Street portraits

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London: street photography day – part 1

Friday, October 10th, 2014

Last week I spent a day in London with my friend Benedict Campbell doing street photography and here’s the first set of pictures Ben and I used to work together at the same studio many years ago and it’s been over 20 years since we were out photographing together so I was really looking forward to this trip.The weather was surprisingly warm for October, there was a nice atmosphere on the street and people were in a good mood – all good ingredients for an enjoyable day to be photographing on the street. I took three different cameras with me and a selection of different films so there is a good variety of images to follow.

[Tech info:] Yashica Electro 35, Kodak Hawkeye traffic surveillance film, processed in a Rollei Digibase C41 kit, Pakon scan.

10×8 portrait: Amanda

Monday, September 1st, 2014

A large format portrait made on 10×8 inch xray film. The making of pic below was made by Amanda from her viewpoint but you don’t get a sense of how large this camera is. I really enjoy making simple honest portraits like this with nothing fancy in terms of styling, lighting or location – just one light, subject and camera.

[Tech info:] Wista 10×8, Sinaron 300mm lens, green sensitive xray film, processed in Rodinal 1+50 for 6 mins.

Wista pic by Amanda | Xray film hanging up to dry

 

Oxford: English Eccentrics shoot

Sunday, August 17th, 2014

Some film shots from a promo shoot I did for the Christ Church Commemoration Ball 2014 who’s theme was English Eccentrics. This was a really fun shoot to do but one of those times where I wished I had more time to shoot film. Thank you to everyone that gave up their time for this shoot and to the amazing Tori for putting it all together.

[Tech info:] Bronica ETRSi, 75/2.8, Fuji 400H (expired), processed and scanned by Ag Photo lab.

 

Oxford: around and about – Zenit

Sunday, August 10th, 2014

Here are some shots from back in March that I made with my Zenit Russian tank of a camera. It gives random light leaks which I’ve come to quite like. This film is Kodak Double X motion picture film as used by some Hollywood movie studios.

[Technical info:] Zenit 35mm, 50/2 Helios lens, loaded with Eastman Kodak Double X film, processed in Rodinal 1+25.

Oxford: first shoot with Suzie – part 1

Tuesday, July 29th, 2014

These shots are from my first shoot with Suzie on an overcast Saturday morning. I decided to experiment a little here and keep the overall look a little underexposed for a heavier feel. Two different cameras were used on these shots – one of them had a wide-angle lens on which was not what I had intended but I decided to go with it anyway and I quite like the results despite the obvious distortion. More to come.

[Tech info:] Pentax 6×7, 105/2.4 lens. Bottom two images with Mamiya RB67, 50mm lens. Kodak Tri-X (expired), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.

Quick photo shoot with Charlie (large format)

Wednesday, July 9th, 2014

These shots are from a few weeks ago from possibly one of my shortest photo shoots ever – start to finish I think we spent around 15 minutes. They were all made handheld on 5×4 large format film and I really like how these have turned out. The camera is from the 1960’s and was originally designed to shoot on Polaroid film that came on a roll. It was never designed to shoot 5×4 film so the viewfinder is not 100% accurate for what will be on the film and that’s something I’m still trying to get used to which is why the top of the frame is cropped so tightly in a few of these shots. This summer I plan to do more large format film photography than I have  before and I think my modified Polaroid 110B will be getting quite a bit of use.

[Tech info:] Polaroid 110B land camera (modified by Holga Mods), Ilford HP5 5×4, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 5mins.

Oxford: lunchtime session with the Tailors

Tuesday, July 8th, 2014

It’s been a while since I shot any Fujiroids with the Oxford Tailors at Clements & Church so I decided to stop by there during my lunch break today. This pack film is in date (expires in September 2014) which is unusual for me because I mostly use expired film. I also shot a few frames of slide film which will follow later in the summer when I mix up the E6 chemistry to process the batch of slide film I’ve been building up since last year.

[Tech info:] Polaroid 110B, Fuji FP-100C.

Archive: some shots from 2012

Wednesday, June 4th, 2014

Here are some images that I made back in autumn 2012 that I thought I had already posted but after checking back I realise that I hadn’t. Last week I bumped into the guy in the top left shot and after he told me that he hadn’t seen his shot yet it prompted me to check. He looked a little different but I still managed to recognise him and he remembered me making this picture during my lunch break which is nice considering it was over a year and a half ago. Some of these shots were made during my lunch hour photo walks and a couple are from a day trip to London. Same camera, different rolls of film.

[Tech info:] Rolleiflex SL66, 80/2.8 Zeiss Planar. Fuji Velvia 100 and Kodak Ektachrome 100G films. Processed in a Tetanol E6 kit.

Oxford: May Morning 2014 – part 1

Wednesday, May 28th, 2014

I’ve always enjoyed photographing May Morning in Oxford because there’s always so much going on with plenty of interesting characters around and this year was no exception. Despite some drizzle early on it would take more than that to dampen the spirits of the people that had either woken up early or had been partying right through the night. There were some familiar faces among the Morris Men, people that I remember seeing over the years and this year I managed to make some nice portraits of them on Broad Street. I did quite a lot of photography this year so there will more shots to follow.

[Tech info:] Bronica ETRSi, 75/2.8, loaded with Fuji Pro 400H (expired). Dev & scanned by Ag Photo lab.

Oxford: Lewis filming – series 8 part 2

Tuesday, April 29th, 2014

Some behind the scenes shots while series 8 of Lewis was being filmed on Broad Street, Oxford last month. It wasn’t easy for the crew to film on a main street during lunch time and they certainly drew a crowd of curious onlookers. I particularly liked how they had transformed the empty Blackwell’s music shop on the corner of Turl Street into a coffee shop called Fix. The shot in the bottom left is of the props guy’s moving in some of the furniture.

[Tech info:] Zenit TTL, 58/2 Helios lens, loaded with Agfa Vista 200 (Poundland) film, processed and scanned by ASDA in Swindon. (Thanks Simon).

Oxford: lunch hour session – Imogen

Sunday, April 27th, 2014

I haven’t used my Mamiya Universal press camera for a while so I decided to dust it off for a quick shoot with Imogen during my lunch break. No matter how hard I try I still don’t like rangefinder camera’s. I like to use wide aperture’s for shallow depth of field and having to focus in the middle of the frame and then recomposing is not helpful for maintaining critical focus. The thing I like about the Mamiya Universal is the versatility of being able to shoot so many different film formats and also full-frame Polaroids. These were all made with a 6×9 roll film back which gives you 8 frames on a roll of 120.

[Tech info:] Mamiya Universal, 100/2.8, 6×9 roll film back, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 7:30.

Oxford: Testament of Youth – part 2

Sunday, April 20th, 2014

Behind the scenes photography during filming of the movie Testament of Youth that took place in Radcliffe Square, Oxford on 9th April 2014. In the first shot the Director of Photography for the movie is on the left. The movie is based on the memoirs of Vera Brittain and the lead role is played by Alicia Vikander who can be seen in a few of the shots below. Security was quite tight so there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to vary my position for photography and my Rolleiflex TLR has a fixed 80mm lens so that was another limiting factor but I’m pleased with how these shots turned out, all from the same roll of 12 frames.

[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8F, 80/2.8 Zeiss Planar, loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.