Black and White Film

Walking The Beach With A Hasselblad SWC

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Sometimes it is really nice to just walk out your front door with a minimal amount of equipment and venture out on a solitary journey without much of an agenda. That’s exactly what I did a few weeks ago on a stormy Saturday morning when I left my house with a Hasselblad SWC and a couple of rolls of Rollei RPX 100 black and white film. I made it a point to keep my day light-weight so I didn’t even bring a tripod with me. Just the Hasselblad, the film, and a small hand held light meter. My water bottle and a few snacks took up more weight in my kit, just the way I wanted it.

Photographed with a Hasselblad SWC and Rollei RPX 100 medium format film.

I headed north to familiar territory, the riverbanks along Sauvie Island. I’ve made hundreds if not thousands of image on Sauvie Island and I’ll probably make thousands more before I leave this planet one day. I think most photographers can relate - it is just nice sometimes to have a place to go to make images that is familiar. It’s like sitting down on the couch and watching a television show you’ve seen over and over and over. There is comfort in the familiar. There is liberation in looking at a scene in just an ever so slightly new way. No pressure to create something brilliant. Just look through the viewfinder and enjoy the process.

Photographed with a Hasselblad SWC and Rollei RPX 100 in medium format.

I’ve mentioned before on this blog that the Hasselblad SWC in some ways serves as a bit of a point and shoot camera for me. It’s small for a medium format camera and the focus is done entirely through making a reasonable guess between myself and the subject. Basically zone focusing. However the depth of field is so long due to the wide 38mm lens that zone focusing rarely misses. There is no such thing as critical focusing with this camera. The scene either is in focus, or it isn’t. 99% of the time I just leave the camera focused to ten feet in front of me and call it good. Everything else I can handle via the tried and true Sunny 16 rule, which is especially easy on an overcast Oregon day.

Facing The Storm - With Hasselblad In Hand

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I feel like every year as summer is coming to a close, and winter weather is on the horizon, I do at least one photo session where the model and I are rushing to outrun some incredibly foul weather. Such was the case a few weeks back when Floofie and I made a trip to Sauvie Island for some early morning photographs. The day started off warm with plenty of sunshine, but once we got out on location it was quickly turning for the worse with every passing minute.

With every challenge there is an opportunity however, so we made our way out to an open field and took advantage of the storm clouds heading our way, hoping to get through at least a few rolls of film before the rain started pouring down on our heads.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford HP5 120 film.

For the black and white images I had quite a few rolls of the tried and true Ilford HP5 with me. I was expecting to do most of this particular session in a grove of thick trees that block out a lot of natural light. Had I known I’d be spending most of my time in a wide open field I probably would have brought a slower speed film with me. I could have easily gotten away with something like Rollei RPX 100 or even Ilford Pan F. ISO 400 film felt a bit overkill in this situation.

Photography has always been about running with what you have in your kit, so Ilford HP5 it was. In some ways it was a nice choice because I could just set my f/stop fairly small (I think these were exposed at f/11), turn the focus barrel to infinity, and let a long depth of field take care of most of the work while Floofie was free to move around and experiment with poses. Not a bad way to work at all.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Kodak Gold 200 medium format film.

It has been a while since I’ve done any “serious” photographed work with Kodak Gold 200 and this may actually be my first session with the film stock in medium format. I have to admit Kodak Gold really works in medium format for my tastes. Colors are bright and exaggerated in a way that reminds me of E-6 slide film while also retaining the grain that is typical of color negative C-41 film.

The grain isn’t too overpowering but it is definitely there. It gives the overall look a bit of a 1970’s cinematic quality which to me is quite pleasing. I need to make it a point to work with Kodak Gold more often. It may very well be my favorite color negative film at the moment.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford HP5 120 film.

For most of these images I found myself down on my belly in the thick tall grass, stamping down the plants right in front of me with my left hand, so I wouldn’t get the grass blocking the frame, and operating the Hasselblad with my right. With an autofocus SLR this would be no big deal, but with the more manual nature of the Hasselblad it was a bit of a comical balancing act. I’m getting to be that age when my grunts and groans from rolling around int he dirt are a common sound during a photo session.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Kodak Gold 200 medium format film.

As we left the scene, packed up, and headed toward the parking lot where we left the car the rain was starting to come down. It was one of those strange sorts of late summer rainfalls, wet and sloppy in small spurts with patches of sun still visible in the sky. Anyone who has spent time in the Pacific Northwest will know exactly what I am talking about. There is a drama to this kind of weather, a kind of dance that takes place in the sky above us and the goal with these images was the mimic that a little bit on the ground.

I think we pulled it off.

Pushing Fomapan Film To The Limit

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A few months back I made a last minute booking to a studio space after my plans to work outdoors fell threw due to some very cold, wet, and dark weather. Sometimes that is just the simple reality of being a photographer in the Pacific Northwest. You just never know what the weather is going to be from one day to the next. It keeps you on your toes to say the least!

In order to access the studio one has to walk through an alley that has a real “old city” vibe to it, right out of classic Hollywood noir thrillers. Long strings of ivy running up brick walls and the space lit only by small lanterns built in the building structure. It felt like walking through a haunted space and I desperately wanted to make some images there. The trouble was, I was prepared to work outdoors and only had slower speed Fomapan 100 film with me. Not exactly ideal for a dimly lit scene.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Fomapan 100 pushed to ISO 400.

