6×6
...now browsing by tag
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
Saturday, December 21st, 2013
The Endeavour film crew were back in Oxford for a couple of days at the end of last month and I managed to fit in a quick bit of behind the scenes photography during my lunch break and after work. On the first day the weather was really cold which is why you can see the supporting actors dressed in warm coats. For the night time part of the shoot there was a smoke machine wafting in fake fog which really added to the atmosphere. I’m really looking forward to seeing these episodes next year.
[Tech info:] Rolleiflex Automat 3.5, loaded with Kodak TMAX 400 film, processed in Kodak HC110 (1+31) for 5mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, Portrait, Street portraits | 4 Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, endeavour, film, filming, hc110, oxford, people, portraits, tmax, tv
Sunday, November 17th, 2013
Here are some medium format film shots that I made last weekend during one of the rehearsal’s for Chicago that is on in a few days at the Keble O’Reilly theatre. This film expired in 2007 and generally high-speed film doesn’t age well so I’m very pleased with how these turned out considering the light level was incredibly low and not very contrasty. I was partly using this occasion as a test for a bright (Beattie) viewing screen that I recently installed into my Mamiya C330f camera and I’m happy to report that it’s a lot brighter and easier to focus with than the stock screen.
[Tech info:] Mamiya C330f, 80/2.8 lens loaded with Ilford Delta 3200 (expired 2007), rated at ISO 1250, processed in Rodinal 1+25 for 10mins.
Posted in film, Oxford, People, students | No Responses »
Tags: 6x6, black&white, c330, drama, film, oxford, people, portraits, rodinal, students
Monday, November 4th, 2013
A friend of mine (Ewan) from school has made his first feature length movie and during a visit to see him in Brighton I was treated to a private screening at a local cinema. In order to raise some funding to complete the film Ewan started a Kickstarter project to which I contributed and as a result I was listed in the thank you’s at the end of the movie. It was very cool to see my name up on a cinema screen! I travelled down on one evening and left to come home pretty much 24 hours later. The weather was mostly overcast with some rain so I didn’t manage to do a whole lot of photography but I did do a little. We had some late afternoon sun which was nice but by that time we were heading back home for dinner so I didn’t manage to photograph the sunset. The shots below are all from the same roll of film.
Here’s the IMDB page for Ewan’s movie Nightmare Hunters
[Tech info:] Mamiya C330f, 80mm/2.8 loaded withKodak Portra 400VC (expired), developed & scanned by Ag photolab
Posted in film, People, Portrait, Street portraits | No Responses »
Tags: 6x6, brighton, c330, film, people, Portra, portraits
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
