Category: 35mm

Keira in Colour

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As a follow up to the last post, here is one of the colour images from the shoot with Keira at Kensington Market. Although black and white is my “mother tongue” when it comes to photography, there are times when the language of colour is the only thing that will do, and I believe this is one of those times. I love the pink and blue neon sign with Keira’s auburn hair, both glowing, and capped off with a touching expression.

By the Sign

(Nikon FE, 105mm/f2.5 Nikkor lens, Kodak ISO 200 Colour Negative film, processed using JOBO C-41 kit, post work done with NIK Color Efex Pro 3)

The Eyes Still Have It

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When I take portraits, it’s all about the eyes and expression, and I love the expression worn in this image (taken on the way to PAB 2012)  by Adam Gratrix,  an extremely bright and creative podcaster from Surrey, BC. His energy really come through here I think!

Caught in Mid Gulp

(Pentax ME Super 35mm SLR, 50mm f1.4 lens, Tri-X @ E.I. 1000, developed in Diafine 3+3)

Old Friends: Susan and Cheryl

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Today’s image is the latest in my ongoing “Old Friends” project, shot while I was at PAB 2o12 in Ottawa earlier this month. It features my friend Susan Murphy (who was also attending PAB 2012), and her long time friend Cheryl. It had been a while since they had met up in person, but the bond of friendship between the two was quite clear, and both delightful and touching.

Old Friends Ottawa: Susan and Cheryl

(Pentax ME Super 35mm SLR, 50mm 1.4 lens, Tri-X at E.I. 1000, developed in Diafine 3 + 3)

First Home-Developed Colour!

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This image is from some street shooting I did in Ottawa last weekend. (If you look closely you can see me taking the picture; I’m the second bald head ;-)).

This was also the first roll I developed at home using C-41 colour negative chemistry; it was not hard at all — the only challenge was maintaining the higher temperatures required

Pab2012 Colour022

Colour

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Today’s image is from a recent shoot with the very talented Emily Decoteau. Although mainly a black and white shoot, I did shoot one roll of colour: some Fuji slide film, using a Nikon FE 35mm SLR, and a Nikon 105/f2.5 portrait lens (a classic lens that I got a steal of a deal on!). Although this is a colour shot, it is dominated by red. I had mentioned to Emily how well the red hair, dress and nails went together and she said, “you’d almost think I coordinated it this way!” and I realized that my alter ego Captain Obvious had struck again 🙂

The Colour Red

An Interesting Accident

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The term “Lomography” refers to using old/cheap cameras such as Holgas to create images that may suffer from technical defects (light leaks, vignetting, out-dated film), but achieve a certain style and mood as a result. I have a new term, “Blowmography” for when I blow it technically, but the resulting mess looks interesting. Lomography is on purpose, Blowmography is accidental. This image (from the shoot with model Caroline in downtown Toronto) is an example of Blowmography — I developed the film (Polypan F) in the wrong developer (an extremely low contrast special purpose developer meant for another film, Adox CMS 20) and got a very muddy, thin negative. I cranked up the contrast on the scanner, and got this. I thought the colour shift artifacts, and the emphasis of some surface defects on the  made for an interesting vintage shot.

Interesting accident

Young and Old

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Today’s image of a new young model is from my Vintage 35mm project — using old rangefinder cameras for portraits with a vintage feel. For this photograph I used my 1939 vintage Leica IIIb body, with a 50mm Summitar f2 lens. As I was using a very slow film (E.I. 20 Adox CMS 20 film) even though it was a bright sunny day I was shooting wide open at f2, for a nice swirly effect in the background.

naima 034

Built to Last

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This picture was taken last week in Arizona; I used my Leica IIIb, with the Voigtlander Color Skopar 21mm/f4 super wide-angle lens. This picture was taken sometime after I had dropped the camera by accident on a rather unforgiving pavement. Ouch. Luckily, either than a bent filter ring (which I can likely fix), the camera survived just fine. I can’t help but think that if this had been a modern day plastic camera it would have broken into a number of pieces.

Pardon the cliche, but they don’t make them like the used to!

JW Marriot complex in Scottsdale Arizona

Another Everyday Abstraction

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It can be fun looking for interesting patterns and shapes in everyday mundane objects, and a bus shelter in Toronto is about as mundane as it gets. But today’s image was created by strong sunlight beaming through a bus shelter onto the concrete sidewalk, and the geometry seemed interesting to me.

Refractions

(Contax IIIA, Jupiter 8 52/2 lens, HP5+ developed in HC-110 dilution B, 7:30)

A New Mistress, A New Affair

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I think I will be starting a torrid, complicated affair with a new mistress.  Now before I go any further I should say that the mistress in question is a film, Kodak SO-331, a special purpose black and white film that I picked up in a one thousand foot reel.

so 331 test005

SO-331 is a tempestous, challenging and alluring film: very slow speed, but changeable based on lighting/contrast, and very difficult to develop without getting touch much contrast. This is meant to be a high contrast film, so to be successful and show proper tonality, it must be convinced to be something it isn’t.

Like a lover, this film can be coy, difficult and demanding — showing flashes of the magic it can create, while at other times stubbornly refusing to cooperate.

I only have the one bulk roll of this film, and it may be hard to get more, so like many affairs, when it’s over it will be over, but hopefully with many great photographs and memories.