C instant pack film (bleached neg).

kimono

 

Oxford: Lunchtime session – Tori (film)

Wednesday, January 28th, 2015

Here are some medium format shots I made during my recent lunch time session with Tori. I previously posted a couple of Fujiroid bleached neg shots here. The format for these shots was 6×9 which is one of my favourite medium format aspect ratios but I only have one camera that was designed to use that format and these shots reminded me that I don’t use it enough. You get 8 shots of 6×9 on a 120 size roll so it’s not a format for the trigger happy. For this shoot I decided to use fresh film stock for a change and while I can’t see a huge difference compared to some of my expired film shots I do think that the contrast was handled better on the contrasty back lit shots. We were a bit rushed in this session because I wanted to use medium format, 35mm and Fuji pack film all within 25mins which is not easy when you’ve got lots of people moving around during lunch time and you have to keep stopping to wait for a clear background but Tori was very patient despite the cold weather and we got everything done in time.

[Tech info:] Mamiya Universal, 100/2.8, Kodak Tri-X 400, processed in Kodak Xtol 1+1.

 

Oxford: Lunchtime session – Tori

Monday, January 19th, 2015

Today was a glorious sunny winters day here in Oxford and I made good use of it by doing some photography with Tori during my lunch break. I had three different film cameras with me today and here are two shots from the Polaroid Land Camera I took (the b&w shots are drying in the darkroom overnight so they’ll follow at a later time). There’s something really nice about winter sunshine and how it can make colours pop, it can also be very harsh and contrasty so it’s a nice challenge to look at how the light is falling on your subject and how the smallest of movements can mean the difference between nice and not so nice. Tori was incredibly easy to photograph and I hope we can do some more photography with different cameras and film. There is zero retouching on these two images, no Photoshop fakery, no filters, no plugins, just straight scans from the film.

These two shots were made on Fuji FP100-C instant pack film that expired 9 years ago. When you store it carefully and pay attention to how you expose it it’s capable of creating some fantastic results. I tend to underexpose it by a stop which results in a darker print but a nice negative that can be recovered with bleaching the black carbon layer off. The negatives are much sharper than the prints and you also get 2 stops of more detail in the shadows compared to the print.

[Tech info:] Polaroid Land Camera 190, Fuji FP100-C (expired), recovered neg.

Oxford: Industar lens test part 2

Tuesday, January 13th, 2015

Here are a few more shots from the first time out with my Industar 210mm large format lens. I only took six sheets of film with me and I used two sheets on one of the shots because the light was changing and I decided to try out a greater depth of field on the second sheet. I ended up preferring the light on the building in the first exposure so that’s the one I’ve posted here.

[Tech info:] Graflex Speed Graphic, Industar 210/f4.5 lens, Kodak Plus-X Aerographic film, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6 mins.

Oxford: Saturday session

Tuesday, January 6th, 2015

At the end of November I went into town on a Saturday morning to do some photography and here are some images that I made. This was a couple of days after Black Friday and shoppers were out looking for bargains in the run up to Christmas. It was great to come across a breakdance crew busting some moves. When I was younger I remember seeing breakdance crews in town, laying out their square of lino to dance on, boom box blasting out tunes to attract the attention of passers by. It’s nice to see the current generation keeping the tradition alive.

[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voigtlander Nokton 35mm and 50mm lenses, Fuji Superia 200 (expired), Rollei Digibase C41 kit, Pakon scans.

Stag do

Oxford: testing Kodak 500T film in daylight

Sunday, December 7th, 2014

Kodak 500T film is designed to be used in tungsten light but as I do most of my photography during my lunch break I wanted to test how it looked  when used in daylight with an 85B colour correction filter. These shots were all made on the same day during my lunch break (apart from the last shot which was made without a filter after work).

[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voigtlander Nokton 50/1.5, Kodak 500T film, processed with a Rollei Digibase C41 kit, Pakon scan.

Oxford: pushing Tri-X

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014

It’s been a long time since the last time I can remember pushing Kodak Tri-X film to ISO 1600 and processing it in Rodinal developer so that’s what I decided to do a few weeks ago. There are a mix of images on this roll ranging from some night portraits that I made during a photography class I was teaching to Ruskin art students on the High Street during their drawing sale to raise funds for their end of year degree show. I’d like to do some more work with Art students but they seem to be an illusive bunch so it’s currently a work in progress.

[Tech info:] Nikon FM2, Zeiss 50/1.4 lens, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), rated at ISO 1600, processed in Rodinal 1:50 for 18 mins.

Oxford: lens test – Voigtlander Nokton 50/1.5

Saturday, November 29th, 2014

These are the first shots from my Voigtlander Nokton 50/1.5 lens which I tested during my lunch break yesterday. Technically this is the second roll of shots with this lens – the first roll was unusable because I forgot to close the back door of my M2 properly so the film wasn’t flat and the whole roll was out of focus. That’s what can happen when you’re excited to use a lens you’ve been looking forward to for quite a while. Lesson learnt. The weather was heavily overcast sky with a really gloomy feel everywhere. It’s the kind of light I would never usually waste a roll of film with but I really wanted to see how this lens performed so I decided to go out regardless and I must admit I do like the results, especially the bokeh, this lens is definitely a keeper. My thanks go to Jason Howe for all of his help and advice about this lens which I prefer for b&w over my Summicron 50/2. I’ll be keeping the Summicron because I shot some slide film with it and the results look fantastic so I can see it being useful for colour (as suggested by my friend Anthony).

[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voitlander Nokton 50/1.5, Ilford Delta 400 (expired), processed in Kodak D76 1:1 for 14 mins.

Oxford: large format lunch-break photography

Tuesday, November 25th, 2014

Recently I managed to pick up a roll of quite unique film and these are some of my first test shots with it. The roll is 350ft long and 5 inches wide so it’s perfect for being cut down to 5×4 inch sheets to use for large format photography. The film is Kodak Plus-X Aero film that was developed for aerial photography – this is stock used by the M.O.D. and expired in 2000. During my lunch break yesterday I went into town hoping to make some test portraits because the tonal range in this film is more like what you find in wet plate photography and I wanted to know if it was going to be usable for portraits. I’m very happy with the results which look very smooth tonally and the grain is almost non existent.

[Tech info:] Polaroid 110B (modified for 5×4), Kodak Plus-X 2402 Aero film, ISO 100, processed in Rodinal 1:50 for 14 mins.

Here’s the camera I used (shown below with a roll film back). Modified by Randy at HolgaMods.com

Oxford: around and about during lunch time

Friday, November 21st, 2014

In between lots of wet weather over the past couple of weeks we’ve had some nice dry spells and I managed to finish off a roll of film in my M2 during my lunch time photo walks. A bit of a mixed bag here including a shot of me from the generous photographer with the Polaroid camera. I spotted him crossing beaumont street while loading in a fresh pack of Impossible b&w film so I stopped him to ask if I could make a quick portrait of him and he was happy to oblige (picture at the bottom of this post). I don’t know what caused the bright white patch in the middle of the picture but it does make it a bit more mysterious.

[Tech info:] Leica M2, Summicron 50/2 (rigid), Ilford FP4 (expired 12/99), processed in D76 stock for 8.30.

London: street photography day – part 2

Sunday, October 12th, 2014

These shots are from the beginning of our day in the city (which started at around 10.30am), coffee in the Rapha cycle shop and then we stopped for lunch near the Lloyds building. I was using three different cameras so these blog posts will be out of order as I’ll be posting my favourite shots from each roll of film.

[Tech info:] Yashica Electro 35 loaded with Kodak TMAX 100, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.