These shots were made in the Merton College gardens while the Endeavour crew were filming series 7 recently. I took along my Widelux panoramic camera because it hasn’t been getting much use lately and I was inspired to use it after purchasing Jeff Bridges’ photo book Pictures Volume 2.
[Tech info:] Widelux camera, Kodak Portra 400 film, Noritsu scans.
Here are some portraits I made at a WWII re-enactment event in Mapledurham back in the summer. The weather was overcast which was perfect for the colour palette and colour negative film I was using. These shots are all from the same roll of film through my Rolleiflex 2.8F. Part 1 of my portraits can be found here, made with the same camera but different film. More to come.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8F, Portra 160VC film (expired).
This is how some students celebrate the end of their exams, Oxford style (aka trashing). After weeks of not coming across anyone in my lunch hour I finally managed to bump into quite a few students on the same day. These shots are from last summer but I didn’t want to post them too soon because I didn’t want anyone to get into trouble for it. I think almost a year after the fact is probably fairly safe.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex SL66, 80/2.8 Zeiss Planar, loaded with Kodak Portra 160VC (expired), processed by Ag Photo lab, scanned by me.
A friend of mine (Ewan) from school has made his first feature length movie and during a visit to see him in Brighton I was treated to a private screening at a local cinema. In order to raise some funding to complete the film Ewan started a Kickstarter project to which I contributed and as a result I was listed in the thank you’s at the end of the movie. It was very cool to see my name up on a cinema screen! I travelled down on one evening and left to come home pretty much 24 hours later. The weather was mostly overcast with some rain so I didn’t manage to do a whole lot of photography but I did do a little. We had some late afternoon sun which was nice but by that time we were heading back home for dinner so I didn’t manage to photograph the sunset. The shots below are all from the same roll of film.
Here’s the IMDB page for Ewan’s movie Nightmare Hunters
[Tech info:] Mamiya C330f, 80mm/2.8 loaded withKodak Portra 400VC (expired), developed & scanned by Ag photolab
Some shots from a photo shoot I had with Georgina a few months ago. Georgina had been rushing around organising things for the Balliol Commemoration Ball so I was glad when she managed to make some time to fit in this shoot a few days before the ball. This room was a tricky space to shoot in because of the height of the window and the amount of furniture in the room but I’m pleased with what I managed to achieve. I quite enjoy having to work to find images in less than ideal situations because it’s a great way to learn.
[Tech info:] Pentax 67 with 55mm and 105mm lenses, Kodak Portra 400VC and Tri-X films.
At long last I have the shots I made on colour film at the Balliol 750th Commemoration Ball and I couldn’t be more pleased that I decided to send these out to a lab to have developed and scanned. This set of images is every frame from two rolls of film. I find it very exciting to send off rolls of film in the post and then patiently wait for them to return which is something that you only get with film. Despite these films being past their expiry date the colours have turned out beautifully – thank you Ag photo lab in Birmingham for doing such a great job. I bought a good sized batch of this film from a fashion photographer that used to use a lot of it but as his clients request digital photography now he had no need for it.
[Tech info:] Mamiya C330f, 80/2.8 lens, loaded with Kodak Portra VC, developed and scanned by Ag Photo lab.
Now that I’ve got some C41 colour chemicals mixed up and we have some hot weather I’ve been slowly chipping away at the pile of colour film I’ve had sitting in my fridge for the past I don’t know how many months. Some rolls have labels on, others don’t so it’s exciting when I develop a couple of rolls and don’t know what’s on them until I hang them up to dry. These shots are from my photo shoot with Tamsin and Josh back in June when Josh made this amazing elephant costume for a party he was attending later that evening. I previously posted some black & white shots here.
[Tech info:] Mamiya 645 Pro TL, 80/1.9 lens, loaded with Kodak Portra 400VC (expired), home developed in a Rollei digibase C41 kit.
The weather hasn’t been particularly great for photography recently. These shots are from a couple of weeks ago. A lot of the University students have packed up and are away for the Christmas holidays so the streets I usually photograph on in town are noticeably quieter. This might mean less photography for me but in some ways that’s not a bad thing because I still have a huge backlog of film to scan from earlier in the summer. If you’re one of the people that I photographed and you’ve been visiting this blog to see your picture I apologise for the delay. There have been some unfortunate accidents that happened where I lost some images (either by the film running out in my camera without me realising it or a mistake I made in the darkroom where I ended up with two completely blank rolls of film) but fortunately that only happened on a few occasions.
It would be nice to see some comments so please feel free to leave one. I’d especially like to hear from people that feature in my pictures. Thanks.
[Tech info:] Mamiya C330f with Kodak Portra 400 film.
Marco, Broad street. A really pleasant guy that I enjoyed speaking about photography with.
I really liked this students' outfit and ended up chasing after her. I'm amazed at how well this has turned out considering the lack of light, I could hardly focus it was so dark.
Maria. This was shot in colour but I prefer this black & white version. Again, it was very dark and cold on this day but film renders everything so nicely.
Tourists eating lunch on the Martyr's memorial.
Some of the demolition crew that are working on the shops along Walton Street. This is the corner of Walton Street and Little Clarendon Street. Notice one of the guys is hiding.
Here we have a bit of a mixture of shots from the same roll of film. I was trying out a new type of film, Kodak Portra 160 rated at 100 and then processed normally. The first two images are of my daughter, the colour difference is down to me testing different scanning software. I prefer the one on the left made with Silverfast SE. Over the past few years I’ve made so many images of Nya with digital but recently I’ve mainly been using film. There’s something wonderful about having images of Nya on physical media compared to bits and bytes on hard drives.
All shots made with a Mamiya 645 1000S and 80mm/2.8 lens.
Nya loves swings
A student from Taiwan with his mum's old Nikon FM and 50/1.4 lens. This is the first SLR camera that a dear friend of mine (thank you Susie Barker) handed me in 1986 to use. How many DSLR's will be in use 25 years from now?
I never tire of photographing this worn out bicycle.
I've got a thing for photographing beaten up bikes
These buildings have been marked for redevelopment in the next month. More student accommodation, more people for me to photograph. I like the red and black in this scene..
I don't usually stop anyone that isn't an adult because of how controversial photographing children can be. On this occasion I thought this guy looked so cool waiting with his dog so I decided to ask him. I like how his trousers match the colour of the stone and the blue signs echo his top.
Window display in vintage furniture store Liscious, Walton street, Oxford.
I love Oxford in the summer, especially the warm evening light when the sun starts to drop and there are nice long shadows everywhere. It’s been quite a while since I had the time to do street photography in the evenings so I’m pleased I have some free time at the moment to make the most of the summer evenings and light.
These images are from one of the first rolls of colour negative film that I developed myself. I’ve been putting it off until now because I thought it would be more difficult than it was.
[Tech info:] All of these images are from the same roll of Kodak Portra 400 film inside a Mamiya RZ67 camera with a 110/2.8 lens.
Two Russian students on the steps of the Clarendon Building, Broad Street, Oxford.
Another fellow film photographer whom I met during a Flickr meet up in University Parks.
This was part of a test shoot with Mayumi who I've photographed before. I wanted to test out a new lens and film.
On my way home one evening I passed this gentleman on Cornmarket street, I really liked how smartly dressed he was. I never go along Cornmarket street during my street photography sessions because of the shops the line both sides of the street and the sheer volume of people you find along there that makes it impossible to photograph anyone. At this time of the evening it was much emptier. I'm pleased with how the background doesn't show the shops very clearly.
