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Oxford: St Giles’ Fair 2015 – part 1

Tuesday, September 15th, 2015

St Giles’ Fair rolled into town last week and this is the first of what will probably be quite a few blog posts of pictures shot over the three days (including setting up). This year I only used black & white film for a change. It was nice to see some familiar faces again and as usual there was lots going on and plenty to photograph. I missed the fair last year so I was crossing my fingers for nice weather this time which we were fortunate to have. In the second shot down you can see Tommy Noyce who has been visiting St Giles’ Fair since he was 6 years old. He is now 73. The well known galloping horses carousel has been in his family for three generations and takes five trucks to transport. Sadly it no longer comes to St Giles’ Fair. The last frame below was made on the way back to my office during my lunch time visit to the fair – two of the tailors from Clements & Church on Little Clarendon Street.

[Tech info:] Fuji 6×9, Neopan Acros 100 developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 14 mins.

Oxford: Cowley Road Carnival, 2015

Monday, August 24th, 2015

I did some photography at this years’ Cowley Road Carnival and here’s a small selection. The weather was a bit of a mixed bag, combine that with more people than you can ever imagine on the Cowley Road and you can see why photography was rather difficult this year. Still, I did enjoy the atmosphere and look forward to going again next year.

[Tech info:] Konica Hexar AF, Fuij Reala 100 film, developed in Rollei Digibase C41 kit, Pakon scans.

Oxford: Voigtlander Bessa 6×9

Tuesday, March 17th, 2015

This set of images were made with what I think is the oldest camera I currently own – a Voigtlander Bessa I 6×9 folder from 1936. It works incredibly well for its age but it is a little quirky (it has separate viewfinder windows for focussing and composing) and it’s not particularly fast to use in a hurry but I do enjoy the size of the frames on the film and it folds down to a very compact size which makes it perfect for carrying around. I’ve only put three rolls through it so far and I think I’ll try a roll with this camera mounted on a tripod to see how much sharper the images become.

[Tech info]: Voigtlander Bessa I 6×9 folder, 105mm Skopar lens, Fuji Acros 100 film, developed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 5:30.

 

Lunchtime photography session with Ella

Saturday, February 28th, 2015

Here are some images from a recent lunchtime photography session with Ella. I wanted to practice a little with this camera and lens combination because while I really like the results I get from them, I’m not happy with the shutter release on the camera and how far you need to press before it will activate the shutter. I have a power-winder for it that came as part of the kit but I haven’t tried it yet. Maybe it’s about time I did. Ella was very easy to work with and hopefully there will be more opportunities to do some photography together.

[Tech info:] Mamiya 645 Pro TL, 80/1.9 lens, Fuji Acros 100 (expired) film, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 5:30.

 

Large format lunchtime session – Alice

Wednesday, February 25th, 2015

Some of the results from my large format lunchtime session with Alice using a 1940’s press camera. For this session I wanted to test out some Fomapan 100 film that I’ve had laying around for over a year and recently discovered. So far so good. I like these results. I’m hoping to do more large format photography in my lunch break because I really enjoy composing my shots on a large ground glass screen – often times upside down – and also having a limited amount of shots as well as the slower pace compared to other kinds of photography.

[Tech info:] Graflex Super D 5×4, Pentac 8inch f2.9 (bottom left), Kodak Ektar 190/5.6 lens, Fomapan 100 (expired), processed in Kodak HC110 1+31.

Film hanging up to dry

Oxford: Lunch time session – Xinlan

Thursday, February 19th, 2015

Here are two Fujiroids that I made at the end of my lunch break photography session with Xinlan yesterday. The sunlight was bouncing off the side of a white building which is one of my favourite kinds of light to photograph portraits in. Prior to these I finished a roll of Fuji Acros 100 in my Mamiya RZ67 and some of those shots will follow soon.

[Tech info:] Polaroid Land Camera 180, Fuji FP-100C instant pack film (expired).

Oxford: Lunch time session – Alice

Tuesday, February 17th, 2015

These two shots were made during my lunch break today on Fuji FP-100C instant pack film (just like Polaroid) and are as they came out of the camera. The shot on the right was accidentally over-exposed but I decided to post it here as a comparison because I quite like it. To me it looks like expired Polaroid. Usually I under-expose Fuji pack film because I like to bleach the neg which gives 2 extra stops of detail in the shadows but as there wasn’t much detail in the shadows on this shot I decided not to under-expose. I also used some b&w film on this shoot and those shots will follow at a later time after I’ve developed them.