Still, I was incredibly determined to give a try anyway. The absolute worst thing that could happen is the photographs wouldn’t turn out well and in such an event I would lose nothing. After all, I was there to work in a studio, not necessarily the alleyway leading up to the studio. It was worth the risk to expose a quick roll right here and cross my fingers for the best.

The challenge of course was the fact that I needed to expose my 100 speed film to at least ISO 400 in order to get a shutter speed with the Hasselblad that I could hand hold. Even pushing the film two stops I was still exposing the scene at f/2.8 and 1/15th of a second. Any slower on the shutter speed and the resulting images would be guaranteed to exhibit a lot of blur. A tripod would have solved this issue of course, but the space was very small and exposed to the public street so working swiftly was also a significant factor. It was hand hold the camera or bust.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Fomapan 100 pushed to ISO 400.

As much as I like the classic look of Fomapan 100 black and white film, I’ve never had a lot of luck pushing the film beyond ISO 100. If anything, the film benefits from pulling it a little. I’m sure a lot of this has to do with the fact that my preferred developer is Rodinal, which is not exactly a developer known for it’s solid high ISO characteristics. But hey, rules and trends are made to be broken and there is nothing to gain if you don’t give it a go. I souped up the developer at a ratio of 1:25 and developed for a solid ten minutes, which is several minutes longer than the Massive Development Chart recommends.

The negatives still came out pretty thin, but there was enough there to get a pretty decent scan of my three favorite frames.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Fomapan 100 pushed to ISO 400.

All-in-all I wouldn’t say these are my most successful images ever, but I’m still proud of the fact that I took the risk and didn’t let the technical challenges deter me from giving it all a go. Sometimes that is the biggest obstacle to overcome when it comes to photography, or any other creative process for that matter. It is so easy to find a reason not to make an image and far more difficult to talk yourself into taking a risk.

...more with the Panon Widelux F8

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It’s been a long time since I’ve fallen so hard for a “new” camera as I have for the Panon Widelux F8. The unique design of the swivel lens has really opened up my creative eye to seeing the world in a slightly different way and over the last several months I’ve become addicted to the experience. I’ve written a couple of blog posts on this camera already which you can find HERE and HERE. I also recommend checking out the web page actor Jeff Bridges has made dedicated to his own work with the Widelux, which is incredibly well done.

Recently I sent the camera off to get a good CLA from a knowledgable repair person who knows far more than I do. I could tell the shutter speeds were a bit off and I’m already waiting anxiously for the camera to return to my possession so I can run more film through it. Still, I managed to do several photo sessions with it, most of which I have yet to even develop, so I should have plenty of images to work on the meantime.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford HP5 35mm film.

I’ll fully admit that about 90% of the images I’ve made with the Widelux aren’t particularly great. One of the Widelux’s greatest strengths is its ability to photograph an incredibly wide field of view. This is also one of its greatest challenges as well. Most of the images I’ve made with the Widelux just feel incredibly “busy”. There is just so much going on the frame that the composition is no longer pleasing to the eye. I don’t fault the camera for this as much as I fault my own lack of experience. My photographic failures with the Widelux are part of the fun and every bad image makes the good ones feel that much sweeter and more satisfying.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford HP5 35mm film.

With this collection of images, you can clearly see what an image looks like if you don’t set the camera level with the landscape. All of these images were done hand held without paying attention to the bubble level on the top of the camera at all. The result is a “warping” effect which in a lot of cases doesn’t look all that great, but occasionally looks interesting when done with some purposeful intent. If there wasn’t a model in these frames I’d probably dismiss these frames entirely, but when there is a figure to draw the eye into the center of the frame, the semi-circle of the landscape actually looks interesting.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford HP5 35mm film.

This session was also the first time I attempted to load film into the Widelux while outdoors. More importantly, I was loading the film outdoors with some incredibly intense wind and temperatures that made my fingers a little bit numb. Threading the film through several gears with barely working hands and a model patiently waiting in the wings proved difficult to say the least.

All part of the learning curve….

Panon Widelux Portraits

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I made a quick blog post last month about my early experiences with the Panon Widelux F8. It should come as no surprise at all to anyone that I brought the camera along with me to a session with a live model at my earliest opportunity. I’ll be the first to admit that the Widelux is a camera that didn’t have portraiture in mind when it was designed. It is definitely more suited to landscape work or even street photography. However, the unique design of the swivel lens can yield some incredibly interesting results.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford FP4 35mm black and white film.

These images where captured in a natural light studio with me sitting about four feet back from the model. I didn’t even bother using the viewfinder on the camera as it is highly inaccurate at close distances and instead opted to just aim the camera in the right direction as best I could. You can see I accidentally caught a bit of the studio window in the right side of the frame. The ultimately field of view with the Widelux is always just a little longer than I expect it to be; which is kind of cool to be honest.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford FP4 35mm black and white film.

The reason the model appears twice in each frame is because about halfway through the camera’s lens travel from one side to the other I moved the Widelux on the tripod to follow the track of the lens with the subject. You can see Jeff Bridges employ this technique in the following YouTube video when he appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show using his own Widelux camera. It’s a fun way to experiment with the camera and it resulted in more failures than it did usable images for me, but that is perfectly fine. Photography has never been about getting an entire roll of perfect exposures.