Ilford Delta 400

Storm in the Oregon Sky

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The wind was whipping around something fierce on this particular day out on Sauvie Island. High winds can easily be some of the most difficult conditions to work under. Cold weather is one thing. Cold weather with winds moving through your skin down to your bones is another thing entirely.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford Delta 400 medium format film.

I feel extremely fortunate that despite the difficult conditions there are some excellent photographs that have come out of this session. You’d never know it looking at this image, but the model and I blew through twelve frames of Ilford Delta 400 in about three minutes flat. Anything longer and the model would have probably started turning purple. On top of that, it was impossible to look through the ground glass on my Hasselblad without my eyes becoming a watery mess thanks to the high winds. I ended up just simply zone focusing using the distance scale on the lens.

Photography isn’t always, in fact it is rarely ever, the glamorous activity people assume it is. I’m lucky to work with brave and very resilient people.

Zero Image 6x6 Pinhole Camera at Five O'clock

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I’m one of those cliche photographers who always has a camera with me. Typically it is a 35mm compact camera that I use as a sort of daily diary. Just something I can pull out of my pocket and take the occasional snapshot that catches my fancy. I hardly ever consider the work particularly purposeful or note worthy, but I think it is important to do it all the same.

A few weeks ago however I decided to mix it up a bit and I carried around a Zero Image 6x6 Pinhole Camera around with me instead. The camera can do 12 exposures on medium format film and it is small enough to fit in the breast pocket of the coat I wear on most days. A little different maybe? Yes, but sometimes we all have to mix it up a bit to keep the creative juices moving in our brains.

Photographed with a Zero Image 6x6 Pinhole Camera and Ilford Delta 400 film in 120.

I usually start walking to work shortly before 6am. I tend to be an early riser in my old age, something I never thought I would say out loud. That means for a good chunk of the year I start walking before the sun even comes up. I knew that might make for some interesting opportunities, and interesting challenges with a pinhole camera. My exposures certainly weren’t going to be short!

This image was exposed over a period of about fifteen minutes. I set the camera directly on the ground and pointed it toward an intersection with a car dealership hoping there would be enough light. Even after a fifteen minute exposure the negative came out a bit thin and underexposed, but good enough to get a decent scan and share it here. Long pinhole exposures are a bit of guess work at best and this was no exception.

Natural Light With A Hasselblad 500c/m

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I’ve never been completely comfortable working with really harsh natural light. Living in the Pacific Northwest I’m constantly spoiled with nice and even overcast weather. Every photographer knows, especially photographers who work with film, that overcast lighting is incredibly easy to expose. Bright and harsh light on the other hand can be incredibly difficult. Sometimes if feels like you have dark shadows, bright highlights, and absolutely nothing in-between. Losing out on detail in your final exposure is an incredibly easy mistake to make.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford Delta 400 medium format film.

This image is one of those rare cases where I think I made some very harsh lighting work. It was a summer afternoon and the light coming in through my studio window was harsh to say the least. It was so harsh in fact that the entire scene felts sweltering and hot. I wanted to play with the shadows and the light the best I could and I thought it would be fun to let it swirl about the shapes of the model’s figure.

To retain as much detail as possible I exposed a roll of Ilford Delta 400 down to ISO 200 and pulled back my development by about 30%. This tends to work pretty well lowering contrast and keeping detail in both the shadows and the highlights. I also won’t deny I bracketed the heck out of each exposure, working with three frames per pose. One and a half stops over, one spot on, and one and a half stops under. Not surprisingly, the image I liked best was the spot on exposure. I should learn to trust my light metering skills…