Never Let The Rain Stop You

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When working outdoors here in the Pacific Northwest the weather is a constant challange. This is especially true when working with models. It is completely understandable that some people may not want to pose when the weather gets too cold, or too hot, or as can be the case with many days around here, far too wet. Everyone knows it rains a lot in Oregon.

Every once in a while I’ll work with someone who not only doesn’t mind the rain, but actually thrives in it. I try to make it a point not to shy away from such opportunities and embrace the challenges that come with working outdoors in wet weather. On this particular day I offered to switch our photo session to an indoor studio but the model wouldn’t have it. It was take pictures in the rain or bust!

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

It’s a little tough to tell in these photographs but there was a steady flow of rainfall coming down along Collins Beach on Sauvie Island. Keeping the camera dry was nearly impossible and every time I went to reload the camera the film rolls got soaking wet. The speckled texture on the film emulsion that you can see in these photographs is from the backing paper on the rolls of 120 film disintegrating in the rain. I brought a few towels with me and would keep one over my head trying to shield my equipment from the rain, but the effort didn’t do much good. After a while I just gave up and crossed my fingers I would still have something worth developing when I got home.

Luckily the air was very very still and there was no wind at all, which meant it was not very cold. Once the model and I just embraced the fact that we were going to be soaking wet the overall experience was quite pleasant in fact. Ultimately we ended up staying out on location far longer than we thought we would. It certainly didn’t hurt that the rain meant the beach was completely empty. We were the only two people for miles in either direction up and down the beach.

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

To hedge my bets a little, because I was not super confident I was going to get good results on film, I did a rare thing and brought a digital camera along with me as well. Ironically the digital camera proved more difficult to use in the rain and I only exposure about twenty or so frames with it. The viewfinder and the back screen kept fogging up making them totally useless so all I could do was point the camera in the general direction of the model and let all the automatic controls take over.

I had no such issues with the Mamiya C330 TLR. The focusing ground glass would fog up a little if I stuck my face right up to it or used the magnifier like I normally do, but so long as I kept the ground glass at arms length I could see through it just fine. Given the fact that the Mamiya is also 100% mechanical with no electronics to speak of, I wasn’t too worried about letting it get a little wet.

Photographed with a Sony A7iii mirrorless digital camera.

If I waited around all the time for perfect weather I would probably never get outside to make photographs. Admittedly, doing a photo session in the pouring rain might be a little extreme, but getting outside and actually doing the work without making excuses is the most important takeaway for me here.

Accidental Self Portrait

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Sometimes interesting photographs happen by complete accident. More often than not I wouldn’t exactly call these moments works of genius, but the results can be fun all the same. This “self portrait” is a perfect example. I was walking around the streets of Portland with my Olympus XA4 as I often do, photographing nothing special in particular, and when winding on a fresh roll of film I accidentally managed to capture myself framed by a nearby building.

Sure, it may be an exposure right up my nose and not exactly flattering, but it was a fun little surprise when I pulled the roll of film out of the developing tank all the same. I like when I’m surprised. That’s part of the fun!

Photographed with an Olympus XA4 and Ilford HP5 35mm film.

On a side note, this image is also a perfect example of the chunky grain I like with Ilford HP5 when souped up in Rodinal. I don’t often publish my 35mm photographs simply because I don’t do a huge amount of “serious” work with 35mm but this image illustrates an aesthetic that really tickles my fancy. It’s like looking at a single frame to a French New Wave film from the early days of Godard or Agnes Varda. Deep void like shadows and grain the size of grains of sand. I love it.

Pushing Fomapan Film To The Limit

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A few months back I made a last minute booking to a studio space after my plans to work outdoors fell threw due to some very cold, wet, and dark weather. Sometimes that is just the simple reality of being a photographer in the Pacific Northwest. You just never know what the weather is going to be from one day to the next. It keeps you on your toes to say the least!

In order to access the studio one has to walk through an alley that has a real “old city” vibe to it, right out of classic Hollywood noir thrillers. Long strings of ivy running up brick walls and the space lit only by small lanterns built in the building structure. It felt like walking through a haunted space and I desperately wanted to make some images there. The trouble was, I was prepared to work outdoors and only had slower speed Fomapan 100 film with me. Not exactly ideal for a dimly lit scene.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Fomapan 100 pushed to ISO 400.

Still, I was incredibly determined to give a try anyway. The absolute worst thing that could happen is the photographs wouldn’t turn out well and in such an event I would lose nothing. After all, I was there to work in a studio, not necessarily the alleyway leading up to the studio. It was worth the risk to expose a quick roll right here and cross my fingers for the best.

