Street portraits

...now browsing by category

 

Oxford: 10×8 portraits

Sunday, September 17th, 2023

We’ve had some unusually warm weather for mid September recently so I decided to make the most of the evenings after work this week and took a 10×8 camera out along the tow path to make some portraits. It’s been quite a while since I’ve taken a 10×8 camera out, mainly because of the weight, but this time it was a lot easier because I used a trolley to transport my gear. It worked extremely well and I look forward to making more trips out when the weather is suitable. Thank you to everyone who stopped for a chat and a portrait.

[Tech info]: Shots 1-4 Kodak Commercial 10×8, 10inch Wide Field Ektar lens. Shots 5 & 6 Intrepid 10×8, 240mm Schneider lens. Shanghai GP3 100 (expired 2014), rated ISO 50, developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 8 mins.

20230915_Kodak_Commercial_10x8_10inch_Wide-Field_Shanghai_HC110B_04_web 20230915_Kodak_Commercial_10x8_10inch_Wide-Field_Shanghai_HC110B_03_web 20230915_Kodak_Commercial_10x8_10inch_Wide-Field_Shanghai_HC110B_02_web 20230915_Kodak_Commercial_10x8_10inch_Wide-Field_Shanghai_HC110B_01_web 20230914_Intrepid_240mm_Shanghai_HC110B_03_web 20230914_Intrepid_240mm_Shanghai_HC110B_02_web

Oxford: Speed Graphic street portraits – part 1

Wednesday, August 24th, 2022

After being on a bit of a roll with my large format street portraits I decided to take my Speed Graphic out with a lens I’ve been meaning to use for a while – 165mm f2.7 Zeiss Tessar. I repurposed the lens from a folding camera which was well past its best with a perished shutter. Steve at Chroma Camera kindly designed and 3D printed a custom lens board for me. It’s a lot lighter than my Aero Ektar lens but gives a very different look. Depth of field is very shallow as you’d expect – most of these were shot around f4.5.

[Tech info:] Speed Graphic 5×4, 165mm f2.7 Tessar lens, Ilford HP5 (expired), developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6mins.

20220811_Speed-Graphic_165mm_HP5_HC110B_01_web 20220811_Speed-Graphic_165mm_HP5_HC110B_02_web 20220811_Speed-Graphic_165mm_HP5_HC110B_03_web 20220811_Speed-Graphic_165mm_HP5_HC110B_04_web 20220811_Speed-Graphic_165mm_HP5_HC110B_05_web 20220811_Speed-Graphic_165mm_HP5_HC110B_06_web

Oxford: Intrepid 10×8 street portraits – part 1

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2022

The Intrepid 10×8 is the lightest 10×8 camera I own and after you add the weight of a lens, film holders, tripod, light meter, dark cloth, loupe and rucksack it’s on the limit of what I can comfortably cycle with. Here are the street portraits I made on my first trip into town with this kit. On the first shot I used a little front swing to bring both people into focus – the first time I’ve done this.

[Tech info:] Intrepid 10×8, 300mm f6.3 Komura lens, Fomapan 100 (expired), developed in HC110 1+63 for 10mins.

20220819_Intrepid_Broad-St_300mm_Komura_Fomapan100_HC110_001_web 20220819_Intrepid_Broad-St_300mm_Komura_Fomapan100_HC110_002_web 20220819_Intrepid_Broad-St_300mm_Komura_Fomapan100_HC110_003_web

Oxford: Graflex Super D street portraits – part 1

Monday, August 22nd, 2022

After the focus issues I was having with my Gowlandflex I decided to take my Graflex Super D into town after work to use it for some more large format portraits. The benefit is I’m able to cycle with the Super D in a rucksack, my Gowlandflex is too large to fit into any rucksack I currently own. The lens I used was designed for aerial photography during WWII and is uncoated which gives a low contrast almost dreamy look which I like.
[Tech info:] Graflex Super D, 8 inch Pentac lens, Ilford HP5 (expired), developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6 mins.

