Cemetery Lights
Ilford HP5+ 400 on Nikon F80, Lensbaby Composer Pro, Sweet 35 Optic
(Ilfosol 3, 1+9, 6.30 mins; Epson V700)
I had a lot of fun during last Saturday’s photo walk! Myself, Yovie Eswark & Laura - our gorgeous model of the day (we were later joined by the marvellous Nad J Mfx - check out her stuff here and follow her tumblr!) decided to brave the heat and head over to this old abandoned Catholic cemetery some along the old Birch Road in Kuala Lumpur.
It was serene and peaceful, and we could hardly believe that it’s smack in the middle of KL! The markings on the headstones were as old as 1830s. There were some headless statues as well, but have been vandalised which was a shame.
Adjacent to the Catholic burial site we’re also in awe when we discovered rows upon rows of unnamed gravestones…imagine all those poor unclaimed bodies, with nothing to mark their passing except numbers…it was quite sad.
We went there in the afternoon in hopes that the sweltering heat would chase away the mosquitoes but no sir, the hungry blighters feasted on us like a bloody banquet! Damn those little winged vampires!
Anyway, I’m very very happy with the outcome of this set, after shooting the Sweet 35 in my last review here, I’m happy to say that I love my Lensbaby and will never part from it! I actually own almost every interchangeable optics they have (bought them with my Micro 4/3 system some few years back) so my next project will be comparison between all the available optics on film! Yes, I’m practically shivering in excitement as I type this!
Also, I must thank Laura for being such a good sport despite the mosquito attack! She also shoots film and has a tumblr so don’t forget to say hi!
Alright, so this has been rather long so let me share with you 3 of my favorite shots. Bathed in light, you wouldn’t believe this was supposed to be a morbid themed shoot. But most of all, Sekonic, thank you for the lightmeter ;)
-delusiana
Take me to the beach!
Lomography Color Negative 400 on Fujica ST605N
I thought these looked so awesome when I saw them in our mailbox. I’ve always avoided anything with an ISO above 100 whenever I plan to shoot under the hot sun in fear of overexposure. But in this photo set, they simply worked!
I love the warm, bleached out tones that made them look oh-so-vintage, it’s great! Good job May Rodrigo!
Dammit, I so need to go to the beach…like right about now!
Oh, before I forget, here’s the camera used in this set. I “google-imaged” it from The Camera Site.
Up, Up In The Air
Kodak T-Max 400 on Holgamod 120N
Just going through my old scans and found this set of pictures discarded in the ‘No Good’ pile. They are from a crazy trip across the globe on work last year where I was spending 40% of my time in transit or flying across a whole continent, and not enough time shooting on land. Most of the pictures shot on film from my window seat came out super blown-out, as the sun was just too strong up there. I was hoping to be able to capture something good, something better as the shots I randomly snapped on my iPhone turned out lovely. All 5 pictures above were taken in different parts of the world, in the air upon lift off from Kuala Lumpur, over Japan, over California, over Russia, and finally in Mexico. Pretty cool when I see it from that perspective ;)
Next time, I hope for more time on land! Yes, on land where the action really is!
-eleanorrigby236
Sunday Tea & Vitamin C
Fuji Neopan Acros 100 on Gevaert Gevabox (Flipped Lens)
At CGSF, we weren’t just busy preparing some tasty soup for colorful film adventures, we’re also brewing some Tea in Vitamin C to develop our black & whites in! Thanks to Paul Gadd of The Print Room KL who’d kindly allowed us to use his space & darkroom to demonstrate how to make your own film soup & develop your BWs in tea, we’ve finally managed to achieve this feat which has been eluding us since we first featured this technique courtesy of the lovely Firda Beka of Many Cameras.com!
Yes, I know the results aren’t that great, the photos look almost like a badly xeroxed version but this set was from one of my experimental phase. I’ve yet to discover the exact developing times & agitation scheme for the Neopan Acros 100 & Kodak TMAX but I’ll be sure to post here once I get that figured out.
