Nudes

Photography Really Is Painting With Light

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One of the first things any photography student learns is that the word Photography literally means 'drawing with light', which derives from the Greek photo, meaning light and graph, meaning to draw. I think it is important sometimes as an artist to remember that. We can often get caught up with the technical details of the craft, thinking about megapixels and camera specs, but really the most important part of an image is what is in front of us in the scene, not the tool we hold in our hand. It’s all about the characteristics of the light.

Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford HP5 120 film.

The light was really something special when this series of photographs was made. In fact, I had no plans to even make photographs on this particular day. The model and I were planning on going outdoors the following day and she was using my spare bedroom as a landing pad while passing through town. When we both noticed this incredibly intense, yet somehow soft and ethereal light coming through my living room windows during the final minutes before the sun dipped below the mountains west of Portland, we both jumped to attention and decided to harness it on film.

Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford HP5 120 film.

The scene looked more like a mermaid swimming through the ocean than it did playing with the light of a westward facing window. A golden transparent ocean full of warmth and dancing waves. I exposed twelve frames in a matter of about ten minutes without thinking too hard about it. There wasn’t time. The light was changing too rapidly to worry about complicated exposure measurements. I exposed a roll of Ilford HP5 at box speed (ISO 400) and just crossed my fingers that the contrast wouldn’t be so high as to wash out all the lovely details.

Photographed with a Mamiya C330 TLR and Ilford HP5 120 film.

Sometimes these are my favorite kind of photo sessions. The ones that you don’t plan at all. They just happen at a moments notice like a firecracker and before you even have time to think about it they’re over. Little miracles that result in a short series like this feel like pure instinct and there is something great about that.

Polaroid I-2 and a Hasselblad

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I’ve been a long time fan of making photographs with instant film. Anyone who works with instant film stocks knows it can be a frustrating thing to adore. Over the years the creative community has lost a lot of choices. Everything from the original SX-70 film stocks that could be manipulated while the image was exposing, Type 85 and Type 55 positive/negative film, peel apart pack films from both Polaroid and FujiFilm, the list goes on and on and on. Heck, I even once had the opportunity to work with the massive 20x24 Polaroid camera in a San Francisco studio.

It can be a little sad to think about quite honestly.

Photographed with a Polaroid I-2 and Polaroid 600 black and white film.

It’s a rare event when instant film users get thrown a very serious bone and today’s iteration of Polaroid did just that when they recently released the Polaroid I-2 camera. This post isn’t meant as a review of that camera, there is plenty of that elsewhere on the internet, but in a nutshell for the first time in a long while we have a brand new camera we can buy today with a quality lens and some creative control over exposure. In a very short amount of time it has replaced my trusty vintage Polaroid SX-70 as my instant camera of choice. I never thought I’d be saying that in the year 2024 so hey, good things do happen!

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford Delta 120 film.

It is a really common practice for me to expose a few Polaroid prints during photo sessions. I’ll often ask the people I’m working with to hold a pose for just a few more seconds so I can take a snapshot of the scene. Sometimes I’ll give those prints away on the spot to the model. Sometimes I’ll keep them as a quick visual diary of the work I’m doing at the time. Very rarely will I share them on the internet. Instant prints don’t quite have the same power and magic when scanned and shared on a digital screen in my opinion. That’s just part of their charm and power and it is one of the many reasons I like them. Not everything needs to be posted on-line after all.

Still, I thought this was a fun comparison. This isn’t meant as a test to determine which image is better. More of just a reflection that different materials and different mediums can have vastly different vibes and emotions from the same scene.

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.

Hasselblad 150mm f/4 "Portrait" Lens

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I’ve been using the Hasselblad 500c/m for most of my work the past six or seven years now. As a complete camera system it checks most boxes for me. The camera itself is relatively light (for a medium format camera), the ergonomics feel intuitive, and the the overall system itself is capable of doing just about every subject I have an interest in exploring. Maybe best of all, the available lenses on the “V System” are all rather excellent. All the samples I have tried of every focal length have had a performance level that far exceeds my own skills as a photographer.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford HP5 120 film.

