Black and White Film
Photographed with a Minolta SRT-101 and Fomapan 100 speed film.
I really like it when I have the opportunity to make photographs in a location completely devoid of people. It happens so rarely, even when I go to great lengths to find locations far out of the way from main roads, cities , and towns. It’s part of the challenge when working in Oregon. The population here tends to appreciate the outdoors. Thankfully Oregonians tend not to mind nudity too much either.
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Photographed with a Pentax 67 and Ilford HP5 film.
Not long ago I found myself experimenting with a Pentax 67 medium format camera. It was one of those cameras that I always wanted to try out in part thanks to the heaps of praise other photographers tended to sing about it. I’m not going to deny, the camera sounded very appealing. Basically an SLR (single lens reflex) design but instead of tiny 35mm negatives you get big 6x7 negatives. Plus, the older Pentax 67’s tend to be fairly cheap on-line and even cheaper if you happen to find one not too far away on craigslist. Which is what I personally did.
I expected the Pentax 67 to be heavy. I’m perfectly fine with heavy cameras. After all, anyone who reads this blog or follows my work at all knows that I regularly use a Mamiya RZ67 which is no slouch in the size and weight department. However, though I liked the Pentax 67 in theory, I didn’t really like it much in practice. Putting a camera as big and heavy as the Pentax 67 up to your eye was annoying. Seriously, I quickly started to feel like I was going to give myself a black eye if I worked too fast. Plus, the edges of the camera body were just too shallow to get a good grip on the body when working hand held and I constantly had the sensation that I was going to drop the camera at any moment.
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Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford FP4 film.
I’ve been photographing with a lot of Ilford FP4 film lately. I’m not going to deny this is mostly because a local photography shop in my area had it on sale for 15% off and I tend to gravitate toward the cheapest roll of film on the shelf in most cases.
After going through about five or six rolls I’m starting to wonder why I don’t work with Ilford FP4 more often. It’s really lovely stock! The grain structure is very classic “black and white” while still retaining sharpness and the contrast is easy to keep under control. I’ve been developing every roll in Rodinal at a ratio of 1:100 for twenty minutes and the negatives are coming out spot on exactly how I tend to like them.
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Ortho film photographed with a Minolta SRT-101.
Now here is an interesting image I wasn’t expecting to come out of my developing tank.
I was digging around in a thrift store a few months back and found a random unused roll of 35mm film sitting in one of the cameras for sale. This happens every so often when I’m thrift shopping and I have no moral qualms leaving the camera on the shelf and just pocketing the film. Years ago I used to bring the film to the counter and ask someone if I could give them a dollar for what is more than likely useless and very expired film I found in a camera but more often then not I would just confuse the hell out of the poor employee and cause a lot more trouble than you would think.
So now days I just take it and figure nobody will be the wiser.
In this case, the film was an unmarked totally black canister sitting in a generic Canon “Super Zoom” point and shoot that I had no interest in buying. Based on the film leader I could tell it was black and white stock but beyond that it was a mystery. I also figured it was quite old so I ran it through my Minolta SRT-101 on a shoot and just exposed it at ISO 50 figuring I’d get pretty decent results.
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Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Kodak T-Max 400 film.
I had the opportunity recently to head out to the local nude beach and expose a few rolls of film with a model passing through Oregon on her way to Seattle. It was a great photoshoot, especially considering the fact that it was raining for most of the afternoon.
This particular image was made when we got a break in the weather for about ten minutes. I’m not kidding when I say we breezed through about three rolls of film in a very short period of time knowing full well that the rain would more than likely start up again in force.
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