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Friday, January 31st, 2014
Last Saturday I did some backstage photography during TEDx Oxford 2014 which was held at the New Theatre on George Street. I have fond memories of going to the New Theatre as a child and once even saw a double bill screening of The Spy Loved Me and Revenge of the Pink Panther there. A large white safety screen was hung over the stage and the movies were projected onto that. So, I was excited to be backstage and get a glimpse behind the curtain.
I did do some photography of the speakers from the wings but for me I most important thing was to photograph the worker bees that were making the event happen because without them there wouldn’t be much of a conference. These shots are all from the same roll of medium format film, made in available light.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8f, 80mm Zeiss Planar lens, loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), rated at ISO 800, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 9 mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, Portrait, students | No Responses »
Tags: 2.8f, 6x6, backstage, black&white, film, hc110, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, students, TEDx, Tri-X
Wednesday, January 29th, 2014
The Endeavour crew were here in Oxford last weekend to film parts of series II episode IV which will be the final episode of the second series. They were only here for two days which is a lot less than the previous three episodes. The weather was cold and very wet at times which limited the amount of photography I was able to do. Here are some shots from a night scene that was filmed on Turl Street.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8f, 80mm Zeiss planar lens, loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 9 mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, People | No Responses »
Tags: 2.8f, 6x6, black&white, film, hc110, oxford, people, rolleiflex, Tri-X
Tuesday, January 21st, 2014
Just before Christmas last year I sent my Rolleiflex 2.8F away to be serviced because the aperture and shutter speed dials were beginning to stiffen up and I felt that it lacked the smoothness that Rolleiflex’s are renowned for. I also wanted to replace the focussing screen in it so I sent a Maxwell Hi-Lux screen with it for the service technician to install for me. The camera has returned now so I was keen to take it out on the streets of Oxford to put some film through it. These shots are from the second roll through it (the first got sadly ruined when I processed it but I still don’t know exactly what caused the problem). I must say that the camera is a joy to use now and the Maxwell screen is amazing and a HUGE improvement over the stock screen which is very dark in comparison. I opted for a completely clear screen with no grid lines so there’s nothing to interfere with the image.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8F, 80/2.8 Planar lens loaded with Ilford FP4 (expired 2004), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.
Posted in film, Oxford | No Responses »
Tags: 2.8f, 6x6, black&white, film, fp4, hc110, oxford, rolleiflex, tlr
Monday, December 23rd, 2013
Here are some more shots from day two of the recent Endeavour filming in Oxford. This episode looks like it will be very exciting. It’s hard to make out in the bus picture but Colin Dexter is making a cameo appearance, he’s sitting next to the window on the lower level, first window from the right.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex Automat 3.5 loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400, processed in Kodak HC110 (1+31) for 7:30.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, endeavour, film, filming, hc110, oxford, portraits, rolleiflex, Tri-X
Monday, October 28th, 2013
This is the last set of images I managed to make behind-the-scenes during the Endeavour filming last Sunday before heavy rain put a dampener on things. This roll of film was part of a batch that a kind friend of mine brought me over from New York but when I hung it up to dry after processing it in the darkroom I noticed x-ray scanner fogging on the roll which took the form of a zig zag pattern all the way along the film. Fortunately it’s hardly visible in the scans and that’s if you’re looking very hard. I’m really looking forward to the Endeavour crew coming back so that I can hopefully do some more behind-the-scenes photography.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8F Zeiss Planar loaded with Kodak TMAX 400 film, processed in Kodak HC110 dilution b for 5:30.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait | No Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, endeavour, film, hc110, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, tlr, tmax, tv
Sunday, October 27th, 2013
There’s something that just feels right about photographing behind-the-scenes pictures of a tv show set in the 1960’s with a camera that is from the 1960’s. These shots are the entire contents of my first roll of film last Sunday morning when the Endeavour film crew were in town shooting the second episode of four new ones that will be broadcast next spring. The episode title of this one is Nocturne so keep an eye out for some of these smartly dressed supporting actors. Just as I was getting going with my photography rain stopped play and I had to head for shelter in the Covered Market. The photographer is not part of the filming but he just happens to be one of my favourite Oxford street photographers and we bumped into each other completely by chance and had a nice chat while it poured down with rain. Shortly after that the film crew relocated to Exeter College gardens where they managed to film a little more before the sky opened up again and they stopped for lunch. I did manage to shoot another half a roll, those shots to follow soon.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8F Zeiss Planar loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400, processed in HC110 dilution b for 7:30.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, endeavour, film, hc110, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, Tri-X, tv
Sunday, October 13th, 2013
Some shots from a woodland walk on an autumnal Sunday afternoon. It was great fun discovering some amazing little mushrooms. We came across some that looked straight from a fairytale, red with white dots. I didn’t photograph them because they were in deep shadow that wouldn’t have worked well in black & white. For these mushroom shots I tested out some Rollei close-up lenses. There doesn’t seem to be any loss in sharpness.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex Automat 75mm/f3.5 Tessar, loaded with expired Kodak Tri-X, processed in Kodak Xtol 1+1 for 8mins.
