Category: Black & White

Vintage Appreciation

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I had a great photo shoot yesterday with Dawn Bailey, a performer of mainly Early Music (think medieval, renaissance, etc.). As a performer who values early music, Dawn had an appreciation for photographic techniques that might seem obsolete to some, and when one of the old cameras I was using started getting cranky, she likened it to playing an original instrument — often challenging and in some ways more difficult than playing a modern instrument, but uniquely rewarding. This image was shot on Fuji FP3000B film, and I am posting the scanned negative version here.  Dawn’s lovely hair and amazingly textured and detailed jacket were perfect for the concept, and there will be more to come from this shoot, including a hand tint once I get the conventional film developed!

Dawn Bailey 1

 

This image was shot with a new (to me) camera: a Mamiya Universal Press camera with a Polaroid back, and a 127mm f4.7 lens. It will be a challenge getting my head around this camera, but it will be worth it!!

Neutral Expression?

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Another image of Sarah today; she shows how a “neutral expression” can be anything but deadpan.

Sarah Elizabeth
(Mamiya 645 Pro TL, 80mm f2.8 .lens, lit with late 1950’s vintage Quartz Halogen movie light, Ilford Delta 400 film shot at E.I. 800, developed in HC-110 Dilution B for 10 minutes)

A Different Light

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This image is from a shoot with a new model named Sarah, this past weekend. It was an indoor shoot, so I set up my usual lighting set-up, including my cactus remote flash triggers; a few shots in, they decided to stop working :-(. Plan B meant switching from strobe (flash) lighting to continuous lighting. I used a late 1950’s vintage quartz halogen movie light (which gave off a lot of heat!), bounced into an umbrella. When combined with the soft light from an overcast light coming through the skylights, I think it really worked. It’s time to try more of this kind of lighting!

Sarah Elizabeth

Reality

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In a lot of ways this image is not realistic: it is not in colour, it is not especially sharp, it is dark and grainy. But for early morning on the bus in November, it is extremely realistic.

On the bus

Dominance of Colour

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Today’s image of the amazingly talented Jennifer is another hand-tinted print, so by definition it started out as a monochrome image. What I did with the hand-tinting though is try to create another mainly monochrome image, with just hints of purple and flesh tone here and there. I was going for intensity.

Hand Tint in Guildwood Park

Connection

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I took this image on the subway on a trip downtown this afternoon. I was struck by the fact that they were sharing music via one headphone jack, but apart from that they were both in their own worlds: no words, glances etc. were exchanged until it was time to get off the train. Mysterious and intriguing!

Connected

Walkway

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Today’s image is an iPhone 4S/Hipstamatic shot of a walkway at Kipling subway station, early in the morning dark. To me it always looks so cold and industrial.

Kipling Station Walkway

Fatigue

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Five days a week I am on the TTC, early. The image today was taken this morning on the Kipling bus, at about 6:50 a.m. You haven’t seen fatigue until you see transit riders at this time of day, and today was no exception.

Fatigue 0650

Expression part 2

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Another image of Iryna, this time shot on film, I asked Iryna to show some sadness, and I described a story for her to place herself into. It was amazing how fast she became the character in the sad story; she was feeling the emotion. There is no faking for this kind of expression.

ireyna film009

(Mamiya 645 Pro TL, 80mm f2.8 lens, Tri-x @ E.I. 800 developed in Diafine 3+3, negative scanned and post processed using NIK software)

Expression

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Yesterday I had an amazing shoot with a young model named Iryna in High Park. It was a glorious day, very welcome after a spate of weather-related cancellations! Most of the shoot was film (until I ran out! I thought I had more with me than I did), so I had to shoot a few digital, so my first post on this shoot will be a digital image, as the first batch of negatives go through their final rinse in my darkroom. I was amazed at Iryna’s ability to create amazing expressions: beautiful, subtle, and entirely believable, over and over again. She instinctively understands that successful modeling is as much about acting and story as it is about posture and pose.

Looking