Tri-X
...now browsing by tag
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
Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013
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.
Posted in film, Oxford, Photo shoot, Portrait, students | 2 Responses »
Tags: 400vc, 6x7, balliol, film, georgina, oxford, Portra, portraits, students, summer, Tri-X
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
Sunday, September 15th, 2013
Just before St Giles’ fair rolled into town this year the weather turned autumnal which was a bit of a shock considering we had warm summer weather the previous week. On the first day of the fair it rained on and off which limited my photography so I only managed to do a fraction of what I hoped to. This set of images is from the same roll of film through my Rolleiflex tlr which I decided to use because of how pleased I was with the shots from my Mamiya C330f tlr I used at the fair last year but something I hadn’t factored was how limiting the fixed 80mm lens on the Rolleiflex would be. With my Mamiya I was able to change to the 65mm wide-angle lens to get just that extra bit into the frame without having to back up too far. I’ve noticed a strange anomaly in some of my frames which I hope is not a fault with the Rollei – a narrow light band across the bottom of some of the frames, visible in the top left frame and the one below it. My guess is that it might be linked to a certain shutter speed because it’s not on every frame. I’ll look into it.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex 2.8f, 80mm Zeiss Planar lens loaded with expired Kodak Tri-X 400 processed in Kodak HC110 1:31 for 7:30.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Street portraits | 2 Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, film, hc110, oxford, people, portraits, rolleiflex, tlr, Tri-X
Sunday, August 25th, 2013
Most of my photography is done outdoors but I really enjoy shooting indoors with natural light whenever I get the chance and this location was perfect – it’s a rented house that was empty because the people haven’t moved in yet. I love the film noir quality of these. This shoot was not about smoking, it was more about using smoke as an added element but as it turned out there wasn’t very much of it so we tried using incense as well. These are all medium format shots, I did also use 35mm which will follow at a later time.
[Tech info:] Pentax 67, 105/2.4 lens, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired) rated at iso800, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 9:30.
Posted in film, Oxford, Photo shoot, Portrait | No Responses »
Tags: 6x7, black&white, film, hc110, helen, oxford, people, portraits, summer, Tri-X
Sunday, August 11th, 2013
This is the second instalment of my pictures from the BMX Jam that was held at the Meadow Lane skatepark last month. It was a really fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon – even my wife and daughter stayed for the whole thing so it must have been good! I tried to photograph some of the action but with a maximum shutter speed of 1/400 it proved to be quite challenging to capture the peak of the action but I gave it my best shot.
[Tech info:] Mamiya RZ67, 110mm and 150mm lenses, loaded with Fuji Acros 100 and Kodak Tri-X 400. Processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait, Sport | No Responses »
Tags: 6x7, acros, black&white, bmx, film, owp, oxford, portraits, RZ67, summer, Tri-X
Thursday, August 1st, 2013
These shots are from a photo shoot I had with Alice last month on the last day of term, right before she was leaving Oxford for the summer. We had been trying to find the time to shoot but for one reason or another we never managed it but I’m so glad we got to arrange this at the last minute. The first time I photographed Alice was for a 1920’s themed promo shoot which I thought she was the perfect choice for and I’m hoping we can shoot some more when term starts again in October especially as Alice is a really good stylist with a wonderful collection of fabrics and clothes that will be fun to photograph . These shots were all made with a medium format camera, the 35mm shots will follow at a later time.
[Tech info:] Mamiya 645 ProTL, 80/1.9 lens, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired), processed in Kodak XTOL 1+1.
Posted in film, Oxford, Photo shoot, Portrait, students | 2 Responses »
Tags: 645, black&white, film, oxford, portraits, students, summer, Tri-X, xtol
Thursday, July 25th, 2013
Last Sunday I went along to a BMX Jam at the Meadow lane skate park that had been organised by local BMX legend Alex Leech. As I’ve never been to one of these events before I didn’t quite know what to expect but after enjoying this one so much I can’t wait for the next one. It was great to see some familiar local faces that I’ve photographed there before and plenty of new ones too. I took along two cameras with me but sadly one of them (a 35mm SLR) developed a fault shortly after I got there so I was down to just my medium format camera which has a maximum shutter speed of 1/400 so action shots were proving a bit tricky but I gave it a go at anticipating the peak of the action. The shots below are all from the same roll of film – I only get 10 frames with this camera. More images to come.
[Tech info:] Mamiya RZ67, 110/2.8 lens, loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400 film (expired 2004), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait, Sport | No Responses »
Tags: 110mm, 6x7, black&white, bmx, film, hc110, owp, oxford, people, portraits, RZ67, summer, Tri-X