Posted in film | 2 Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, film, mushroom, rolleiflex, Tri-X, woods, xtol
Saturday, October 12th, 2013
Last Saturday was some sort of worldwide photo walk day where groups of photographers around the world met up in groups to walk around and do photography together. I wasn’t part of this but I stumbled across a group in Oxford city centre – the two organisers are the guys in the horse costumes. I don’t often go into town on the weekend so it was nice for me to see a totally different vibe on the streets compared to my lunch hour photo walks during the week – more shoppers and less working people out and about. I ended up bumping into some friends which was nice so we had a good chin-wag and catch up.
[Tech info:] 1950’s Rolleiflex Automat, 75mm/f3.5 Tessar lens, loaded with expired Kodak Tri-X, processed in Kodak Xtol 1+1 for 8 mins. I used a yellow filter on some of these shots because the sky was cloudy/overcast so I wanted to add a little contrast.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 6x6, automat, black&white, film, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, tlr, Tri-X, xtol
Tuesday, October 8th, 2013
Some test shots I made of Lauren last week. I wanted to test out my Rolleiflex Automat to see how it preforms as a portrait camera because I’ve read various comments about the 75mm lens not being anywhere near as good as an 80mm lens. Unfortunately I didn’t have another Rolleiflex with an 80mm lens with me to do a direct comparison, that will have to wait for another day. I also took t his opportunity to test out my Rolleinar 1 close-up lens to get in a little closer (I think the top left shot is with that). The sky was heavily overcast and the light level was so dark and flat that I’m honestly amazed that these look as good as they do especially as the film expired almost 10 years ago. Lauren was very easy to work with and I hope this is the first of more collaborations. I also shot a couple of sheets of large format 5×4 film but those will have to follow at a later time.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex Automat 3.5 (circa 1950’s), 75mm Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar lens, loaded with expired Kodak Tri-X, processed in Kodak Xtol 1+1 for 8 mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Photo shoot, Portrait, students | 2 Responses »
Tags: 6x6, automat, black&white, film, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, students, Tri-X, xtol
Monday, September 30th, 2013
The first roll through my Rolleiflex Automat 3.5 (75mm Tessar) that I shot during my lunch hour. The camera is a joy to use, everything works like a brand new perfectly engineered machine so it’s hard to believe that this camera is from the 1950’s. The minimum focussing distance on Rollei TLR’s isn’t all that good so I also bought a set of close-up lenses which I used on some of these shots. There doesn’t seem to be any reduction in image quality that I can tell. I’m going to enjoy using this camera a lot more.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex Automat 3.5 loaded with expired (2003) Kodak Tri-X film, processed in Kodak Xtol 1+1 for 8 mins.
Posted in Equipment, film, Oxford, Portrait, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 6x6, automat, black&white, diptych, film, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, Tri-X, xtol
Friday, September 20th, 2013
The second series of Endeavour (the Inspector Morse prequel) has started filming here in Oxford and I stumbled upon a scene being filmed during my lunch hour photo walk yesterday. I don’t watch much tv these days but Endeavour is one of my all time favourite tv shows to watch so you can imagine how pleased I was to come across the set. It’s amazing how Oxford can be so easily transformed to the 1960’s with minimal set dressing (I’ve read that series 2 is based in 1966). I only had five frames left on the roll of film I had in my Rolleiflex so I had to use them carefully. Shaun Evans who plays the title role was very down to earth and nice enough to stop for a couple of pictures, others I photographed below were some extras, the make-up artists, sound engineer and one of the guys in charge of the vehicles. I’m really glad that it was my Rolleiflex twin-lens that I had on me because it’s from the 1960’s. Some of these shots were from lunch time and some are from after work when they had moved to a different location. I would love to do more behind the scenes photography of Endeavour over the coming months but it’s impossible to know in advance when and where they’ll be filming around Oxford.
Here are some of my pictures during the filming of the final scene in the pilot episode of Endeavour back in 2011.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8f Planar, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired) processed in Kodak Xtol 1+1.
Posted in film, Oxford, Portrait, Street portraits | 9 Responses »
Tags: black&white, endeavour, film, morse, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, tlr, Tri-X, tv, xtol
Tuesday, September 17th, 2013
Some images I made at the Thursday Gloucester Green market to test out my Rolleiflex twin-lens camera. I don’t often go to this market but I think I might change that because there are lots of interesting stalls and people there. My Rolleiflex seemed to attract a lot of attention, I’m not sure if that’s because of the name written on the front in large letters or because it’s a twin-lens but I don’t mind chatting to people about it. The lady in the bottom images was very nice to chat with and I think she has great style, she used to work with photographers as a stylist and it was her stall of vintage goodies that caught my eye because it was so well laid out (the two middle images). Regular visitors to my blog might recognise Martin in the top two images, he features in quite a few of my blog posts when I have a camera, lens or film to test out. He used to play in a local rock band named Targa who were big in the 1980’s and a little known fact is they were the first band to play live on the opening night of Oxford’s ice-rink. The word around the camp fire is there could be a new band forming with a few of the original Targa band members but that’s just a rumour at this stage.
[Technical info:] Rolleiflex 2.8F Planar, 80mm lens, Ilford FP4 (expired) processed in Kodak Xtol.
Posted in Equipment, film, Oxford, Portrait, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, film, fp4, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, tlr, xtol