So, the first set was taken with my vintage Gevaert Gevabox with flipped lens, which explains the crazy flared out effect & lack of focus.
The recipe: (to make 1000ml of stock solution)
5 bags of black tea (I used Lipton) in 600ml freshly boiled water
10 tsp of washing soda
5g of crushed Vitamin C- Let the tea steep for 30 mins and squeeze every drop out, you should get about 500ml of tea
- Dissolve the washing soda & vitamin C in about 400ml of water and add the two solution together and mix them well,
- The solution should stay usable for about 24 hours
- First minute continuous agitation, then 3 agitations every minute for 30 minutes
- Stop bath, fix & rinse normally.
Kodak T-MAX 400 on Gevaert Gevabox (Flipped Lens)
For this set I used the same recipe but with 8 bags instead of 5 (6 bags of japanese green tea & 2 bags of black tea) to avoid the excessive fogging & staining by the black tea which could hamper your scanning (and printing if you plan to do it traditionally with an enlarger!)
I also cut down the developing time to 15 minutes, with continuous agitation during the first minute and 3 agitations every 30 seconds (that’s an almost continuous agitation scheme!). I found that the negatives are much less foggy but I guess it could still be fine tuned.
This recipe works really well with the cheapo Shanghai GP3 100 though, and I’ll be posting the results from that set in my next post so stay tuned for that.
Oh, and say hi to my lovely Gevaert Gevabox!
-delusiana
Kodak Tri-X 400 is still a favorite
Kodak Tri-X 400 on Nikon FG-20 w/ Nikkor 24mm f2.8
Kodak Tri-X 400 on Nikon FG-20 w/ Nikkor 50mm f1.8
Nothing special about this set. I took my 24mm lens out to the abandoned house shoot a few weeks back after looking at this wonderful street photography set using the same wide lens. I think the 24mm takes great looking close-up portrait shots that draws you to the subject. I was not able to utilize the lens in the way I had hoped to but might go out this weekend for a walkabout in the city.
The FG-20 is not so great when shooting outdoors under bright light when you are trying to shoot wide open to create a nice creamy bokeh, as the shutter speed only goes up to 1/1000th of a second which ultimately overexposes your shots. You’d need a faster shutter speed to achieve that, which could have been done on the FM2 I left at home. Of course.
As always no complains on the Tri-X, still one of my favorite black and white film. Very glad that Kodak will not take this film off their film line-up as they did their slide film ;)
-eleanorrigby236
Framing your analog photos digitally
Rollei RPX 400 w/ Diana 151 + digital frame
I did this once before, where I merged analog with digital (in Supersampler Hack meets RadLab), and I did it once again, this time to bring out the old from my photos. The images were originally shot in black and white using the Diana 151 and I thought the images came out a little too contrasty than I had anticipated. To tone is down a little I decided to merge the images with a frame template I found online. You can easily google “vintage frame template” and choose one to work with. Most probably you would need to resize and crop the frame to fit your photo.
I did this all in Photoshop, and you can do it too.
1. Resize frame to fit image.
2. Import image into Photoshop, change opacity to Multiply at 30%
3. Paste same image into a new layer, change opacity to Overlay 30%
4. Paste same into once more into a new layer, change opacity to Saturation 30%
You can play with the opacity strength based on the color of your frame. I thought a more sepia look would suit this frame than a faded straight B&W one and ended up with this.
Just for your reference, here is the original image shot on film.
-eleanorrigby236
Meow, if you love Kodak!
Kodak T-Max 400 on Diana 151
(self-developed: Ilford Ilfosol 3, 1+9 at 6 mins)
Even Sora wants you to know that our beloved Kodak is here to stay and that FILM IS NOT DEAD!
-delusiana
Ensign Ful-Vue, my new hero!
