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Photo shoot: Kristina

Saturday, December 1st, 2012

You might recognise Kristina from some of my Oxford Fashion Week images because that’s where I first met her. I made these shots during a short photo shoot in my lunch break. The light was very flat on a cold overcast day. Kristina’s outfit certainly wouldn’t have been my first choice as being particularly photogenic but sometimes as a photographer you have to work with what you’re given. The light bouncing off of the white jumper was so bright compared to everything else in the scene but the film and processing has kept it under control nicely. I semi-stand developed this film which tends to retain highlight and shadow detail incredibly well.

[Tech info:] Pentax 67, 105mm/f2.4 lens, Kodak Tri-X film processed in Rodinal 1:100 for 1 hour (semi-stand).

Kristina

Oxford: Lunch hour session

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

To break up all of the images I have to post from Oxford Fashion Week we return to our regularly scheduled programming to bring you images of some people that I photographed during my lunch hour photo walks around Oxford city centre. These are mostly from the same day. You’ll notice some familiar faces in amongst this set. I’m very pleased with how these all turned out.

[Tech info:] Bronica ETRSi, 75mm and 50mm lenses. Fuji Acros 100 film stand developed in Rodinal 1:100 for 1 hour. Note the top left image was made on expired (2002) Tri-X. I meant to semi-stand and agitate at the 30min mark but I was processing some other film at the same time and forgot.

Oxford: Lunch hour session

Thursday, November 1st, 2012

The first roll through a Mamiya 645 Super camera that I’m testing out and unfortunately quite a few frames have focus problems. I was rushing to shoot the whole roll in my lunch hour so that has to be factored in but I have never had so many badly focussed pictures, ever. Another test roll is required for me to make any final judgements, I’ll be more careful with that one!

[Tech info:] Mamiya 645 Super, 80/f2.8 lens, loaded with Fuji Acros 100 film, processed in Rodinal 1:100 (semi-stand) for 1 hour. (3 gentle agitations after 30mins).

 

Oxford: Lunch hour session

Sunday, October 28th, 2012

My tests with semi-stand film development continue, this time I used a roll of Kodak Plus-X that expired in 2001. It came in a batch of random expired films that I bought a while ago and to be honest I wasn’t expecting great results but I was pleasantly surprised when I hung this roll up to dry. For this roll I used Rodinal because some of my research into stand development suggested it to be a good developer to reduce base fog of expired film, this information proved to be correct. The whole roll was shot during one lunch hour in some of the gloomiest weather/light you can imagine but you’d never know it from the images. These images are from the first half of the roll.

[Tech info:] Bronica ETRSi, 75mm/f2.8 lens, loaded with Kodak Plus-X (expired 2001), processed in Rodinal (1:100) for 1 hour with 3 gentle agitations after 30mins.

Oxford: Lunch hour session

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

Some photography from earlier in the summer, made during my lunch hour photo walk around Oxford city centre. I planned to post these soon after processing them but they got a bit lost in the shuffle of my mountain of films to scan so I apologise for the delay. We had a bit of a wet summer as I recall and one of my favourite places to go when it’s raining is the University museum of natural history on Parks Road (the bottom four images). Not only does the building have an incredible interior but it’s packed with amazing things too. Well worth a visit.

[Tech info:] Rolleiflex SL66, 80mm Zeiss planar lens with Fuji Acros 100 film, processed in Rodinal 1:50.

Oxford: St Giles’ Fair part 2

Sunday, October 14th, 2012

More images that I made during St Giles’ Fair at the beginning of September. This is the contents of an entire roll of medium format film, 12 frames, none deleted.  [Tech info:] Rolleiflex SL66, 80/f2.8 lens, loaded with Fuji Acros 100 film, processed in Rodinal 1:50.

Travel: Barcelona around and about part 2

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

Here’s another set of images I made in Barcelona last week. Before I went I was really looking forward to shooting some street portraits but I found the language barrier to be a hurdle although I was able to overcome it sometimes with hand signals. Other times I had no problems because people spoke english but overall I didn’t feel the right energy on the street to approach people. The vibe I was feeling was people seem more guarded than I’m used to Oxford or London. My theory is that people are so used to being approached by others on the street trying to sell them things or asking for money etc that they automatically ignore anyone approaching them. It’s a shame because I saw so many people I wanted to photograph but alas it was not to be.

