The last few portraits I made at the Oxford Beard Festival 2022. Thank you to everyone that stood very still for me. I’m pleased with how the portraits turned out.
[Tech info:] Sinar P 10×8, Dallmeyer 3A lens, f8 3D printed Waterhouse stop. Fomapan 100 (expired 2017) ISO 50, Kodak HC110 1+63 10mins.
More portraits from the Oxford Beard Festival 2022. Part 1 is here. I’ve noticed that the depth of field differs in some of my beard festival portraits and thinking about it now I’ve got a feeling it’s because I tilted the camera forward or back depending on the height of the person I was photographing. In hindsight I should have kept the back of the camera vertical and raised the lens or the centre column on the tripod. Something to remember next time.
[Tech info:] Sinar P 10×8, Dallmeyer 3A lens, f8 3D printed Waterhouse stop. Fomapan 100 (expired 2017) ISO 50, Kodak HC110 1+63 10mins.
The first and only time I photographed the Oxford Beard Festival was in 2015 – you can see those pictures here. Ever since then I have been thinking about and this year I finally managed to make it there again. This time I wanted to use a 10×8 large format camera but the slight hiccup being the weight of my kit was far too much for me to carry on my back and the venue for the event was a pub on the river without any access by car. I decided the only way to do it was to transport my kit in a borrowed wheelbarrow and it worked like a charm albeit leaving my arms feeling 3 inches longer by the end of it.
[Tech info:] Sinar P 10×8, Dallmeyer 3A lens, f8 3D printed Waterhouse stop. Fomapan 100 (expired 2017) ISO 50, Kodak HC110 1+31 6mins.
After being on a bit of a roll with my large format street portraits I decided to take my Speed Graphic out with a lens I’ve been meaning to use for a while – 165mm f2.7 Zeiss Tessar. I repurposed the lens from a folding camera which was well past its best with a perished shutter. Steve at Chroma Camera kindly designed and 3D printed a custom lens board for me. It’s a lot lighter than my Aero Ektar lens but gives a very different look. Depth of field is very shallow as you’d expect – most of these were shot around f4.5.
[Tech info:] Speed Graphic 5×4, 165mm f2.7 Tessar lens, Ilford HP5 (expired), developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6mins.
The Intrepid 10×8 is the lightest 10×8 camera I own and after you add the weight of a lens, film holders, tripod, light meter, dark cloth, loupe and rucksack it’s on the limit of what I can comfortably cycle with. Here are the street portraits I made on my first trip into town with this kit. On the first shot I used a little front swing to bring both people into focus – the first time I’ve done this.
[Tech info:] Intrepid 10×8, 300mm f6.3 Komura lens, Fomapan 100 (expired), developed in HC110 1+63 for 10mins.
After the focus issues I was having with my Gowlandflex I decided to take my Graflex Super D into town after work to use it for some more large format portraits. The benefit is I’m able to cycle with the Super D in a rucksack, my Gowlandflex is too large to fit into any rucksack I currently own. The lens I used was designed for aerial photography during WWII and is uncoated which gives a low contrast almost dreamy look which I like.
[Tech info:] Graflex Super D, 8 inch Pentac lens, Ilford HP5 (expired), developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6 mins.
Here are some street portraits from the first trips out with my Gowlandflex large format TLR camera on a Saturday and Sunday morning in Oxford. The camera is a beast and attracted a fair bit of attention. I enjoyed chatting with people and making their portraits – something I haven’t done for a couple of years.
The mirror calibration was completely wrong when I received this camera so I replaced the springs to lower the mirror by 2.5mm. This is the first time I’ve used it properly and it looks like I need to re-check the calibration because most of these shots are front focussed but overall I’m pleased with the results. A couple of the shots have some strange light leaks which might be from the film holder not being seated properly. Further investigation needed.
[Tech info:] Gowlandflex TLR, 180/4.5 Voigtlander Heliar lens, Ilford HP5 & Funi Across 100 film (expired), developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6 mins.
Endeavour series 9 is still in production so I’m afraid you won’t find any spoiler photos here. Most of the crew on this series are new to Endeavour but there are some familiar faces too. Here are some pictures from the first day of filming in Oxford on FILM 2 of series 9. The last photo is from the following day in Magdalen College.
[Tech info:] Leica M6, 28-50mm Tri-Elmar lens, Ilford DELTA 400 developed in Ilfosol 3. Pakon scans. Last photo is on HP5 film, 50mm Summicron lens.
Behind the scenes photography during filming of Endeavour 8 | FILM 2 in Oxford, April 2021. This was a night shoot in Wellington Square, the location for Joan Thursday’s flat. In reality it’s a couple of doors down from the exterior of Endeavour’s basement flat in series 3. I used Kodak TMAX P3200 film on this occasion because I like how it handles high contrast during night photography but to get the best out of this film I’ve found you need to use Kodak TMAX film developer and agitate every 30 secs as described in the Kodak film data sheet.
[Tech info:] Leica M6, 50/1.5 Voigtlander Nokton, Kodak TMAX P3200, developed in TMAX developer. Pakon scans.
Behind the scenes during filming of Endeavour 8 episode 2 in Oxford, April 2021. It was all about the taxi’s for this session. I quite like this dead end road the crew were filming on because the buildings funnel the light in while allowing it to bounce around at the same time which works well for contrasty sunny conditions.
[Tech info:] Leica M6, (can’t remember which lens), Eastman Double X film, developed in D96 for 7.30. Pakon scans.
Some pictures from an evening walk around Happy Valley in March 2021. I was experimenting with depth of field as the sun was dropping. I keep meaning to go back here with a larger format camera and feel the pond there has potential in different seasons.
[Tech info:] Nikon FA, 50/1.4D, Ilford FP4, developed in Kodak HC110 1+31, Pakon scans.
Behind the scenes during filming of Endeavour 8 episode 2 in Oxford, April 2021. The first two images show a character who sadly didn’t make it into the final edit which is a shame because it was an intriguing scene.
[Tech info:] Leica M6, (can’t remember which lens), Eastman Double X film, developed in D96 for 7.30. Pakon scans.
