Nudes

Olympia SM3 - Playing With Form

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I’ve mentioned on this blog several times that along with photography I also have a passion for typewriters; my Olympia SM3 being a personal favorite. I’m not a particularly good writer mind you, but I do spend a good deal of time journaling with typewriters and writing letters to friends. It is a fun way to pass the time and I think it creates more meaningful and memorable communication with people; something that is sorely lacking in this day and age of social media, memes, and texting.

Olympia SM3 photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford FP4 120 film.

Generally speaking, I have great admiration for machines dedicated to a single task. Film cameras, typewriters, a well made compass, a useful pocket knife. There is something special and admirable about a device that performs a useful function, especially when it can perform that function through mechanical engineering alone.

Seriously, I could ramble about this topic for a very long time.

Put a couple of cocktails in my stomach and you’ll find me talking endlessly on the subject. Every so often my admiration for typewriters merges together with my love of photography. It honestly isn’t really much of a leap when you look at it from a visual perspective. Since a typewriter is meant to be used by humans, the form and interface are designed to be pleasing in a physical sense, despite the fact that it is made from metal and rubber. A typewriter is an extension of your ability to communicate. Using one show flow effortlessly from your brain to your fingers to the page in front of you. It’s no accident that the lines and shape of a typewriter are similar to those of the human body.

Olympia SM3 photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford FP4 in 120.

Of all the typewriters in my collection the Olympia SM3 is probably my favorite. It is just engineered so well. Completely bulletproof and yet so elegant at the time. This is the typewriter that has a permanent place on my desk and it is the typewriter I use about 90% of the time.

It doesn’t hurt that it photographs beautifully.

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.

Imperfection With a Paper Negative in the Darkroom

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I’ve mentioned on this blog before that I sometimes like to work with Paper Negatives. When using the Large Format 4x5 camera, paper negatives can be a great way to make images in a very economical way. A sheet of darkoom paper is still pennies on the dollar when compared to the traditional film one would typically load in a camera.

Photographed with a 4x5 View Camera and Ilford RC 4x5 Darkroom Paper

Paper negatives come with two challenges in particular. First, the effective ISO of paper is very slow. I typically expose at ISO 2 or 3 depending on how harsh the light is. This means very very slow shudder speeds at times. Part of the reason most of my portraits using paper negatives are so soft is because it is nearly impossible for the vast majority of people to hold completely still over the course of one or two full seconds. Second, paper negatives tend to have a lot of contrast in the final results. I find this is alleviated to a great extend by simply diluting my paper developer far more than I typically would when making a print from a negative. This tends to result in a more muted effect.

A third challenge with paper negatives can be illustrated in the image that comes with this post. When a lazy photographer such as myself isn’t paying much attention during development paper can get stuck together in the tray. This will result in uneven development as not enough chemistry reaches the paper emulsion. I’m considering this example to be a happy accident. I like the way the top of the model is brighter than the lower half. It’s an interesting segmentation.

That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

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.

Old Houses in the Deserts of Los Angeles

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Several years ago I made a pilgrimage down to Southern California. I’ve always had a love and hate relationship with the larger metro area that people typically just lump into the label of the greater Los Angeles. On the one hand the traffic is monstrous and frustrating in the best of times. The sprawl and the row after row after row of generic apartment buildings and flat six lane roadways just make me sad.

At the same time, despite the massive population in the area, it is shockingly easy to find places where one can be isolated and alone. It is simply a fact that Los Angeles, and by extension, Southern California, is a place of contradictions.

Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Fomapan 100 medium format film.

I only brought one camera with me on this trip, my Mamiya C330 TLR. I also only brought one type of film with me, Fomapan 100. Predictably, the sun was incredibly bright and harsh the entire trip and I found myself working with the film at ISO 50 nearly the entire time. I’ve always found Fomapan to be a great film to pull down to a lower ISO. Diluting Rodinal just a little bit and developing with some slow agitation tends to yield very low contrast negatives, something I needed to counteract the harsh lighting.

Only an hour or so outside of the greater Los Angeles area there were a lot of abandoned houses, totally falling apart and sitting forgotten under the unforgiving sun. No trees around, no people, not even paved roads leading up to the front doors. It was eerie and quite and made for a great spot to expose this particular frame that has long been my favorite from the trip.