20220815_Broad-Street_Oxford_SuperD_Pentac_HP5_HC110B_05_web 20220815_Nicola_Rad-Sq_SuperD_Pentac_HP5_HC110_06_web 20220815_Broad-Street_Oxford_SuperD_Pentac_Acros_HC110B_02_web 20220815_Broad-Street_Oxford_SuperD_Pentac_HP5_HC110B_08_web 20220815_Broad-Street_Oxford_SuperD_Pentac_HP5_HC110B_04_web 20220815_Broad-Street_Oxford_SuperD_Pentac_HP5_HC110B_07_webSuperD

Oxford: Gowlandflex street portraits – part 1

Sunday, August 21st, 2022

Here are some street portraits from the first trips out with my Gowlandflex large format TLR camera on a Saturday and Sunday morning in Oxford. The camera is a beast and attracted a fair bit of attention. I enjoyed chatting with people and making their portraits – something I haven’t done for a couple of years.

The mirror calibration was completely wrong when I received this camera so I replaced the springs to lower the mirror by 2.5mm. This is the first time I’ve used it properly and it looks like I need to re-check the calibration because most of these shots are front focussed but overall I’m pleased with the results. A couple of the shots have some strange light leaks which might be from the film holder not being seated properly. Further investigation needed.

[Tech info:] Gowlandflex TLR, 180/4.5 Voigtlander Heliar lens, Ilford HP5 & Funi Across 100 film (expired), developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6 mins.

20220813_Bus-Driver_Gowlandflex_HP5_HC110B_01_web 20220813_Gowlandflex_Oxford_HP5_HC110B_01_web 20220813_Gowlandflex_Oxford_HP5_HC110B_03_web 20220813_Radcliffe-Square_Gowlandflex_HP5_HC110B_02_web 20220813_Radcliffe-Square_Gowlandflex_HP5_HC110B_03_web 20220814_Broad-Street_Gowlandflex_HP5_HC110B_05_web 20220815_Andrew_Gowlandflex_HP5_HC110B_10_web 20220815_Broad-Street_Gowlandflex_HP5_HC110B_09_web

20220814_Gowlandflex_Oxford_Acros_HC110B_01_web 20220814_Gowlandflex_Oxford_Acros_HC110B_02_web 20220814_Gowlandflex_Oxford_Acros_HC110B_03_web 20220814_Gowlandflex_Oxford_HP5_HC110B_01_web 20220814_Gowlandflex_Oxford_HP5_HC110B_02_web 20220814_Gowlandflex_Oxford_HP5_HC110B_05_web52282473538_b15170863a_c

Oxford: 10×8 photography

Saturday, September 14th, 2019

For the longest time I have wanted to take my 10×8 camera into town to do some large format photography and recently I finally managed to do it on a Saturday morning. Even though I only took one lens – the smallest and lightest I have that is suitable for 10×8 photography – the combined weight of the camera, tripod and film holders is more than my back can comfortably handle so I have to drag the camera around with a foldable hand cart which works really well. I took with me both Ilford Delta 100 b&w film and Fuji Velvia 100F transparency film. Below are a couple of shots made with the Delta 100, I’ve processed the Velvia and the shots turned out very nicely but I haven’t scanned them yet. The group shot of the Zappi’s Cycling Club was very impromptu – I was photographing the Sheldonian Theatre on Broad Street when I was approached by one of the cyclists about photographing them with my big camera.

[Tech info:] 10×8 field camera, Nikon 210mm f5.6 lens, Delta 100 film (expired), developed in Ilford DD-X with a Jobo processor.