Ilford HP5+ 400ISO on Ensign Ful-Vue Box Camera
(Self-developed: Ilford Ilfotec DD-X, 1:4, 9 minutes)
So here’s the test roll for my cute frog-like vintage 1950s box camera, the Ensign Ful-Vue. This is actually the 2nd incarnation of the Ful-Vue, made in Great Britain during the post war era - its large and bright viewfinder making it one of the best cameras at it’s time. Despite its pseudo TLR looks, the Ful-Vue is actually a very simple box camera with a pull-out lens for close up shots, as seen in the last 2 pictures of this set.
Composing pictures with the viewfinder needs a little getting used to but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy. I bought this camera from Charlie Wray, who’d written that wonderful piece on the Leica M6 last month.
There is a noticeable stain in the first 2 shots which I think is probably due to the dust on the lens but I’m not complaining, I think it made my shots look super retro. :D
I didn’t actually research on this camera until after I’ve developed this roll, I thought that you had to pull out the lens to shoot, which resulted in the soft focus in the first 4 shots and the sharper images in the last 2. But I’m not complaining, not a bit!
A little bit on the location of the shoot, this was taken at an old abandoned colonial bungalow in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur - a favorite haunt of local film photographers, so much so that the lady who lived next door actually asked why so many of us are fascinated with the place, lol.
-delusiana
Sweet 35 in Amsterdam
Neopan Professional 400 on Nikon FE2 w/ Lensbaby Sweet 35
(self-developed with Ilfotec DD-X 1+4, 10mins)
The images above are from the same roll I shot in Budapest at night. Using 400 film at daytime time can be tricky especially when I would open up the aperture to f/2.5 to focus and forget to bring it back down before clicking the shutter to ovoid overexposure. But that is my problem, not the film’s. The Sweet 35 is quickly becoming a favorite lens, as it brings a rather nice soft texture to the pictures, also aging the images, making them look like they were shot a few decades earlier. I have a few more rolls shot with the Sweet 35, all in color, which should hold some sweet surprises.
-eleanorrigby236
Looking through my waist-level finder hurts my eye
Rollei RPX 400 on HolgaMod in New York, New York
(self-developed with Ilfotec DD-X 1+4, 10mins)
After spending some more time with my HolgaMod I realized that I don’t quite fancy the optics it comes with. It still provides the curving lens distortion but it is overall just too soft for my taste. I got this HolgaMod mainly for the waist level finder (as you can see in the image below) but I find it is actually fairly hard to compose using it. With the Holga I usually simply aim and shoot, using the mind’s eye ;) but as I always shoot from waist level I thought the finder would come in handy. Unfortunately for me, I must have really bad eyes, as I can’t seem to look through the finder and see my picture. Still the finder provides a rough outline of where I am aiming the lens at, so it ultimately helps.
I also like the fact that the lens screws off effortlessly, good for me to experiment with different types of optics. Overall, I love my HolgaMod as not only does it look uber cool in flat black, the Bulb Mode push rod helps a lot for those long exposures. No regrets in obtaining this Holga, but the GCFN still stands as my favorite.
-eleanorrigby236
My modified Holga that now comes with 2 apertures, closer focusing, interior flocking, Bulb-mode push rod, and the waist-level finder for stealth shooting.
The Bone Church of Kutna Hora in Prague
Kodak T-Max 400 B+W on Minolta XG-1 w/MD Rokkor 45mm f/2.0
Went for a day trip to Kutna Hora while spending my holiday in Prague. One of the main attractions there was the Kostnice (Church of Bones), Sedlec, Kutna Hora. All the bones used for the church were from the black death plague in the 14th Century. The decorations and sculptures were created though by a woodcarver named František Rint.It was done so to create a reminder of the impermanence of human life and inescapable death.
From the outside, the church looks like a small church serving a small community. Nothing special and nothing too fancy. Stepping into the church, one cannot help but start to feel a sudden chill and sense of eeriness upon seeing so many bones and skulls. It was not long before you fully appreciate the artistic decor and sculptures by the creator. Overall it was an interesting sight and experience and I hardly doubt one would be seeing bones and skulls to that extent!
