Aberdeengrad

SHOOTING IN THE GRANITE CITY

Recently, I spent a Sunday afternoon wandering the streets of Scotland's third city, Aberdeen. The overcast skies, light drizzle, and fading light led me to choose a roll of black and white film, hoping to capture the city's mood in the brief time I had. While exploring an old disused health centre, I unexpectedly met another film photographer. We paused for a conversation, naturally sharing what we each enjoy photographing. I mentioned my interest in brutalist and 1960s architecture, of which there is a fair amount in Aberdeen.

During the conversation, he told me that the recent film Tetris set in the 1980s Soviet Union had in fact been partly shot in Aberdeen. I could imagine that with the removal of the local street signs and a sprinkling of parked Lada’s and GAZ’s parts of the Granite City could well perform as an excellent Cold War Moscow stand in.

Apparently the films director Jon S Baird, who is originally from Aberdeen, felt the area would be the perfect stand-in for Moscow in 1989 and the film's star Taron Egerton said Scotland having "greyness in abundance" was the ideal substitute for Moscow. For sure, I certainly want to see the film now, but for the time being I will make do with my shots of Aberdeengrad!

All photographed with CONTAX 645 on Kodak TMAX 400

Source: https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/enter...

Portrait shoot using Kodak Vision 3 250D

 

Rescanned for the first time with the Nikon Coolscan 8000ED these portraits were shot using Kodak Vision 3 250D. Photographing on a cold but bright and sunny winter morning the light was strong, so using the beautiful Victorian structures of Hampstead's Hill Gardens Pergola to shield Juliette worked perfectly. The film handled the colours, light and shade that day sublimely. Then of course, there’s that Hollywood feeling that I always get when shooting Vision 3. It is after all, the film that films are made from!

As previously I hand developed the film, but this time rather than cross-processing in C41 as I had done before, I used Flic Film’s ECN-2 kit which includes a remjet removing pre-bath as well as all the other stages. This is a great product with the only issue being its short shelf life of only four weeks once mixed. If I were to use it again I would certainly bank up several rolls so that I could take full advantage of the kits lifespan.

Model : Juliette Koch

Portraits taken with CONTAX S2 with Zeiss Planar 50mm ƒ1.4 and Zeiss Planar 85mm ƒ1.4 on Kodak Vision 3 250D

The Eastern Panhandle

A day in West Virginia


Recently while on a job in Washington, D.C. I had a rare free day from work. I decided to hire a car and use the time to get out of the city and off the beaten track with my camera. Leaving early on a Sunday morning I headed through Maryland toward the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. Less than 100 miles from the capital it was both far enough to see what I hoped to be a slice of the 'real' America and close enough so that I didn't spend hours driving on Interstates.

I was very lucky; it was a beautiful spring day with crisp light and sharp shadows. But what was best, was that universal photographic feel-good feeling of being somewhere undiscovered, somewhere different.  I’ve always pushed myself to photograph in my local environment and believe me, the home counties surrounding London are not exactly dripping with photographic opportunity. For me, it has inevitably become a sort of creative and mental exercise in seeing. I’ve always felt that ‘if I could shoot here, I can shoot anywhere’. Certainly, over the years as I have picked off all the close low-hanging photographic fruit, it has become more and more a challenge, but one that is still worth doing if only because it serves to amplify my excitement when I am somewhere new.

As a starting point I made my way to Martinsburg the largest city in the region and from there explored Shepherdstown, Charles Town and other areas in Berkeley and Jefferson Counties. Wandering around with a big camera around my neck caught the attention of one or two people, enough to start a conversation, the usual sort of thing ‘What are you doing?’ and ‘Where are you from?’ Happy to have a guest in their town, if a little puzzled over my desire to shoot, as they possibly saw it, in such ordinary everyday place.

I spent the day exploring street corners and roadscapes, searching for my own slice of Americana and by late afternoon the spring light finally turned slightly golden then dusky dark so, after shooting several rolls of film, I stopped for a waffle at the iconic Waffle Hut before the drive back to Washington with a sense of satisfaction over my small but perfect American road trip.

All photographed with CONTAX 645 on Kodak TMAX 400 & Fuji Pro 400H

Alone in Cologne

Last week I was in Cologne for work, each day was busy with my only free time, the night. Usually, I like to walk the city, looking, seeing and all that stuff. But, with long days and freezing -5º C nights I used the Köln Stadtbahn. A sort of metro-underground-tram light railway system that covers the whole city. It gave me both a subject and the opportunity to shoot alone in Cologne regardless of the winter cold and my fatigue.

