Rollei RPX

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.

First Photo Session In The Sun

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It felt really good to do my first photo session of the year in full bright sun. I don’t know what it is about this year, but maybe for the first time ever the long gray winter was bringing me down a little bit. So getting some vitamin D on my skin with a camera in tow and working with one of my favorite people, St. Merrique, all equaled a really good day.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Rollei RPX 100 in medium format.

We got started a little later in the morning that I typically would have liked. I’m a little bit of a monster in that sense as I like to get started around 5am whenever possible. What can I say? I like that golden early morning light with dramatic shadows. Not to mention it is far and away easier to avoid people in the early morning hours. In this case we hit the road at 9am and by the time we got out to Rooster Rock to start exposing images the sun was a bit high in the sky and burning brightly. Not in any way what-so-ever the end of the world though. Heck, in many ways the bright overhead light is what made these photographs interesting.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Rollei RPX 100 in medium format.

Whenever I work with Merrique I like to use at least one roll of Rollei RPX 100. Aside from being a model, Merrique is a talented photographer as well and we’ve had long poetic conversations about how beautiful Rollei film is, making it one of our favorite films despite its relatively high costs. It’s only fitting. Developed in Rodinal, Rollei RPX gives a silver rich look with plenty of tonal range that looks completely glorious in print. I added just a touch of contrast with these by adding a light yellow filter to the front of the lens.

I plan on going into the darkroom in the next few weeks and printing these images. I think they’re going to look really great in a classic frame with an off white matte.

When Figures and Landscapes Merge Together

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Lately I’ve been far more interested in landscape and nature photography over figure studies and portraits. I suppose it is normal for any artist to go through phases in their work and I’m certainly no exception. There is something very appealing in this (sort of) post COVID world about taking a camera outdoors and just absorbing the silent stillness of nature. It’s nice to take my time with very little or absolutely no agenda at all and getting through a roll of film over the course of several hours as opposed to several minutes, which is the norm when I’m working with people.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Rollei RPX ISO 100 film in Medium Format.

I suppose it was inevitable when I was making this creative transition in my brain that I would create some images that merged the landscape and a nude together. I managed to find this spot at the perfect time. The weather was still fairly warm yet there was plenty of overcast and cloud cover to make the lighting very soft and even. Basically the kind of conditions the Pacific Northwest is famous for, though the extreme weather we’ve been having the past year or so has made less common. A tree on Sauvie Island had broken apart during a recent storm and made for a great piece of architecture for the model to pose on.

Looking at the final edited image, I feel confident that taking several steps back and capturing the entire scene was the right call here.

Landscapes on Sauvie Island with the Hasselblad 500c/m

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It is very much feeling like warmer weather is just around the corner. I won’t deny I’m excited and thrilled at the prospect of getting outdoors with a few rolls of film and just enjoying a little bit of nature. I haven’t made enough of a point to do that lately and some sunshine will really do me good.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Rollei RPX 100 medium format film.

I don’t know if this is the result of being cooped up for too long with COVID, spending too much time at work, or just the fact that I’m changing with my old age, but I’ve been feeling more and more like working with landscapes over people. That is quite a shift for me. While I’ve always liked getting outdoors I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly successful landscape photographer. Getting older, I realize one of the huge reasons behind that is the fact that I’ve always been intimidated by other far more famous and well known landscape photographers.

Growing up in California, every photography and art student is bombarded with the ghost of Ansel Adams (among others…) and my technical skill, not to mention levels of patience, will always pale in comparison to him. However, it is really silly to let something like that stop me from trying and from gaining enjoyment working with outdoor spaces.

This image was made late in the afternoon on Sauvie Island just a few short weeks ago. All the trees are bare on the island right now which meant the environment felt incredibly flooded with light. The air was cold for sure, but you’d never know it looking at the images. It was fun to work with, especially as the sun dived lower and lower toward the horizon casting some long shadows across the ground from the largely naked trees.

For film I used a couple of rolls of Rollei RPX 100. I absolutely love the tonal range of RPX 100. There is a very cinematic look to it. It feels like I’m capturing single frames of some 1970’s German New Wave movie. Deep black and bright whites manage to creep into the negative in equal measure. This stock seems like it was born to be paired with Rodinal as well and even when exposing a negative directly toward the sun, as was the case here, I still get nicely exposed frames. It’s an expensive film stock unfortunately, so it will probably never fully replace my tried and true Ilford HP5, but when I’m in the mood to splurge a bit I like working with the Rollie stock.