[Tech info:] Graflex Super D 5×4 camera, Pentac f2.9 lens (from WWII), Fuji FP-100C (expired) instant pack film

Oxford: Kimono Fujiroids

Saturday, February 7th, 2015

Last weekend I photographed lots of beautiful vintage kimono’s for ITO to use in their online store. Each kimono is a one of a kind and it was hard to believe from the amazing condition that most of them are from the 1920’s. For the final images I used a digital camera but as is usually my way I took along some film as well. The shoot went really smoothly but we had a lot of kimono’s to photograph so there wasn’t much time to do a lot of film photography but I did manage to make these two shots with a Polaroid camera. The shot on the left was made with just the window light, the shot on the right was a mix of window light and a Nikon speedlight through a white umbrella which I balanced to look natural. Many thanks to Catriona for organising everything and for keeping the shoot running smoothly.

[Tech info:] Polaroid 190 Land Camera, Fuji FP-100C instant pack film (bleached neg).

kimono

 

Oxford: Lunchtime session – Tori (film)

Wednesday, January 28th, 2015

Here are some medium format shots I made during my recent lunch time session with Tori. I previously posted a couple of Fujiroid bleached neg shots here. The format for these shots was 6×9 which is one of my favourite medium format aspect ratios but I only have one camera that was designed to use that format and these shots reminded me that I don’t use it enough. You get 8 shots of 6×9 on a 120 size roll so it’s not a format for the trigger happy. For this shoot I decided to use fresh film stock for a change and while I can’t see a huge difference compared to some of my expired film shots I do think that the contrast was handled better on the contrasty back lit shots. We were a bit rushed in this session because I wanted to use medium format, 35mm and Fuji pack film all within 25mins which is not easy when you’ve got lots of people moving around during lunch time and you have to keep stopping to wait for a clear background but Tori was very patient despite the cold weather and we got everything done in time.

[Tech info:] Mamiya Universal, 100/2.8, Kodak Tri-X 400, processed in Kodak Xtol 1+1.

 

Oxford: Lunchtime session – Tori

Monday, January 19th, 2015

Today was a glorious sunny winters day here in Oxford and I made good use of it by doing some photography with Tori during my lunch break. I had three different film cameras with me today and here are two shots from the Polaroid Land Camera I took (the b&w shots are drying in the darkroom overnight so they’ll follow at a later time). There’s something really nice about winter sunshine and how it can make colours pop, it can also be very harsh and contrasty so it’s a nice challenge to look at how the light is falling on your subject and how the smallest of movements can mean the difference between nice and not so nice. Tori was incredibly easy to photograph and I hope we can do some more photography with different cameras and film. There is zero retouching on these two images, no Photoshop fakery, no filters, no plugins, just straight scans from the film.

These two shots were made on Fuji FP100-C instant pack film that expired 9 years ago. When you store it carefully and pay attention to how you expose it it’s capable of creating some fantastic results. I tend to underexpose it by a stop which results in a darker print but a nice negative that can be recovered with bleaching the black carbon layer off. The negatives are much sharper than the prints and you also get 2 stops of more detail in the shadows compared to the print.

[Tech info:] Polaroid Land Camera 190, Fuji FP100-C (expired), recovered neg.

Oxford: Industar lens test part 2

Tuesday, January 13th, 2015

Here are a few more shots from the first time out with my Industar 210mm large format lens. I only took six sheets of film with me and I used two sheets on one of the shots because the light was changing and I decided to try out a greater depth of field on the second sheet. I ended up preferring the light on the building in the first exposure so that’s the one I’ve posted here.

[Tech info:] Graflex Speed Graphic, Industar 210/f4.5 lens, Kodak Plus-X Aerographic film, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 6 mins.

Oxford: Saturday session

Tuesday, January 6th, 2015

At the end of November I went into town on a Saturday morning to do some photography and here are some images that I made. This was a couple of days after Black Friday and shoppers were out looking for bargains in the run up to Christmas. It was great to come across a breakdance crew busting some moves. When I was younger I remember seeing breakdance crews in town, laying out their square of lino to dance on, boom box blasting out tunes to attract the attention of passers by. It’s nice to see the current generation keeping the tradition alive.

[Tech info:] Leica M2, Voigtlander Nokton 35mm and 50mm lenses, Fuji Superia 200 (expired), Rollei Digibase C41 kit, Pakon scans.

Stag do