Like most people who buy a Hassselblad 500c/m (or any other camera in the V S System lineup) my copy came with the standard 80mm f/2.8. This is the lens I’ve used for about 85% of the work I’ve done with the camera. It’s one of those lenses that sets the benchmark for all the others. It’s sharp, contrasty, has really nice bokeh, and is so common that picking one up isn’t a huge financial flex. The focal length is considered “normal”, i.e. it has a field of view relatively close to the human eye. If want to work with a Hasselblad, this is probably the place to start and I wouldn’t be surprised if it lived on your camera body most of the time.

That being said, over the years I’ve acquired a few other lenses for my Hasselblad kit. Typically I’ve only pulled out my wallet when I’ve come across good deals that are hard to pass up. There is a lot of used Hasselblad gear floating around out there and with some patience deals can be found. For example, I picked up the 150mm f/4 lens for about $250 from a seller on Facebook who was just looking to dump his gear in favor of the latest and greatest Fuji digital point and shoot. Ok cool, at that price it is worth a try right?

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford FP4 120 film.

At 150mm this is a focal length with medium format that is considered a portrait lens. It’s a short tele-photo that makes it easy to fill a frame with someone’s head and shoulders while also getting a good amount of background blur. Normally I like to get a bit more of the environment into my photographs so this lens doesn’t get a huge amount of use, but sometimes its healthy to put a lens on my camera that is a bit outside of my wheelhouse just to see the world from a new perspective. Besides, it can also be nice to photograph a portrait of a person while also standing more than a few feet away from them. A bit of distance between yourself and your subject isn’t a bad thing. I’ve noticed people tend to relax a bit more and have an easier time looking straight at the camera when the lens isn’t right in their face.

Like every other Hasselblad lens that I’ve worked with the performance is well…. nothing short of excellent. It’s incredibly sharp even when wide open at f/4. Heck, it might even be too sharp. Sometimes I like when portraits are a bit soft to hide blemishes and give the overall look of the image more of a lo-fi character. So yeah, take that complaint with a grain of salt. I’m aware of how silly it seems to complain about a lens being too sharp. I could always soften this up with a filter if I really wanted to.

Last Frames With Fuji FP-100c Instant Film

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I woke up this morning thinking about how much I really miss Fuji FP-100c instant film. It is such a shame that Fuji decided this film stock wasn’t profitable any longer because as far as I’m concerned it was the best instant film ever made by a wide margin. Fantastic colors, consistent performance, and a reasonable price always made it a go-to film stock for me.

Photographed with a Mamiya RZ67 and Fuji FP-100c Instant Film

One of my favorite things to do with Fuji FP-100c was to rescue the negative side of the image. Instant film was always designed to give the photographer an immediate positive print, but with Fuji it was easy to keep the negative side as well. All it took was a dab of bleach, a cheap paint brush, and a bit of patience. Simple. In many ways this quality made Fuji FP-100c the cheapest color film on the market because you didn’t have to pay any developing costs to get a negative. How cool was that? Fuji truly had a magical product on their hands and it is such a shame it no longer exists.

Photographed with a Mamiya RZ67 and Fuji FP-100c Instant Film

These images represent some frames from the last pack of Fuji FP-100c I ever exposed. By the time I got around to using it the film was significantly expired so there are a lot of color shifts going on here. I probably shouldn’t have waited so long to expose this pack of film, but once Fuji announced FP-100c was discontinued I became afraid to expose my last few packs on hand. Even with the color shifts, I still like the resulting images. Color shifts have always been part of the fun with any instant film as far as I’m concerned. It’s not about complete accuracy to the original scene.

Photographed with a Mamiya RZ67 and Fuji FP-100c Instant Film

Camera used was my Mamiya RZ67 with an instant film back. I still have the back in the vein hope that someone will pick up where Fuji left off and create a peel part instant film again. I know there is a snowball’s chance in hell that will happen, but hey, I suppose you never know. After all, Polaroid came back from the dead and seems to be going strong and I never thought that would happen either.