All photographed with CONTAX RTS III & Kodak Portra 400

The Boat Yard

Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire.

In the shadow of several huge cooling towers you can find a boat yard. Spread out over fields, scattered wide and packed close, boats propped on stands in various states of repair share the river and landscape with the UK's last remaining coal fired power station. Sitting together in a sort of strange but beautiful company. Both boats and chimneys coexist in an unlikely visual harmony jointly occupying the same space, if only for a short while longer.

The soon-to-be decommissioned power station is on borrowed time, closing its doors within a year. Its imposing towers are due to be detonated in a spectacular 'blow-down' event, the boats will soon lose their towering industrial companions.

All photographed with CONTAX 645 on Kodak Portra 160 & Kodak TMAX 400

Wide Open

A small selection of portraits from last year all shot wide open at ƒ2. Each for me, demonstrating that magical depth of field that the legendary Zeiss Planar T* 80mm. ƒ2 is rightly famous for.

All shot with CONTAX 645 and Zeiss Planet T* 80mm at ƒ2 on:
Kodak TMAX 100 & 400 and Fuji Pro 400H

Thanks to: Erika, Claire & Natasha

Coventry

Topographic wonderings around a West Midlands city

All photographed with CONTAX 645 on Kodak Portra 160, Kodak TMAX 400 & Fuji Pro 400H

Eight Years

In my previous post, I mentioned "It has been almost a year since I have written here" well something even longer than that is me using a digital camera for personal photography. I’ve looked back and the last time I did was eight years ago in 2014.

I do own a digital camera which I use for paid work. So recently when I worked with Danielle she specifically asked if I could shoot some digital photos as well as my usual film. She needed them for a job and quick so couldn't wait the two or three weeks it usually takes me to develop, scan and send my film photos. I duly bought along my digital camera and nervously spent the shoot outside my photographic comfort zone hoping I wouldn't blow out my highlights or run out of battery!

I've never liked participating in the endless Digital vs Analogue debate, because for me how a photograph is taken is secondary to what a photo looks like and how it makes you feel. In that regard whether it's a photo taken digitally or with film or for that matter with a polaroid camera or a mobile phone's camera, I don't really care. I'm mostly interested in what I see and if I like it. All those conversations about cost, convenience and how analogue photographers think they are so cool for shooting film or how digital photography is soulless are boring to me.

Of course, having said that I am, at my core visually attracted to film photography with its grain, tones and colours and that elusive filmic look. But, for every feature of a photo I like that is shot on film, I also think that a bit like Newton's third law of motion, with a digitally made photo there is an equal and opposite reaction. I love the sharp and accurate look of digital pictures. How dark and light are rendered and I really enjoy some of the dramatic effects of post-production whereby the colours are manipulated expertly by experienced photographers to give their work a signature look and feel. In the end, for me, it's the photo that matters most.

Look, I don't think I'm going to bring my digital camera out with me much in future but this was a nice reminder that there is another way to take photos and when it comes to photography my ‘secondary’ choice of equipment and method is a personal preference based on how I like to shoot and present my work, nothing more.

All shot with Canon EOS 5D and Canon EF 24-105mm ƒ4
Model: Danielle Wood

16km in Paris

When I travel for work I always take a camera with me because you never know when a meeting might finish early or a schedule might allow some time to walk and discover something photographic. So, when I went to Paris recently, never having been to the city, I had been saving it for some kind of special romantic getaway, not alone attending an exhibition at the Furniture Show near the airport! I made sure that I would get some proper photo-time by booking the last train back to London. With 6 hours and a couple of rolls of film, I wandered a foot-aching 16 kilometres through the city centre on my first and certainly, I hope, not my last visit to the French capital.

All photographed with CONTAX S2 and Zeiss Distagon f2.8 28mm on Kodak TMAX 400 & Kodak Portra 800

Artistic Impression

A series of portraits of Natasha Bush in her South London art studio. The first frame was selected by the picture editors at Vogue Italia for their daily photographic showcase PhotoVogue, which is always for me, gratifying especially when you see the quality of the other photographers and photography there. Theses photos were shot using Kodak TMAX 400 on a Hasselblad 500c/m and Kodak Portra 400 on a CONTAX S2.

