I’ve been holding onto today’s image for a while, waiting until my good friend Katherine Matthews had released the knitting pattern featured here along with my other good friend Jennifer. I am normally primarily a black and white shooter but I just love the vibrancy of the colour Katherine chose for her pattern here, and of course Jennifer completes the image :-). If you’re a knitter, you can get Katherine’s lovely pattern here.
Nikon D7100, 18-200 Nikkor lens
The final post from my shoot with Grace was made with my Rolleicord Va Twin Lens Reflex Grace shows a dancer’s grace, and in a sense my old Rollei is part of another dance — over fifty years old and still going strong; its dance never ends either. 🙂
Rolleicord Va, 75mm/3.5 Xenar lens
Kodak Tmax 400 developed in Xtol 1+1 for 9.5 minutes @ 20 C
In this post, while Grace is amazing in showing character in her posing/expression, I am actually going to talk about the character of a film I have tried for the first time: Svema Foto 200 film, made in the Ukraine, and available from The Film Photography Project. What I like about this film is the grain structure: it’s not fine grain, but it is organic, it just feels right, and it has a lovely tonality! Now if I could only get it in 100 foot bulk rolls!
Nikon F4, 85mm/1.8 Nikkor lens
Svema Foto 200 film
developed in Xtol 1+1, 10.5 minutes @ 20 C
I have decided to give my new “Daily Commute Shoot” project its own blog:
http://dailycommutephoto.wordpress.com/
I’ve put everything I’ve done so far over the last two weeks there. I think it makes sense to give it its own space. 🙂
I have said before that a successful portrait/model shoot is part dance and part acting: dance skills allow for relaxed and beautiful poses, and acting ability allows for expression and emotion to flow unhindered from the subject. Grace (with whom I worked with yesterday) has both, and I think we got some good results. All I had to do was suggest a scenario and she found an inner dialog and a real expression to go with it.
Nikon D7100, 50mm/1.8 AF-D Nikkor lens
Post processing in Lightroom and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2
Despite what Rob Ford might have claimed at a debate recently, subways can indeed run above ground, and portions of Toronto’s TTC subway are above ground. I like what my Smartphone (Samsung Galaxy Note 3) does to the trees it passes on the Bloor/Danforth line.
On the bus coming home from work today, a gift from the photo gods: a visually very interesting individual, and some great light. I took the image with my smartphone (Samsung Galaxy Note 3) but a no-smoking sign behind the individual was very distracting, and there was no way to take the image without it being there. So in post I photoshopped it out. Even though I am being upfront about it, I still feel a bit queasy when I have to do that for this kind of photography; is the image less honest?
Here is another “Less Is More” image from the Beaches this past weekend. I like the metal texture.
Rolleicord Va, 75mm/3.5 Xenar lens
Tri-X developed in HC-110 Dilution B for 7.5 minutes
Another Beaches image. I believe the quiet and calm of the early morning hour yesterday lends itself to a minimalist approach to an landscape image.
Rolleicord Va, 75mm/3.5 Xenar lens
Tri-X film developed in HC-110 Dilution B for 7.5 minutes @ 20 C.
Toning adding in post
This morning about 7:15 am, by the shore of Lake Ontario on a beautiful day. It was a yoga class, but with arms outstretched it seems like so much more than that.
Rolleicord Va, 75mm/3.5 Xenar lens
Film was Tri-X, developed in HC-110 Dilution B
7.5 minutes @ 20 C.
My Third Eye 