Street portraits

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Fashion: suited up backstage at OFW 2012

Wednesday, August 28th, 2013

These shots are from backstage at the Oxford Fashion Week Couture  show which was held at the Ashmolean Museum here in Oxford towards the end of last year. I’ve been meaning to post these but didn’t get around it and as tomorrow evening there is another Oxford Fashion Week event being held there I thought it timely to put these up. The backstage area was in one of the massive halls of the Ashmolean but the lights had been turned off at the far end where all of the male models were waiting around to go  line up for the catwalk which made it extremely difficult for me to manually focus my camera. It’s a miracle that any of these are in focus. I was holding my camera with one hand and a flash on a light stand with a big white umbrella with my other hand which provided the lighting in these shots and I’m very pleased with how they turned out. The outfits and styling was by the Clements & Church team who worked non-stop all evening.

[Tech info:] Bronica ETRSi 645, 75mm/2.8 lens, loaded with Kodak Portra 400 film. Developing and scanning by Ag Photolab.

Oxford: lunch hour session

Tuesday, August 27th, 2013

These images are all from the same roll of film made on two consecutive days last week. There’s a big demolition project underway in Jericho at the moment which is close to where I work so I decided to head over there to make some images of the area before it’s all gone. While I was there I had a little wander around some of the Jericho streets and found it to be rather a nice little area to photograph with lots of interesting buildings and architectural details that would be easily missed if you’re not looking with photography in mind. So often we overlook things that are right on our doorstep and that’s certainly the case here. I’m going to make an effort to explore Jericho a little more in the near future.

[Tech info:] Bronica ETRSi 645, 75mm/2.8 lens, loaded with expired Ilford FP4, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 7mins.

Photo shoot: smoke signals

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.

 

Oxford: lunch hour session

Friday, August 23rd, 2013

Usually when I’m on my lunch hour photo walk around Oxford city centre I notice a lot of people stopping to have their lunch. At the moment there seems to be a lot of construction projects on the go which means quite a few workmen are around. I think workmen (and women) make excellent subjects for portraits and if you look back at old photographs from the 20th century you’ll find many excellent examples. Here are two Fujiroids that I made on my lunchtime photo walk a couple of days ago.

[Tech info:] Mamiya Universal, 100/3.5 lens, Fuji FP-100C instant pack film (just like Polaroid).

Ship street

St Giles

 

Photo shoot: where there’s smoke

Wednesday, August 21st, 2013

Here are some Fujiroids from a recent photo shoot I had with Helen. We lucked out with some gorgeous sunlight and a great location to shoot in. The great thing about the room we used for these shots is it had three windows in it, two facing south and one facing west. The great thing about this in terms of photography is if you’re in the right place in the room as the sun is starting to go down in the early evening you end up getting lit from two different directions. I’m very pleased with how these turned out considering the film expired in 2007. Film shots will follow at a later time once I’ve had a chance to develop them.

[Tech info:] Mamiya Universal, 100/3.5 lens, Fuji FP-100C instant pack film.

Oxford: 10×8 x-ray film

Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

Here is a set of large format images that I made on 10×8 (green) x-ray film a couple of weeks ago on a stroll into town. I was glad to see the workmen on the steps of the Clarendon Building because I often see them there on my lunch photo walk and think to myself how nice it would be to make a group shot of them on 10×8 film. I took 8 sheets of film with me but only used 7.

[Tech info:] 10×8 Wista Field, 300mm Sinaron lens, CXS green latitude x-ray film (ISO50), processed in Rodinal 1+50 for 6mins.

Setting up

Setting up (photo by Clive Jones)

Photo shoot: Oxford Tailor’s

Wednesday, August 14th, 2013

These shots are from January this year that I’ve only just managed to get around to posting. I found out yesterday that Richard is being moved from the Oxford store to the Leamington branch in a couple of days so these shots are a little bit of history. This grid is an entire roll of film that I shot during my lunch break with Richard and Jason. Some of the shots were to experiment with freelensing, others are with a lens attached to the camera.

[Tech info:] Rolleiflex SL66. I don’t have any other info to hand at the moment but I assume the film was Kodak Tri-X.

Richard and Jason, The Oxford Tailor's

Oxford: experiments with blue x-ray film

Saturday, August 10th, 2013

So far all of the x-ray film that I have been using has been of the green variety which I think means it’s sensitive to a certain colour of light when used for medical x-rays. Recently I acquired some blue x-ray film from the FPP online store and here are some of my first test shots with it. These shots were all rated at ISO25 and I experimented with two different developers, Kodak HC110 and Rodinal. This film seems very sensitive to over agitation and I think the Rodinal seems to be better because of the higher dilution of 1+100 and longer development time of 10mins.

[Tech info:] Wista 10×8, 300mm Sinaron lens, Fuji Blue x-ray film, ISO25.

The view on the ground glass screen of the Wista. It’s upside down on the camera when I’m using it.

Photo shoot: Alice

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.

Photo shoot: elephanting around

Monday, July 29th, 2013

Now that I’ve got some C41 colour chemicals mixed up and we have some hot weather I’ve been slowly chipping away at the pile of colour film I’ve had sitting in my fridge for the past I don’t know how many months. Some rolls have labels on, others don’t so it’s exciting when I develop a couple of rolls and don’t know what’s on them until I hang them up to dry. These shots are from my photo shoot with Tamsin and Josh back in June when Josh made this amazing elephant costume for a party he was attending later that evening. I previously posted some black & white shots here.

[Tech info:] Mamiya 645 Pro TL, 80/1.9 lens, loaded with Kodak Portra 400VC (expired), home developed in a Rollei digibase C41 kit.

Oxford: Testing expired interneg film with Tamsin

Monday, July 15th, 2013

These images were all made with Kodak inernegative film that expired in May 1991. It was originally designed to make a colour negative from slide film and is tungsten balanced because you are meant to project the slide film through an enlarger onto this film. I bought a batch of this film to experiment with but because it’s effective film speed is very slow it needs a lot of light which limits when I can use it. Fortunately we’re going through a spell of sunny weather here in Oxford at the moment so I decided to give this film a try with Tamsin last week. I only took six sheets of film with me and here are all six frames.

[Tech info:] Speed Graphic 5×4, Aero Ektar lens (apart from middle right which was with a Schneider 180/4.5), Kodak internegative film (expired May 1991).

 

Photo shoot: Tamsin – Fujiroids

Tuesday, July 9th, 2013

A few Fujiroids (just like Polaroids) from a photo shoot I had with Tamsin. I also shot some 5×4 large format colour film that expired in 1991 so I’m looking forward to processing those. The bottom two shots are a little under-exposed because I metered for the highlights instead of splitting the difference between highlights and shadows. That’s something that can happen when you’re rushing. The sun was moving quite fast and between the time of composing the shot, focussing, cranking the shutter and putting the film into the back of the camera the light had changed and Tamsin was in complete shadow so I had to work fast.

[Tech info:] Graflex Speed Graphic 5×4, Kodak Aero Ektar lens (top & bottom left) Schneider 180/4.5 (bottom right) on Fuji FP-100C instant pack film.