Shooting Kodak Vision 3 - 500T Review

Earlier this year I shot some Kodak Vision 3 250D and like many photographers, I was excited to see some motion picture movie sparkle in my stills photos. I liked it enough to try some of Kodak's Vision 3 500T which is a tungsten rated film ideal for indoor and night shooting. 500T is one of the four Vision 3 films available, the others being 50D and 250D (daylight) and 200T and 500T (tungsten). As well as shooting at night I also tried the 500T in daylight with an 85b amber filter, this filter is required for daylight shooting of any tungsten-balanced film to avoid nasty blue colour casts. 

The last time I cross-processed 250D in C41 chemistry, this time I decided to use ECN-2 chemistry. ECN-2 is the dedicated development process for Vision 3 films. The process is a bit more precise and convoluted but it's essentially the same as C41 except that the temperatures are even more critical.  I worked at 41ºC for developer and 37ºC for the bleach and fix. The other big difference is a stop stage after development and of course the remjet removal, but more about this later.

I had no way of telling what the difference would be between developing in ECN-2 or C41 except to say that it felt right, was not difficult and the colours/tones are good. 500T film is a very flexible film, capturing a wide latitude and it’s night colours are superb. Even during daylight, it performs well and is the ideal film if you know you are going to shoot late afternoon into the evening. One photo of a fish and chip shop with an illuminated blue sign was beyond my expectation. I love the electric-blue of the sign and I'm pretty sure that no film that I have used before could have reproduced this result, except maybe Cinestill 800T.  Interestingly both films are the same except that Cinestill removes the remjet coating making it C41 friendly and because there is no anti-halation effect from the removed remjet Cinestill has characteristic halos around light sources.  These typical red glows are all but absent in Vision 3 film and make for an interesting creative feature between these two versions.

Once again I got some ghost sprocket marks on 3 or 4 frames per roll. I don't know for sure what caused these but I believe it was due to me mishandling the film during the final wipe down process after the fix wash and before stabilisation. At this stage, it was necessary to un-reel the film and wipe away any residual remjet from the celluloid side. In an ECN-2 automated pro-lab processor this is done with soft spinning brushes, in my bathroom, it was done with a wet microfibre cloth! I think that the soft emulsion side of the film is very susceptible to marking and when I dropped it into a bath of stabiliser there was a risk of marking as the wet film naturally curled around itself. If anybody has come up against this, I'd love to hear about your experiences, please do share your thoughts in the comments section below. For sure, there is more work to be done here, some experiments in final remjet removal method could well be in order.

As for the final photographs they are for me, well worth the additional trouble of using this special film. I love how it handles light and dark and I can see a cinematic feel to the images despite my obsession with shooting 35mm mostly in portrait! Maybe I should crop everything 16:9 widescreen.

Confessions of a Film Developer

Okay, so when things go wrong the best thing to do is chalk it up to experience and make sure you don't do it again. In the real world this is sometimes easier said than done, fortunately when developing film at home it's a bit more straightforward, as long as you know what you did wrong in the first place! 

I've had my fair share of mishaps and errors, it's part and parcel of learning how to develop film at home. The first time I reeled a 120 film, I did not securely fold back the sticky tape which then attached itself in the reel to the film adjacent to it and ruined two frames, duh! Some weeks later, after organising a portrait shoot, I eagerly developed the resulting colour films only to unspool two completely orange rolls, nothing not even the side markings were visible. I had contaminated the developer by pouring bleach into it! This mistake was compounded by me having to call my subject and re-organise the shot. 

Learning exactly how long chemicals can be stored and used safely can be quite a harsh lesson. I've had black & white developer work one week and then the following week drop of a cliff, leaving only the faintest of an image on the celluloid. I've pushed the patience of C41 developer keeping it for weeks past it's supposed best only to find ghostly, grainy images with off the spectrum colour shifts. Cue the purchase of a notebook to write down the mixing dates of chemistry and to record the number of films developed using one working solution. While I was at it I bought some concertina bottles to expel air from the chemicals and even a can of ‘magic’ spray that stops air contact, apparently you spay it into the bottle and because the contents of the aerosol are heavier than air it sinks to the surface of the developer forming an invisible seal. The Emperor’s New Clothes comes to mind but I use it diligently anyway!

My latest 'glitch' was overheating C41 developer and don't ask me why, actually using it. We’re not talking 1 or 2 degrees, no I overcooked my film in 42ºC developer. I put it down to me misreading the temperature on a new top dial thermometer. I had dropped my old glass rod thermometer breaking it on the kitchen floor and decided that a new one with a fancy big dial on top would be better. When developing film at home any change in routine is dangerous.

The resulting photos were well not exactly Portra 160 colours but somehow they worked all the same. So with each mistake, I have realised that developing film was no slap-dash affair, attention to detail and methodical working are the only way and when something does go wrong, and it will, try and understand what happened because for me at least I have not made the same mistake twice. Yet.

