Ilford Pan F

The Human Form in Architecture

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I’ve been exploring indoor spaces a lot lately. In part because the weather has been incredibly cold, but also because it has been thrilling to entire a defined space and figure out ways I can use four walls to my advantage. There is something about photographing in a studio sometimes that really forces you to just work with what you have in front of you.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford Pan F ISO 50 medium format film.

I am particularly happy with the light play here and the way the bright highlights were bouncing off the white roof out the window, creating heavy shadows that wrap around all the shapes in the frame. There is a fun juxtaposition here between the straight lines and sharp corners of the studio space and the curvy lines of the model.

I’m also particularly pleased that I managed to retain a lot of shadow detail even though I was working with Ilford Pan F film. Anyone who has ever worked with Ilford Pan F knows that it is very easy to get out of control with the contrast! With gentle agitation in the developing tank and mixing a slightly cold chemical bath I think I kept it under control though.

Nude on the Shore

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I’ve been quite happy with a lot of the film I’ve been developing lately. This image is a perfect example. It was made right as the sun was setting over the mountains to the west of Portland and I managed to make an exposure in those last few seconds when the light gives off its last few seconds of usable glow.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford Pan F ISO 50 medium format film.

I think this image is made all the sweeter for me as I managed to pull it off with Ilford Pan F film. I love Ilford Pan F film but I won’t deny that given its relatively low ISO (i.e. low sensitivity to light) and my general loathing of tripods I don’t use it all that often. Ilford Pan F tends to also be high in contrast, which is a quality that I think adds to the dramatic effect of the low hanging sun.

Using the Hasselblad SWC In Small Spaces

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I’ve mentioned before on this blog how much I really like using the Hasselblad SWC. The 38mm Biogon lens is an absolute marvel and I very much appreciate the almost point and shoot nature of working with the SWC. Set your focus distance, meter the scene, and you are good to go just pointing and clicking to your hearts content.

Photograph of a nude model made with a Hasselblad SWC and Ilford Pan F ISO 50 film.

I’ve noticed a lot of camera reviewers making hay about having to “guess” the focus distance with this camera but in real world use I have found this to be a complete non-issue. Even at a wide open aperture, the depth of field is so wide I never miss out on focus.

There is one scenario where the Hasselblad SWC can be a bit of a challenging tool - working in tight spaces. To be fair, I’m not sure the SWC was really meant for small rooms. This is a landscape camera through and through. However, I’ve never been one to be contend with using a camera purely in the situations it was designed for. I recently used the Hasselblad SWC on a balcony overlooking downtown Portland that was about four feet wide and only about three feet deep. It was tight quarters for sure, but I think the Hasselblad SWC is perhaps the only camera I own that could have pulled off some good images at all.

Photograph of a nude model made with a Hasselblad SWC and Ilford Pan F ISO 50 film.

The challenge to using the SWC in small spaces is the fact that the closer you get to your subject, the more the viewfinder on the top of the camera becomes “off”. The fancy term for this would be Parallax Error. In other words, what I’m framing with the viewfinder on the top of the camera isn’t the same thing the lens is seeing just below it. When your subject is far away, the difference is minuscule and practically undetectable. The closer one gets to the subject, the more dramatic the difference is. On a tiny balcony I was forced to be only a few feet from the model meaning I was guessing my adjustments big time.

Thankfully practice can make perfect. Or as perfect as visual art can be anyway.

Multiple Exposures With The Hasselblad 500c/m

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I’m embarrassed to admit that for the longest time I had no idea the Hasselblad 500c/m was capable of making multiple exposures on a single frame with a roll of film. With most of my cameras, the ability to do multiple exposures has always been controlled by a dedicated switch, typically labeled “multi” or by an icon of two rectangular frames over top of each other. With the Hasselblad 500c/m I just figured this wasn’t an option. However, when it comes to Hasselblad, simplicity usually wins the day and the process to make multiple exposures is not only quite simple, but also incredibly easy.

Before going any future, I suppose I should answer the question; what is a multiple exposure? Multiple exposures are photographs in which two or more images are superimposed in a single frame. With a little bit of practice they can be quite fun and often yield dreamy or otherworldly results.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford PanF ISO 50 film in medium format.

So if anyone out there reading this is like me and didn’t know you can do multiple exposures on a single frame with the Hasselblad 500c/m, here is a quick outline of the steps you should follow:

STEP ONE: Expose your first image like normal. Typically when doing multiple exposures I underexpose each frame a stop or two to keep the final negative from getting too dense.

STEP TWO: Without advancing the frame, insert the dark slide into the camera and remove the film back.

STEP THREE: With the film back removed, cock the shutter on the film body only!

STEP FOUR: Re-attach the film back and remove the dark slide.

Your Hasselblad is now ready to expose another image onto the same frame of the film roll. Since you removed the film back when you cocked the shutter, the roll of film has not been advanced and you are now exposing the same frame again.

You can repeat these steps as many times as you like to make as many exposures on the same frame as you want. Two, three, five, one-hundred if you want to! Personally I haven’t gone above two exposures on the same frame because I think it is easy to get cluttered and messy with compositions, but hey, in the creative process there are no rules and I’m sure someone could point out to me a photographer who does a lot more than two in camera.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford PanF film in medium format.

These images are from my first outing after discovering this new technique. Ilford Pan F would perhaps not be my first choice of film when working with a process that requires a bit of guess work, but the day was very bright and warm and I wanted to open the aperture up wide to blur my backgrounds a bit. Even with an ISO 50 film I was still forced to work at about f/8 which wasn’t ideal and put some constraints on my creative vision. Even on the best of days photography is about compromise so I worked with the resources and situation I had on hand and made the best of it.

I plan on doing a lot more multiple exposures in the future.

Ilford Pan F 50 and a Figure Study

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I’ve long had a love for Ilford’s Pan F ISO 50 film stock. It captures a ton of detail and its exceedingly low grain can give images a very painterly kind of feel. It is also the film stock that I probably find the most challenging to work with and my results can be a little bit hit or miss with it sometimes.

Photographed with Ilford Pan F in medium format and a Hasselblad 500c/m

I have often found with Ilford Pan F that is it very easy to blow out the highlights and let contrast get out of control. With portraits and figure studies this is not such a great thing so I have to be very careful with my exposures and development. Often I find myself exposing the same shot, bracketing my exposure. In addition, the detail captured with Ilford Pan F can be unflattering with human skin.

Despite these challenges I like the give the film a go every so often. Usually I’ll pull out a roll after working with film stocks that are a bit easier to work with like Ilford FP4 or HP5 so if I don’t get results I like with Pan F then it is no big deal. With the image I posted here, this was exposed at the tail end of a session done in my living room. All I did was move my furniture out of the way giving me a blank wall to work with and a single strobe light to the right of the frame. It was a tight space to work in, but I think the results look rather nice.