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Oxford: large format portraits

Thursday, September 19th, 2013

Here are some large format portraits I made recently with one of my favourite camera, lens and film combos. The camera is from the 1940’s or 50’s, not quite sure, but I do know the lens was used for aerial photography during the second world war and judging by the condition of the paintwork it saw some action. The nice thing about this particular lens is the shallow depth of field and the way it renders everything with a beautiful smoothness but you can’t really appreciate the image quality in web resolution images.

[Tech info:] Speed Graphic 5×4, Pentac f2.9 lens @ f3.5, Ilford HP5 film processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.

adam

chris

dave

Oxford: Lunch hour session

Wednesday, September 18th, 2013

One of the roll film holders for my Mamiya ProTL was faulty so I sent it off for repair. These shots are from a roll I used to check if the repair had fixed the wind on problem but unfortunately it’s still faulty and I only got 11 shots on this roll instead of 15. I’m going to stop using this film holder for now. Martin got a new smart phone and he’s seen here trying to do some panoramic photography (with not much success). In the last shot there’s a new ramp being built to provide wheelchair access into the Radcliffe Camera.

[Tech info:] Mamiya ProTL, 80/1.9 lens loaded with Kodak TMAX 400 (expired), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.

Oxford: St Giles’ fair 2013 – day 1

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.

St Giles' fair oxford

 

Oxford: St Giles’ fair 2013 – setting up

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.

st giles' fair, oxford

st giles' fair, oxford

 

 

Photo shoot: Leonore & Cosima part 2

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.

Oxford: lunch hour session

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.

Photo shoot: smoke signals

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.

 

Oxford: experiments with blue x-ray film

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.

Oxford: BMX Jam, Meadow lane, part 1

Thursday, July 25th, 2013

Last Sunday I went along to a BMX Jam at the Meadow lane skate park  that had been organised by local BMX legend Alex Leech. As I’ve never been to one of these events before I didn’t quite know what to expect but after enjoying this one so much I can’t wait for the next one. It was great to see some familiar local faces that I’ve photographed there before and plenty of new ones too. I took along two cameras with me but sadly one of them (a 35mm SLR) developed a fault shortly after I got there so I was down to just my medium format camera which has a maximum shutter speed of 1/400 so action shots were proving a bit tricky but I gave it a go at anticipating the peak of the action. The shots below are all from the same roll of film – I only get 10 frames with this camera. More images to come.

[Tech info:] Mamiya RZ67, 110/2.8 lens, loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400 film (expired 2004), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.

BMX jam portraits

BMX jam

Oxford: Giffords Circus part 1

Monday, July 8th, 2013

Giffords Circus left Oxford earlier this evening after being here for almost a week in University Parks and I can’t say enough great things about the amazing people that work there. The weather was non-stop sunshine for the whole time they were here and although the temperature was pretty hot I think it was perfect summer weather to see the Circus. I made a few trips over there to see if I could make some nice portraits on film, each time I took a different camera with me for variety. The performers were all incredibly nice and friendly which made for a great experience. I went to the Sunday afternoon performance which was a full house and I enjoyed every second of it. I can’t recommend it highly enough if you get a chance to see it, these people are the real deal. Everything in this Circus is hand made with care and attention to detail from the sets to the costumes and I couldn’t help thinking that on some level it made perfect sense that I was photographing them because I hand process, scan and print my film with just as much attention to detail for the best possible end result. I’m keeping my finger’s crossed that Giffords Circus will come back to Oxford next year.

Lots more photography from Giffords Circus to come. If you’re one of the Circus performers and you see these pictures, please tell the others in the group and if you wish to, please leave a comment to let me know what you think.

[Tech info:] Graflex Super D 5×4, 190mm lens @ f8, Ilford HP5 film processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.

Giffords Circus store

Giffords Circus performers

Giffords Circus performer

Giffords Circus performer

Giffords Circus performer

Giffords Circus Jugglers

 

 

Oxford: Lunch hour session

Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013

At this time of year it’s not uncommon to see oxford university students around town celebrating the end of their exams and it’s something I enjoy photographing whenever I can. There’s something very photogenic and timeless about their black & white outfits especially when photographed with black & white film. These images are all from the same lunch hour photo walk. At the bottom are Richard and Hugo, the Oxford Tailors that I pass on my way back to my office. I’ve been trying out a film that I never really liked when I first used it many years ago (Kodak TMAX) but I really like the results I’ve been getting recently.

[Tech info:] Nikon FM2 with 50mm/f1.4 lens, loaded with Kodak TMAX 400 film, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.

Oxford: Balliol 750th Commemoration Ball 2013 preview

Tuesday, June 25th, 2013

Last week Balliol College held their 750th Commemoration Ball here in Oxford and I was there to photograph the event. The weather was a perfect summers evening with gorgeous light and as a photographer I couldn’t have asked for more. I believe there were somewhere around 1,200 guests in attendance so I kept busy the whole night. While there was still daylight I used colour film and after it got dark I switched to black & white. The colour images will be a while as I try to decide on whether to develop them myself or to send them out to a lab. I have a pile of colour films I need to develop which has been steadily growing over the past 5 months. I’m waiting to order the chemicals necessary to develop them because the 5L kit is good for 100 – 120 rolls and once you start to mix the chemistry it has a shortish shelf life.

So, here we have a little preview of some of my black & white shots from the evening. The 2012 Balliol Ball last year was the very first Oxford University ball I’ve ever attended and some of the images I made on film that night are my favourites from all of the ball’s I’ve attended so far. It was nice to see some familiar faces at this ball from last year and also to meet some visitors of this blog. Lots more film images still to come but I’ll be drip feeding them because I have so many to post.

[Tech info:] Mamiya C330f, 80/2.8 lens, loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400 rated at ISO1600. Processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.