Category: Portraiture

Celebrating a Special Person

This past weekend I was at a large family gathering outside Ottawa to celebrate the 80th birthday of my uncle Martin. I brought along my 4×5 Speed Graphic with my 1860’s brass Petzval lens to get a portrait. Martin has had a most interesting life, with both joys and sorrows, and I think this lens once again managed to “get behind the eyes.” To me, it is as if he is contemplating his life in this image.

My Uncle Martin

Shot on Ilford HP5+ film, pulled to around EI 200, developed in Tmax Dev

Natalia By the Tree

This is the second post featuring an image from my shoot with Natalia Nix last week. I am surprised this one turned out; the light made it hard to see in the viewfinder of my Rolleiflex and it was so humid I was literally sweating into the viewfinder. Even though the original scene was very dull, I went with a high key look on the final version of the shot, taken on Tri-X.

Natalia by the Tree

By the Crypt

I had the pleasure yesterday of working for the first time with Natalia Nyx, who is a photographer in her own right, and obviously talented on both sides of the lens! Yesterday, on a very dull and muggy afternoon, we shot at St. James Cemetery here in Toronto. I had three cameras with me, including the Speed Graphic and Petzval, and an image from that camera is what I am starting with. (Shot on HP5+ film) More images of Natalia from this shoot to come!

By the crypt

Timeless

Yesterday I got together with my friends Maria and Coner for a shoot using my 4×5 Speed Graphic and my 1860’s Brass Petzval lens. The result below (shot on Ilford FP4+ film) just might be my favourite couples portrait I’ve ever shot :-). Love and film photography: both are timeless.

Maria and Coner

With Friends

I was out with two good friends Bryon and Ken on Saturday evening, and with me I had my Olympus Pen F 35mm half frame SLR (dating from the early 1960’s) with a 38mm/1.8 Olympus Zuiko lens. The film I was shooting was Eastman Double-X, which is actually meant for 35mm movie camera use. It is not particularly fine grained film, and the smaller half frame negative magnifies this, but I like the gritty documentary look, especially for my friends who have both had interesting lives, with a lot of interesting stories to tell.

Ken

Bryon

Amy 3

The final post from our shoot with Amy.  Music, like teaching, is a journey.

Amy Tri-X007

 

Rolleiflex 3.5E3, 75mm/3.5 Xenotar lens
Tri-X developed in Xtol 1+1 for 9 minutes @ 20 C

Amy 2

Here is the second image from the photoshoot with Amy last week. This image was created with my Zenit 3M 35mm SLR and Helios 44/2 lens, to get the swirly bokeh in the background. The film used was Rollei Retro 80s, and I added some diffusion in post.

Amy playing Guitar

Amy 1

Earlier this week myself and another photographer had a photoshoot with a cheerful and talented teacher and musician named Amy. I used three different cameras, so I will do three different blog posts. Tonight, I am starting off with the 4×5 and1860’s Petzval lens, shot on HP5+. This lens has a knack of picking up interesting expressions 🙂

Amy with the Guitar

Zoë 3

The third of the images of the shoot with Zoe this past weekend was created with my 1860’s era Petzal Brass lens, mounted on my 4×5 Speed Graphic. Hard to focus, and a cumbersome shooting experience, but the results are so worth it when I get it!

Zoe with Petzval lens

 

Ilford FP4+ sheet film, developed in Tmax Dev