Tri-X

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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

Friday, October 26th, 2012

These images are from the first test roll through a medium format camera I came across recently. It’s a Bronica ETRSi (6×4.5 format) and so far I have really enjoyed using it thanks to its small compact size and light weight. The weather this week in Oxford has been incredibly grim and gloomy but I was so keen to try this camera out that I decided to shoot some test shots regardless and after seeing these shots I’m glad I did. More to come.

[Tech info:] Bronica ETRSi, 75mm/f2.8 EII lens, loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400, processed in Kodak HC110 (1:119) for 1 hour (20sec agitation after 30mins).

Richard the tailor, first frame on the Bronica.

Bike, Walton Street

Autumn leaves on car, Wellington square

Walton street

Construction worker, Little Clarendon Street

Construction worker, Little Clarendon street

Alex

Construction worker

Construction worker currently working on the big Walton Street project

 

Experiments: Semi-stand film developing

Monday, October 22nd, 2012

Recently I’ve been doing a little research into semi-stand film developing and I finally felt ready to give it a try. First I needed a roll of film to process so I shot one during a lunch hour and headed over to the darkroom after work. The film expired in 2003 so I was half expecting a bit of a fail with this experiment but despite quite a heavy base fog on the film it seemed to scan quite nicely considering the age of the film.

[Tech info:] Mamiya M645 1000s, 80mm/f1.9 lens, Kodak Tri-X (expired 2003), processed in Kodak HC110 (dilution 1:119) for 1 hour with a few gentle agitations at the 30min stage. I used 6ml of HC110 syrup to make 720ml of working developer, this is what my research suggested.

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: St Giles’ Fair part 1

Wednesday, September 19th, 2012

Anyone that has grown up in Oxford will probably have some sort of memory of visiting St Giles’ Fair which is held once a year at the beginning of September. For me, the arrival of the fair signified autumn, the end of summer and the start of a new school year. When I was younger I used to love going on the rides but nowadays I prefer to do photography there instead. I really enjoy the huge diversity of people that the fair attracts and the underlying creepiness that seems to hang in the air from the shifty characters you see among the crowds.

This year I really enjoyed photographing at St Giles’ Fair. The weather was warm, there were loads of people there and the light was very interesting. Previously I have always tried to concentrate on making images of the rides but this year I decided to concentrate on the people instead and capturing something of the atmosphere.

[Tech info:] Mamiya C330f, 80mm and 55mm lenses, loaded with Kodak Tri-X, processed in Kodak HC110 dilution b.

Oxford: On the street

Tuesday, September 4th, 2012

It’s not often I get the chance to get into town at the weekends so when I had a little time recently I decided to take my Super D large format SLR camera out for a little air. As is often the case the street performers on Cornmarket Street were doing their thing and pulling in big crowds. The lens on the Super D is not particularly wide so I wasn’t about to capture much of the crowds but the performers themselves were great to photograph.

[Tech info:] Graflex Super D 5×4 SLR camera, Kodak Tri-X 320 film processed in Kodak HC110 (dilution b).

Fire juggling street performer

Fire juggler. It's hard to tell but this guy is holding a fireball behind his back in his left hand. After this he dropped it down his trousers!

Squeezing through a tennis racket

On my way to Port Meadow I passed these people that were guests at a wedding. The gentleman reminded me of Johnny Depp

Meg and her daughter. Meg is a photographer who spotted me with my Super D camera in the Divinity Schools quadrangle.

The grand finale of a street performance.

 

Oxford Wheels Project

Sunday, August 12th, 2012

Some more portraits of people that use the ramps on Meadow Lane run by the Oxford Wheels Project. The current ramp is due to be knocked down in two weeks’ time to make way for a massive redevelopment of the whole site which is to build a concrete ramp that is sunken into the ground. It’s going to be amazing. I made these portraits without any prior arrangement, I just randomly turned up at the ramps with my old large format camera and explained my documentary project to this group of friends that were hanging out at the ramps. My thanks to all of them for allowing me to photograph them.

[Tech info:] Graflex Super D 5×4 large format camera, Kodak Tri-X 320 film processed in Kodak HC110 (dilution b).

I set this up in a hurry with fading light and should have included his feet.

Skateboarder 2

The only BMX rider in this group.

Skateboarder 3

Skateboarder 4. I had a great conversation with this guy about photography.

The camera I used to make these portraits, a 5x4 inch large format SLR.

 

Oxford: Lunch hour session

Wednesday, July 25th, 2012

Here’s a little something different, triptych’s. Each set of three frames are consecutive shots on the same roll of film. As I was scanning them I liked how they fitted together and it also shows you the order in which the images were made. While I was waiting to make the image of the walking tour on the steps of the Clarendon Building a man walked past me and I could see by the way his head turned as he walked past that the camera I was holding caught his attention. After he passed me he turned around and came back. We chatted briefly about the Rolleiflex camera that I was holding and he began to tell me about his parents and how they both met while working at the Rolleiflex factory in Germany many years ago. They couldn’t afford to buy the classic twin lens Rollei so instead they bought the cheapest one they could afford (which I think was 35mm). I wish I had made a portrait of the man.

[Tech info:] Rolleiflex SL66, Zeiss 80/2.8 lens, loaded with expired Kodak Tri-X film, processed in Kodak HC110 dilution b (1:32).

Top: a bench where I work, middle: Walton Street Post Office, bottom: Richard the tailor.

First two: Little Clarendon Street, third: Broad Street.

Top: Broad Street, middle: Divinity Schools quadrangle, bottom: Nya giving me two thumbs up on Broad Street.

Top: a rare grab shot for me, middle: a barber on Walton Street, bottom: Mick the security guard.

Test shoot: Helen

Sunday, June 24th, 2012

Some images from a test shoot I did with Helen in a local park recently. It was a nice change compared to photographing on the street with architectural backgrounds. Usually I tend to arrange my test shoots during my lunch break but this one I did after work and immediately I noticed a difference in the colour and quality of the light. To say the conditions were perfect would be an understatement. Helen is one of the easiest people I have ever photographed and seemed completely at ease in front of the camera. As a photographer you can’t ask for any more than that. Often when I’m photographing people they’re waiting for me to tell them what to do but with this shoot it was more of a collaboration which is something I prefer. I hope we get to collaborate on more shoots in the future. I tested a number of different types of film on this shoot so more images will follow once I find time to process and scan them.

[Tech info:] Pentax 67 loaded with Kodak Tri-X 400, processed through Kodak HC110 (dilution b).

At the edge of the tree line.

X

Dappled light.

In the shade.

In the open.