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Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015
I must admit I’m not a huge fan of shaving and usually go a few weeks between shaves whenever possible. When I found out about the Oxford Beard Festival my first thought wasn’t about entering, it was to make portraits of some of the competitors in a formal portrait kind of way. It took me a while to decide on which camera to take and in the end I opted for my Graflex Super D which is a large format SLR allowing me to shoot 5×4 inch sheet film. For this event I packed 12 sheets of film and used one sheet on each person below so making mistakes wasn’t an option. After arriving at the venue (The James Street Tavern) I scoped out a place to set up that would be both out of the way and would also give me consistent lighting during the afternoon and managed to find a nice shady spot in the corner of the beer garden. It was a fun event and I enjoyed photographing such a variety of beards but this was more than just about beards, I could appreciate the thought that had also gone into the clothes and styling for a lot of these guys and that made for better pictures in the end. My thanks go out to all of these guys for being so patient and for sitting very still for me.
[Tech info:] Graflex Super D 5×4, Pentac 8inch f2.9 lens, Ilford HP5 film processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6 mins.
Behind the scenes shots of the camera I used and some of the sheet film hanging up to dry.
Posted in Oxford, People, Portrait | 2 Responses »
Tags: 5x4, beard, black&white, festival, film, graflex, hc110, HP5, oxford, pentac, people, portraits, super d
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
Posted in film, Oxford, Photo shoot, Portrait | No Responses »
Tags: alice, film, fp100c, fujiroid, graflex, pentac, people, portraits, students, super d
Monday, October 14th, 2013
Here are a set of shots made on 5×4 large format film with Lauren. The middle two are from my first shoot with Lauren in some of the dullest and flat overcast light I have ever dared to photograph someone in, the others are from my second shoot (see the Fujiroids I posted a few days ago). I hope there will be more collaborations to come.
The maximum amount of 5×4 sheets I can process at once is six so that’s why I like to shoot them in batches of six. I love how all of these have turned out which is why I can’t choose between them so I decided to post them all. One of my favourite film/developer combo’s for quite a while has been Ilford HP5 developed in Kodak HC110 but recently I’ve been testing out Kodak Xtol and I have to say it’s hard to go wrong with it. I found the secret to mixing Xtol successfully is to use hot water which helps the fine powder dissolve.
[Tech info:] Graflex Speed Graphic, Schneider 180/4.5 (top & bottom), Pentac 8inch/2.9 (middle), Ilford HP5 processed in Kodak Xtol stock for 8.5mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Photo shoot, Portrait, students | 4 Responses »
Tags: 5x4, black&white, film, graflex, HP5, oxford, pentac, people, portraits, students, xtol
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.
Posted in film, Oxford, Portrait, Street portraits | 4 Responses »
Tags: 5x4, black&white, film, graflex, hc110, HP5, oxford, pentac, people, portraits, speed graphic
Monday, June 24th, 2013
These two portraits were made yesterday at the same skatepark session as the two in the previous post except these were made on 5×4 black & film. The maximum amount of 5×4 sheet film I can develop at the same time is 6 sheets so that’s usually how many I load into film holders at the same time. I had already used 4 sheets from this batch at a shoot I had with Imogen so I only had 2 sheets with me when I decided to go to the skatepark. It’s a shame because the light was nice (when the sun wasn’t behind a cloud) and there was a good crowd there.
[Tech info:] Graflex Super D 5×4, Pentac f2.9 @ f4, Ilford Delta 100 processed in Ilford DDX 1+4.
Posted in film, Oxford, Portrait | No Responses »
Tags: 5x4, black&white, bmx, ddx, delta 100, film, graflex, meadow lane, owp, oxford, pentac, people, portraits, skatepark, summer, super d
Sunday, June 23rd, 2013
These two portraits were made at my local skatepark today. It was a really fun session and my portrait volunteers did really well to stay still whilst being heckled from their friends. I wanted to test out my Super D camera after I had some focus issues the last time I used it and the good news is I’ve managed to achieve critical focus again with my workaround but the bad news is that I need to use the camera on a tripod to do it. When you’re working with really shallow depth of field it’s always a good idea to mount your camera on a tripod so it’s not the end of the world. I only had two sheets of film with me and these last two shots of Fuji instant pack film. The film shots will follow (I left them drying in the darkroom overnight).
[Tech info:] Graflex Super D with Pentac f2.9 lens @ f4. Fuji FP-100C instant pack film.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait | 2 Responses »
Tags: 5x4, bmx, film, fujiroid, graflex, meadow lane, owp, oxford, pentac, people, portraits, skatepark, super d