Photos shot with a 1969 Mamiya C33 on Kodak Portra 160 film & developed in scorching hot Fuji Hunt x-press C41 developer.

Model: Agata Daniluk

Déesse, a life long thing

The enduring beauty of the Citröen DS

As a child in the mid 70s, most summers my family and I would set off on an epic road trip. Early in the morning, we would squeeze into an overpacked car, with its headlamps painted translucent yellow and an oval GB sticker on the boot, we would head for Dover.  I was lucky, I wasn’t one of those kids that got bored in the back of a car.  It was a good job too because the trip from London to Campobasso, in southern Italy, was a long one, over 1300 miles (2100 km). For me, it was fantastically exciting, the boat, driving on the right, looking out of the window at the ever-changing roadscapes, and of course, the thing I liked best, the continental service station shops!

It was while sitting in the back of Mum and Dad’s car, driving through France, that I noticed them for the first time. Sleeping low, parked on street corners, they were everywhere in towns and villages. With their long shark-like bonnets and distinct glazed eyes, I had never seen anything like them. Smooth, sleek, torpedo-shaped bodies tapering back, their rear wheels encased behind metal. I was immediately fascinated by them. When I saw one raised up high, effortlessly cruising on the road in front of us, I saw that most unique and coolest feature, rear indicators built into the chrome trumpet of the roofline trim. That was it, they became my favourite car. I nagged my parents endlessly “there’s one” I would say pointing. “Look Mum can you see it?” every time I saw one.  Slowly France became Switzerland and then northern Italy.  The Citröen’s became fewer and by the time we were in the south they were gone.  Maybe the odd one was around but the dusty roads of the Mezzogiorno were the domain of Fiat’s and Lancia’s. That was until the journey back...

My love for the Citröen DS has never left me, I still get excited every time I see one, and for me, it is unquestionably one of the automotive worlds most beautiful machines. Rarely has a cars name been more appropriate than the Déesse - it truly is a Goddess.

Thanks to Charles Evans of Douze Coupes for letting me shoot his fantastic 1973 brun scarabee DS.

Shooting Kodak Vision 3 - 250D Review

I've wanted to try shooting movie stock for some time, I mean who wouldn't want a bit of Hollywood sparkle in their work? So, with a roll of Kodak Vision 3 250D loaded in the back of my CONTAX RTS III ready to test, Skylar and I went down to the shed to shot some.

IMG_7233.jpg

Kodak's Vision 3 is the movie industries leading film stock, used in films like Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman and Quintin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Kodak only sell Vision 3 in bulk cans intended for motion picture cameras, so, I bought my film cut and hand-rolled into 35mm photographic cassettes by the vendor.

Kodak Vision 3 is a colour negative film that is processed in ECN-2 chemistry or can be cross-processed with standard C41 with acceptable results. It is available in 50D and 250D (daylight) and 200T and 500T (tungsten). The main characteristics are excellent highlight latitude, reduced grain in shadows and outstanding skin and colour reproduction. The biggest difference between Vision 3 and other standard photographic films is its remjet coating. Remjet is a carbon black anti-halation protective coating on the back of the film that has multiple purposes including acting as a lubricant that allows the film to speed through a motion picture camera at 45cm per second. It is because of this remjet layer, that you can't just send Vision 3 to a commercial lab for C41 processing because the remjet will contaminate the processing machines chemicals. All this means that Vision 3 is best developed by hand which allows easy removal of the remjet coating. There are lots of ways to do this, I decided on a pre-wash solution of 500ml hot water between 35ºC - 38ºC with 50g of bicarbonate soda. Before processing with standard C41 I agitated the film in the bicarbonate solution for 30 seconds and let it stand for 30 seconds, I repeated this twice before dumping and running in 35ºC water till clear. Doing this removes most of the remjet and from here on in it’s the standard C41 process until just before stabilisation. At this point, I hung the film and with a wet microfiber cloth carefully wiped away the remaining residual remjet from the back (non-emulsion side) of the film with 4-5 wipes. I then dropped the film into stabiliser before hanging it to dry in the usual way.

 

I really like the results from this roll and now I can't wait to try the 500T, maybe at night to see how well that anti-halation works. On these portraits, I noticed a strange feature on some of the frames, there are ghost images of the sprockets, I don't know the cause but I think it's possibly a result of hand rolling the film? If anyone has seen or knows what could have caused this please let me know. For now, I'll think of it as a 'happy accident'.