The challenge of course was the fact that I needed to expose my 100 speed film to at least ISO 400 in order to get a shutter speed with the Hasselblad that I could hand hold. Even pushing the film two stops I was still exposing the scene at f/2.8 and 1/15th of a second. Any slower on the shutter speed and the resulting images would be guaranteed to exhibit a lot of blur. A tripod would have solved this issue of course, but the space was very small and exposed to the public street so working swiftly was also a significant factor. It was hand hold the camera or bust.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Fomapan 100 pushed to ISO 400.

As much as I like the classic look of Fomapan 100 black and white film, I’ve never had a lot of luck pushing the film beyond ISO 100. If anything, the film benefits from pulling it a little. I’m sure a lot of this has to do with the fact that my preferred developer is Rodinal, which is not exactly a developer known for it’s solid high ISO characteristics. But hey, rules and trends are made to be broken and there is nothing to gain if you don’t give it a go. I souped up the developer at a ratio of 1:25 and developed for a solid ten minutes, which is several minutes longer than the Massive Development Chart recommends.

The negatives still came out pretty thin, but there was enough there to get a pretty decent scan of my three favorite frames.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Fomapan 100 pushed to ISO 400.

All-in-all I wouldn’t say these are my most successful images ever, but I’m still proud of the fact that I took the risk and didn’t let the technical challenges deter me from giving it all a go. Sometimes that is the biggest obstacle to overcome when it comes to photography, or any other creative process for that matter. It is so easy to find a reason not to make an image and far more difficult to talk yourself into taking a risk.

...more with the Panon Widelux F8

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It’s been a long time since I’ve fallen so hard for a “new” camera as I have for the Panon Widelux F8. The unique design of the swivel lens has really opened up my creative eye to seeing the world in a slightly different way and over the last several months I’ve become addicted to the experience. I’ve written a couple of blog posts on this camera already which you can find HERE and HERE. I also recommend checking out the web page actor Jeff Bridges has made dedicated to his own work with the Widelux, which is incredibly well done.

Recently I sent the camera off to get a good CLA from a knowledgable repair person who knows far more than I do. I could tell the shutter speeds were a bit off and I’m already waiting anxiously for the camera to return to my possession so I can run more film through it. Still, I managed to do several photo sessions with it, most of which I have yet to even develop, so I should have plenty of images to work on the meantime.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford HP5 35mm film.

I’ll fully admit that about 90% of the images I’ve made with the Widelux aren’t particularly great. One of the Widelux’s greatest strengths is its ability to photograph an incredibly wide field of view. This is also one of its greatest challenges as well. Most of the images I’ve made with the Widelux just feel incredibly “busy”. There is just so much going on the frame that the composition is no longer pleasing to the eye. I don’t fault the camera for this as much as I fault my own lack of experience. My photographic failures with the Widelux are part of the fun and every bad image makes the good ones feel that much sweeter and more satisfying.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford HP5 35mm film.

With this collection of images, you can clearly see what an image looks like if you don’t set the camera level with the landscape. All of these images were done hand held without paying attention to the bubble level on the top of the camera at all. The result is a “warping” effect which in a lot of cases doesn’t look all that great, but occasionally looks interesting when done with some purposeful intent. If there wasn’t a model in these frames I’d probably dismiss these frames entirely, but when there is a figure to draw the eye into the center of the frame, the semi-circle of the landscape actually looks interesting.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford HP5 35mm film.

This session was also the first time I attempted to load film into the Widelux while outdoors. More importantly, I was loading the film outdoors with some incredibly intense wind and temperatures that made my fingers a little bit numb. Threading the film through several gears with barely working hands and a model patiently waiting in the wings proved difficult to say the least.

All part of the learning curve….

Panon Widelux Portraits

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I made a quick blog post last month about my early experiences with the Panon Widelux F8. It should come as no surprise at all to anyone that I brought the camera along with me to a session with a live model at my earliest opportunity. I’ll be the first to admit that the Widelux is a camera that didn’t have portraiture in mind when it was designed. It is definitely more suited to landscape work or even street photography. However, the unique design of the swivel lens can yield some incredibly interesting results.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford FP4 35mm black and white film.

These images where captured in a natural light studio with me sitting about four feet back from the model. I didn’t even bother using the viewfinder on the camera as it is highly inaccurate at close distances and instead opted to just aim the camera in the right direction as best I could. You can see I accidentally caught a bit of the studio window in the right side of the frame. The ultimately field of view with the Widelux is always just a little longer than I expect it to be; which is kind of cool to be honest.

Photographed with a Panon Widelux F8 and Ilford FP4 35mm black and white film.

The reason the model appears twice in each frame is because about halfway through the camera’s lens travel from one side to the other I moved the Widelux on the tripod to follow the track of the lens with the subject. You can see Jeff Bridges employ this technique in the following YouTube video when he appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show using his own Widelux camera. It’s a fun way to experiment with the camera and it resulted in more failures than it did usable images for me, but that is perfectly fine. Photography has never been about getting an entire roll of perfect exposures.