A Different Brush

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Yesterday I went out for the first time with my Rolleicord V, a twin lens reflex camera I bought last week. It shoots 6 x 6 cm images on 120 film.

Looking down to focus, on a ground glass with a laterally reversed image will take some getting used to, but that’s what I like; different types of cameras inform the photographic process in a different way.

Old Farm Equipment

The lens has interesting characteristics; quite sharp (at least in the centre), but in some of the images the out-of-focus backgrounds have a very vintage look. Quite distinctive, and another step away from the sameness I find that one can get using DSLR’s.

A Long Slow Day

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My last image was of a smiling island local, in a sense performing for tourists. In a sense, this picture is related: it depicts an employee of the BVI resort where were stayed; part of the job involved just sitting during quiet times, alone with one’s thoughts. For both of these men, are their lives defined for just being there for rich tourists?

A Long Slow Day

Distilled

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At lunch on an island, a local hanging around the restaurant posing for photographs and getting free drinks. This image for me distills the experience.

Island Smile

The Same But Different

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This image is thematically related to the previous post, but different in many ways. It was shot at home, on a film camera, rather than on digital on a tropical island. Since the original was in black and white, I didn’t need to run the image through an expensive plug-in to get the effect I wanted; I just scanned the negative, and applied some very basic brightness and contrast settings to give the lighting the stark look I was looking for.

Sun on the door

Lines

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I was drawn to the pattern of lines and shapes, as emphasized by the low morning sun, and further emphasized by increasing the contrast of the final image.

Lines

Unbalanced

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It’s been a while since I posted an image that a) was in colour and b) covered a subject other than the British Virgin Islands, so time for some variety.

I was photographing a concert last weekend (a very successful fundraiser for earthquake victims in New Zealand, held at a church in central Toronto). A concert in this setting can’t help but have a sense of formalism; the audience is expected to sit in the pews, and choirs take up defined positions in front of the audience to sing; everything is balanced.

Except for the foot thrust into the picture 🙂

 

Wrong Foot

Getting to What I Saw

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I was struck by the way this boat jutted out, like it had been thrust onto shore. Originally shot in colour with my D90, I used Silver Efex Pro 2 with a heavy red filter setting to darken the sky as much as possible. This plug-in really helped me go from what the camera recorded to what I saw.

Boat On the Beach

Copper Mine Ruins

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Back to digital for this one: one of the more interesting sites on Virgin Gorda is an old copper mine from the 19th century; on the top of a hill by the ocean, there are amazing images in every direction! This image was captured in colour, then converted to black and white with Silver Efex Pro 2.

Copper Mine Ruins 2

The Corridor

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In Virgin Gorda we passed this stand of trees every day, and every day it caught my eye, as it seemed like a corridor in a cathedral. I took many pictures of it, and I think this is the one that best captures the impression it made on me. For this image I used my Mamiya medium format camera, 55 mm wide angle lens, and Ilford Delta 100 film.

Tree Corridor, Analog Edition

In Closer

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There were a lot of fascinating trees in Virgin Gorda, including one that had basically taken root and grown on top of a boulder. I couldn’t get a satisfactory shot of the entire tree that I liked, so I went in closer to focus on the gloriously messy root structure. I used my Mamiya, and a combination of Ilford Delta 100 film and Xtol developer; this could become my goto combination for a lot of photography!

Roots on Rock 2