Polaroid I-2 In The Studio - Two Models and Natural Light

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I’ve been using the new Polaroid I-2 camera quite a bit lately. I was honestly very hesitant to purchase this camera when it came out because it is expensive for a Polaroid and I wasn’t sure it would give me much of an advantage over the SX-70 camera I already own. I decided to jump on it though when I found a really great sale and I have to admit I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would.

The Polaroid I-2 has some great advantages over the SX-70 such as the ability to do multiple exposures (I’ll post some of those later), more precise exposure control, and best of all the ability to use 600 and i-Type film, both of which I honestly like better than SX-70 film due to the higher ISO. Polaroid cameras after all have fairly slow lenses, even in the models that are considered more premium and the Polaroid I-2 is no different. The maximum aperture is only f/8, which is impressive for an instant camera, but not so impressive when it comes to working in low light. Working with higher speed film has some obvious advantages here.

Photographed with a Polaroid I-2 and Polaroid 600 color film.

It’s incredibly rare for me to make any more than one or two instant prints during a planned photo session and even more rare still that I find myself in a situation working with more than one model. Typically when I bring an instant camera to a photo session the purpose is more to take one or two shots to document the day and take a break from working with a more “serious” camera.

With the Polaroid I-2 however, I feel like my attitude has shifted a little bit. The Polaroid I-2 *is* the serious camera, which just encourages me to make more images with it before going back to traditional roll film. It’s a fun an interesting shift in my creative thinking that I like quite a bit. Granted, given the cost of instant film my wallet doesn’t seem to like this so much, but my brain certainly does.

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

The black and white print is a perfect example of why some manual control over exposure can be a really fun thing with an instant camera. I underexposed the image by about one and a half stops to give the image a bit of a “ghostly” appearance and simplify the composition to pure lines and shapes. I thought it turned out pretty well. In fact it is probably my favorite photograph of this session, and that includes the images I made with regular film and my Hasselblad. That’s really saying something!

Photographed with a Polaroid I-2 camera and Polaroid 600 color film.

With the color prints, the yellow-ish quality of the natural light is really exaggerated. The natural light in the scene was on the warm side, but not nearly as yellow/gold as the final prints would make it seem. That’s just one of those things when it comes to instant film that you have to fall in love with or else pull your hair out in frustration. Color accuracy is never going to be the strong suit of a Polaroid print. You either embrace this fact and call it a good thing, or you just don’t work with instant film at all. I honestly found this to be true even back in the heyday of instant photography when tons of film stocks were available despite other photographers I know looking back at those time with some rose colored glasses on.

What I also tend to find universally true about instant prints is the scans are never quite as impactful or fun to look at as the physical prints. So much so that I’m honestly hesitant to share them here on my blog. I’ve come close to hitting the delete button several times because the scans just look kind of flat and the charm is a little bit lost when viewing them on a screen.

I suppose that is half the point of instant photography though. You compose an image, make choices with the camera, click the shutter, and out comes a finished print - a little treasure to be appreciated in the moment.

Color Film With Morning Light

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Waking up incredibly early in the morning for the sake of a photo session always has its rewards. This is especially true when the plan is to rely completely on natural light. I was itching to work with some color film after a long stint of exposing only black and white film and I wanted to capture that subtle warm light that starts peaking up over the horizon at around six o’clock in the morning.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Kodak Portra 400 medium format film.

I scheduled a session with Devi while she was traveling through Portland and made it a point to find a space with east facing windows. We armed ourselves with coffee to go, my Hasselblad, and about five rolls of Kodak Portra 400. It wasn’t the first time we had worked together so getting into the groove of a photo session only took a few minutes and about two frames of film to break the ice a bit. Devi has always been one of those models that gets into “photo mode” very quickly, something I really appreciate when we work together.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Kodak Portra 400 medium format film.

Even though I was working with ISO 400 speed film, the light was subdued enough to make hand holding difficult. I had a tripod with me, but the space was quite small and generally speaking I’m not a big fan of of using a tripod. So instead I decided to risk it and photographed the scene at about 1/30th of a second and wide open at f/2.8. My hands are still steady enough that I can get away with handholding the Hasselblad at relatively slow shutter speeds. There are a few frames from this session that are a bit too fuzzy to get away with calling “artistic” but for the most part the gamble paid off just fine.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Kodak Portra 400 medium format film.

I’ve been really craving the experience of working with color film lately and posting these images just makes that desire even stronger. Working with Kodak Portra 400 was the right choice for these images (it was low light after all), Portra has never been my favorite color film stock. I much prefer the bold saturated look of Kodak Ektar and I’ve had some great experiences using the new Kodak Gold 200 in medium format. I’ve also seen rumors that Ilford/Harman is going to be releasing their Phoenix 200 stock in medium format soon. I hope so….

Getting Used To A Portrait Lens

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I wrote on this blog recently that I purchased a Hasselblad 150mm f/4 portrait lens in the past year or so. You can find that entry HERE. It was inevitable that I would eventually bring the lens outdoors and try working with it during one of my regular location sessions. I’m not going to deny I found the experience challenging, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

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

Most of my awkwardness when using this lens is just simple physics. As opposed to using my usual focal length of 55mm or 80mm, with the 150mm f/4 lens I have to stand further away from my subject. Walking backward fifteen or twenty steps from the model feels incredibly disconnected compared to the way I usually work.

I imagine if I was a seasoned sports photographer or even a more skilled photographer when it comes to street photography this wouldn’t seem so strange to me. But, since I am neither of those things, standing further back from the model takes a lot of getting used to. Part of the reason I’ve always loved waist level finders on cameras like a Hasselblad or a Mamiya TLR is because I feel more connected to my subject. The longer focal length of the 150mm negates that a little bit.

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

All of that being said, there is a quality to the images using a 150mm portrait lens that I very much enjoy. All of the images in this post were photographed between f/8 and f/11. Even with a relatively small aperture the bokeh is incredible. It is smooth and buttery and the central focus in the image (i.e. the model) really pops out against the background. This is especially true considering the model was standing in a thick grove of trees that would have made these images appear otherwise incredibly cluttered and chaotic from a compositional standpoint. I can definitely get a sense of the creative potential here which is thrilling to say the least.

Nude model Merrique photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford FP4 medium format film.

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

I’ll be bringing the 150mm lens with me from now on when I take my Hasselblad out for serious work. In fact, I’ll probably be leaving the standard 80mm lens at home and make the 55mm f/4.5 and the 150mm f/4 my go-to lens kit. It seems like it’ll be an interesting challenge to bring along the more extreme ends of the focal length range available to me instead of playing it safe with the 80mm “normal” lens. That is for now at least while there is plenty of sunshine and I don’t need the wider f/stop of f/2.5 that the standard 80mm lens provides.

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.