Street portraits
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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
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
Wednesday, August 28th, 2013
These shots are from backstage at the Oxford Fashion Week Couture show which was held at the Ashmolean Museum here in Oxford towards the end of last year. I’ve been meaning to post these but didn’t get around it and as tomorrow evening there is another Oxford Fashion Week event being held there I thought it timely to put these up. The backstage area was in one of the massive halls of the Ashmolean but the lights had been turned off at the far end where all of the male models were waiting around to go line up for the catwalk which made it extremely difficult for me to manually focus my camera. It’s a miracle that any of these are in focus. I was holding my camera with one hand and a flash on a light stand with a big white umbrella with my other hand which provided the lighting in these shots and I’m very pleased with how they turned out. The outfits and styling was by the Clements & Church team who worked non-stop all evening.
[Tech info:] Bronica ETRSi 645, 75mm/2.8 lens, loaded with Kodak Portra 400 film. Developing and scanning by Ag Photolab.
Posted in Fashion, film, People, Photo shoot | No Responses »
Tags: 645, backstage, bronica, fashion, film, ofw, oxford, people
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
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
Tuesday, August 20th, 2013
Here is a set of large format images that I made on 10×8 (green) x-ray film a couple of weeks ago on a stroll into town. I was glad to see the workmen on the steps of the Clarendon Building because I often see them there on my lunch photo walk and think to myself how nice it would be to make a group shot of them on 10×8 film. I took 8 sheets of film with me but only used 7.
[Tech info:] 10×8 Wista Field, 300mm Sinaron lens, CXS green latitude x-ray film (ISO50), processed in Rodinal 1+50 for 6mins.
Setting up (photo by Clive Jones)
Posted in film, Oxford, Street portraits | 2 Responses »
Tags: 10x8, black&white, film, oxford, people, portraits, rodinal, summer, wista, workmen, x-ray film