[Tech info:] Mamiya C330f loaded with Kodak Tri-X film, processed in Rodinal (1:50) for 13:30.

Travel: Barcelona around and about part 1

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012

Last week I made a short trip to Barcelona. I was previously there in 2010 almost exactly two years ago to the day. On that trip I only took a digital camera and brought back so many shots I still haven’t managed to find the time (or the will) to go through them all for processing. On this trip I decided to only take film cameras. Needless to say I didn’t bring back anywhere near the same amount of shots. Here’s the first batch of images.

[Tech info:] Mamiya C330f loaded with Kodak Tri-X, processed in Rodinal (1:50) for 13:3o.

Photo shoot: Helen – from white to black

Saturday, September 22nd, 2012

Some photo shoots can start off with with trying to plan every last detail, others have the room to breath and experiment to see what happens. This photo shoot falls in the latter. Helen sent me an image for inspiration and from there I decided I would only use black & white film and I took along four different cameras to experiment with (3 medium format and a 35mm). On the day Helen brought various outfits but I think it was a coincidence that we only ended up using black and white clothing. The images have a feeling of going from light to dark which was perfect as we raced against the fading sun. This is a story of a girl who’s man ‘did her wrong’. It was a fun shoot and I hope to do more of these.

[Tech info:] I used the following cameras, Pentax 67 with 105/f2.4 lens, Mamiya C330f with 80/f2.8 lens and a Mamiya M645 1000S with 80/f1.9 lens.  Film used was Kodak Tri-X and Fuji Acros 100. All of these shots were processed in Rodinal 1:50 (Acros for 10:00, the Tri-X for 13:30).

Oxford: Adventures with infrared film

Sunday, September 9th, 2012

Quite a few months ago I bought a box of 5×4 infrared sheet film and it’s been in my freezer ever since. I was waiting for summer to arrive with lots of sunshine and clear skies so that I could experiment with it. Partly due to the wettest summer on record I forgot about the infrared film until a few days ago. The weather this past week was unusually sunny and warm for September and that somehow reminded me that I had some infrared film in my freezer. I’m pleased to report that my initial tests were a success, you can see some of them below and there are lots more to come.

[Tech info:] Wista 5×4 with Schneider 90mm and 150mm lenses. Efke 820c infrared film processed in Rodinal 1:50 for 14mins (20c).

All in a row

View across Hinksey lakes

Over the bridge and far away...

Lock keepers cottage, Iffley lock

Setup shot

 

Photo shoot: Peter

Monday, September 3rd, 2012

You might recognise Peter from the punting photo shoot I did a couple of weeks ago. Having recently finished his masters degree he’s due to leave Oxford very soon to do a little travelling so we arranged to make some pictures before he leaves. For these images I used a large format camera from the 1940’s with a lens from World War II that was designed for the US military to do aerial photography at night. It’s renowned for its shallow depth of field that has a very unique signature. I don’t get to use this setup all that often partly because of the size of the lens and partly because it’s difficult to use it if the conditions are too bright but on this day it was perfectly cloudy with the sun trying to burn through. I took 6 sheets of film with me and all of them are here below.

[Tech info:] Speed Graphic camera with Kodak Aero Ektar lens on Ilford FP4+ processed in Rodinal (1:50).

On the steps.

Take it to the bridge

Distinctive bokeh

I think the gloves make this shot

Wider shot

No jacket required

 

Oxford Wheels Project: The end of an era

Monday, September 3rd, 2012

On the last day of the current Meadow Lane ramps I went along to make some portraits of whoever was down there skating and riding for the last time before the ramps get demolished to make way for a brand new concrete skatepark. Along with lots of people I didn’t know there was a familiar and friendly face, BMX rider Alex Leech. Alex and I went to school together between the ages of 5 and 13. I hadn’t seen Alex is quite some years and it was so nice to bump into him and see that he was still riding a BMX, something he’s been doing since the 70’s. I’ve got some more portraits from the day but I haven’t finished the roll of film yet. I hope to document the building of the new skatepark as much as possible.

You can see my previous photography from the Meadow Lane ramps here.

[Tech info: Pentax 67 and 105mm lens, loaded with Fuji Acros 100, processed in Rodinal 1:50 for 13:30.

Alex Leech

Alex and family

Skateboarder

I had a great chat with this guy about photography.

I can't remember if this guy was skating

Waiting in line