I’m slowly working my way through the rolls of film I ran through the Hasselblad while down in California. Life has been a little bit busy for me as of late so it feels like the whole process is really slow going. Of the twenty or so rolls of Kodak T-Max 400 I finished while on my trip I think I’ve only developed about five. Of course, it didn’t help that my local camera shop ran out of Rodinal developer right about the same time that I personally ran out of Rodinal developer so I had to wait a week or so before they got some more in stock so I could keep working. Sure, I could have just purchased some on-line but so far this year I’ve managed to buy all of my photography supplies in a physical shop and I’m hoping to continue that trend for as long as possible.
Read MorePhoto Sessions
Shadow Detail With Film
Phew!! I just got home from a very long hike in the sunshine in the Columbia River Gorge and now it’s time to rest my feet, and my back, and just write out a relaxing blog post. So yeah, ok, I realize this image has nothing at all to do with hiking, or the outdoors, but it does have to do with a lot of sunshine.
I’m not going to deny I was hoping for a bit less contrast and a lot more detail in the shadow areas of this image when I exposed the frame. I think ultimately I underdeveloped the negative a bit too much which in turn kept details out of the shadow areas and makes the image appear to be very contrasty. Just outside the window on the right side of the frame there were a lot of flower bushes which is the shadow patterns you are seeing across the model’s body.
Read MoreOld Buildings in Black & White
Here is another image from my recent trip to California. Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Kodak T-Max 400 speed film. Processing was stand development which I made it a point of doing because I was working in too much of a hurry and decided on a few shots to just “sunny 16” my exposure instead of using the handheld light meter. Though the location ended up being more or less secluded, I was in unfamiliar territory as far as people wandering on by and was feeling pretty paranoid the entire shoot. It’s always a little bit of a funny scene when the model is more at ease and totally fine than the photographer is.
Read MoreNude Portrait in Natural Light
Working through some of the rolls I made while in California and this one stood out enough for me to scan it right away. I’m a sucker for a basic portrait. Especially when a portrait is made with some very nice and subdued natural light. Sure, it may be a very simple and frequently done way to make a photograph but I never claimed to be re-inventing the wheel here.
Photographed with the Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford HP5 film. I developed this per the standard development process recommended by Ilford. Rodinal at a ratio of 1:50, 20 degrees C. at 11 minutes. the light was so flat and even I knew I didn’t have to do much in the development process to get good results.
It’s nice when all the pieces line up to make a good photograph.
Olympia SM3 and a Nude
I mentioned in a previous blog post that when it comes to geeky things I’m a fairly avid collector of typewriters. That includes the lovely Olympia SM3 seen in this image. I suppose it was only a matter of time before I incorporated one into a photoshoot in some way. Actually, I plan on incorporating a lot of typewriters into my photoshoots in the near future and turn it all into a long series, but for this image I thought I would take a little bit of inspiration from one of my favorite films, Naked Lunch.
I wanted to loosely mimic the poster art of the film, but in my own sort of way incorporating the human body. I probably should have used a different typewriter. The “Clark Nova” used in the film is clearly based on a Smith Corona 5-series machine and I own one or two of those, but I just like the Olympia SM3 so much better as far as looks. It happens to be my favorite machine to both type on and to look at so in this case it is a win-win photographically.
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