These photos were meant to be shot at ISO 400 on the camera but due to my forgetfulness, I left it at ISO 100 from my previous film. Since the labs in my area do not do push or pull processing, I was worried that the film might not turn out correctly exposed when developed at 400ISO. Surprisingly though, when the negatives came back and after scanning them, they were marginally overexposed but still very useable. The only downside was some of the pictures were not as sharp as I had hoped but that was due to the manual focus of the lens in a low light place. Overall it is a good lesson learnt!
- Ben
Strolling around Pest at midnight
Neopan Professional 400 on Nikon FE2 w/ Lensbaby Sweet 35
(self-developed with Ilfotec DD-X 1+4, 10mins)
I recently got myself one of those sweet little things from Lensbaby aptly named the Sweet 35. Here is an excerpt from the official website,
The Sweet 35 Optic is a 35mm selective focus optic with a 12-blade adjustable aperture that creates a tack sharp Sweet Spot of focus surrounded by blur. Experience an unprecedented level of creative control over the size of the Sweet Spot.
I have been a user of their Composer Pro lens coupled with their double optics for a while now but found swapping out aperture discs to be a pain and a chore. When Lensbaby came out with the Sweet 35 boasting a built-in adjustable aperture system, I knew I had to get it and surely as I imagined I was very satisfied with this optic. Not only is the lens much wider than the previous series, it is also much sharper and best of all, requires nothing but a little twist of the barrel to set the aperture right.
I shot these images at midnight (to eliminate having to shoot through or past humans) and had to resort to shooting most of it at an aperture setting of f/2.0 minimizing the sweet spot (focused area) and blurring 60-70% of the image. This was my first roll shot with the Sweet 35 and as it was night time, it was actually hard to see through my viewfinder. I just had to play by heart, twisting and bending the lens hoping I get something good. I like what I got, but I know with a more precise calculation of light and composition, I can do better. Looking forward to playing some more.
-eleanorrigby236
Light vignetting can be cool too
Fujifilm Neopan 400 on Zenit E (self-developed)
(D-76, 1+1, 9.5 mins)
My first roll done at home!
I used the Helios44 50mm f/2 lens on these, which is a gorgeous lens - these are all taken near where I live, along the corridor of green space and old industrial buildings running from the city up to the northern edge of Leeds.
The sapling against the wall is about my favorite shot ever at the moment, the building is a derelict cricket club and this just sums up the emptiness of so many of these old local places left to decay. The film has come out really well I think for a first attempt, though my scanner is not great and has left a slight (reversed) vignette on the images, though on some of these this looks quite nice…
-Christian Bodden
Cold Warrior
Legacy Pro 400 on Minolta SRT-102
For the first time ever, we’ve received a submission taken during the filming of a movie!
These photos were taken from set of an independent film called Cold Warrior -a thriller set in Romania in a lead up to the 1980 Moscow Olympics where the protagonist, a young gymnast questions her dreams of glory when she discovers that she’s part of a sinister national plot. These dramatic photos were taken and kindly submitted to us by Anna Griffin, one of the co-producers.
The film sets to share light on allegations that in the 70’s & 80’s, sportswomen especially gymnasts were being put through “abortion-doping” to get an undetected surge of strength in order to win competitions.
I thought the film concept was interesting and would be a real eye-opener, I for one can’t wait for this project to be premiered!
For more updates on the status of this movie, and if you’d like to offer some donation, do visit their website at http://www.indiegogo.com/cold-warrior-completion, you can watch the trailer there too.
And don’t forget to follow Anna Griffin’s tumblr!
-delusiana
Paris Twenty
Ilford HP5+ 400 on Nikon FM2, 50mm f1.8
I thought these photos by Agnes Samour were awesome. I’m absolutely in love with her composition, especially in her first photo. The clash between the argyle tiles, stillettoes & perspective just works.
You can view more of her works at her website, www.agnessamour.com or follow her tumblr here. She also has a Facebook page dedicated to her photography so don’t forget to say hi!
