The other day I went out to Riverdale Farm with two more old former Soviet Union lenses that have been sitting on the shelf for ages: my 50mm f/2 Jupiter 8 and 50mm f/3.5 Industar 22. Both delivered better results than I expected!
Near Riverdale Farm.
Voigtlander Bessa R2M, 15mm/f4.5 Superwide Heliar lens
Rollei Retro 80s film
Walking around Riverdale Farm is always pleasant.
Voigtlander Bessa R2M, 15mm/f4 Superwide Heliar lens
Ilford Hp5+ film
Another image with the old Nikkor 80-200/f4 zoom lens, this time using Eastman Double-X film and TMax developer. I like the combination!
Nikon F5, Nikkor 80-200/f4 lens
Eastman Double-X film @E.I. 400, developed in TMax Developer
This image is from a recent trip to Riverdale Farm. It was a bright sunny day (the kind that Toronto doesn’t get enough of), so the challenge was to manage the contrast between light and shadow.
Rolleiflex 3.5E3 (Xenotar lens)
Kodak Tmax 100 film, semi-stand developed in Rodinal
The path and fence caught my eye.
Hasselblad 500C/M, 50mm/4 Distagon lens
Kodak TMax 100 film, developed in Rodinal
It’s hard to beat black and white for capturing the texture of wood. In this image from Riverdale Farm I used my Mamiya 645 Pro TL camera and Kodak Tmax 100 film developed in Rodinal, a developer known for enhancing sharpness (at the cost of increased grain, which is not really an issue with slower speed film and larger medium format negatives). I love the combination!
Another cyanotype this time around. This picture was made at the Riverdale Zoo in Toronto, again using my Rolleicord Twin-Lens Reflex. I created a digital negative and then made the cyanotype below. The paper has a fairly coarse texture, and I like the effect it has on the image. Just one more reason why it matters to see a print in your hands, not just pixels on a screen.
I like this image because of its ambiguity. To me it looks like it could have been made anytime over the last ninety years or so; there isn’t much in the picture that would give the actual date it was taken. (For the record, I made this image just this month, with my Rolleicord Vb Twin-Lens Reflex medium format camera.)
The viewer gets to fill in the blanks, and there are no wrong answers.
My Third Eye 