20190914_Taylorian_10x8_Delta100_DDX_web 20190914_Zappis_10x8_210mm_Delta100_DDX_web

 

10x8-camera_web

Oxford: Around and about, lunch break photo walk

Saturday, May 12th, 2018

This set of pictures are from a recent lunch break photo walk where I managed to finish a whole roll during the hour. I’ve been using quite a bit of Eastman Double X motion picture film recently because I bought a bottle of D96 developer and I didn’t want it to go off without much use. So far I have been very pleased with the results especially in controlling contrast.

[Tech info:] Yashica Electro 35, Eastman Double X film, developed in D96, Pakon scans.

Oxford: Lunch break photo walk

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018

For a while now I’ve been meaning to use my Bronica SQA but either the weather or other things kept conspiring against me. Last week I finally managed to do it and here’s a set of pictures from the roll I shot during my lunch break photo walk. The shots of the drainpipe and the painted house number sign were made using a +1 close-up filter that I wanted to test and the last three shots were made with a red filter – the Radcliffe Camera shot had a polarising filter as well.

[Tech info:] Bronica SQA, 80/2.8, Ilford Delta 100 developed in Tetenal Ultrafin T-Plus.

Wet plate collodion tintype photography

Friday, August 19th, 2016

 

Recently I have been doing some wet plate collodion tintype photography and as it’s World Photo Day today I thought it appropriate to share some of my early results. It’s still early days for me and I don’t have my workflow dialled in yet to achieve consistent results but I’m really enjoying the surprise and beauty of the inconsistent results. These plates were scanned before I varnished them so the final results are slightly darker, richer and quite mesmerising to look at.

 

 

 

Oxford: Remembrance Day, 2015

Sunday, November 15th, 2015

Last year I photographed the Remembrance Day ceremony is Oxford with only 35mm film so this year I decided to change things up and only use large format. There’s no sense in repeating things, right? After much deliberation I opted to use my Speed Graphic 5×4 and 7 inch Aero Ektar lens (aka The Burnett combo). Using a lens from WWII seemed somewhat appropriate and I need all of the speed I could get because the sky was very overcast and the light level very low. Once I had packed my camera bag I only had space for 6 film holders (12 sheets of 5×4 inch film) so that’s all I took. Some of my shots ended up with very strange looking focus shift so I think in my rush to set up I must have moved the lens from being parallel with the film plane. Overall I think this camera and lens combo is well suited to this subject and hopefully I’ll get a chance to photograph some more military parades when I’m not rushing so much.

[Tech info]: Graflex Speed Graphic 5×4, Kodak Aero Ektar lens, Ilford HP5 developed in HC110 1+31 for 5 mins.

London: day trip with Ben

Monday, October 19th, 2015

Just over a year ago I went to London for the day with a photographer friend of mine, Benedict Campbell, with the sole purpose of doing street photography. The weather was unusually warm for October and we were fortunate to have some amazing light to photograph in. We had a fantastic day of photography and it’s something I hope we can manage to do again some time. I’ve still got lots of shots from that day to post and as it’s just gone past the one year mark I thought I would dig some out from my backlog.

[Tech info:] Canon Sureshot Ace, Kodak Pro Image 100 film, developed in a Rollei Digibase C41 kit, Pakon scans.

Camera test: Contax G1

Wednesday, October 7th, 2015

These shots were made during my lunch break yesterday, all from the same roll of film that I used to test a Contax G1 camera I recently bought. The weather has been very wet the past two days but fortunately there was a break in the rain just long enough for me to shoot this roll. In a few of the shots I was also testing an external flash (TLA 200) that I got with the camera body. It’s very simple to use as it only has two modes, manual and TTL. I left it on TTL. The light from it seems nice and balanced and it’s small enough to keep in the camera case without noticing it. One thing I did notice is the AF doesn’t seem to lock on very well if you try to focus on something that is low contrast or backlit. Some of the shots on the roll were slightly out of focus. So far I’ve been enjoying using the G1 as a point and shoot camera.

[Tech info:] Contax G1, 45/2 Carl Zeiss lens, Ilford FP4 film (expired) developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 9mins. Pakon scans.