Medium Format
Sometimes beauty can be seen in the simplest of things. Here is a selection of flowers that I have shot. All the shots below were captured using a Mamyia M645 medium format film camera. The monochrome shots were taken on Kodak Tri-X and the colour shots on an out of date roll of Fuji Provia Slide film. Shooting out of date film has given the film a strange washed out look, along with a strange but interesting colour cast.
I mentioned in my last blog It was a pleasure to work with Paul in his studio for this shoot, and a little surprise in this blog, as I'm sure you have guessed for the title, these are the analog film photographs from that day.
I think these shots capture the mood and atmosphere in Paul's studio much better then my digital shots could have. To me the shots below feel much more alive and human. For those interested I shot these on my Mamyia M645with an 80mm ƒ2.8 lens using Kodak Tri-X film. The grain and tonality of the film was perfect for capturing Paul at work. While the lighting was low and I had to compensate this with some slow shutter speeds, this gave another human element with the motion blur of his movements. Non the less while we chatted, we both worked away, Paul painting and working on a few of his paintings and me carefully taking shots. In the few shots below Paul is working on part of his 1916 set of paintings.
Recently I was lucky to get the chance to travel to Delft, a city in the Netherlands. The city is a quite architecturally beautiful, with many of the building being centuries old and of typical Dutch styling. The Small streets, the many canals and bridges along with the churches really do make Delft what it is.
We spent a few days wondering around, sampling all that Delft has to offer, the food, the sights and the atmosphere. We Explored both the Old and New churches, which have significant links back to Kells, Kilkenny through William of Orange. Below are a few shots of Delft and the final shot is of a walk way in Amsterdam on the way home
While there I came across one of the coolest vintage camera shops I have seen, they had a wide selection of vintage film cameras, from the Nikon F to Hasselblad 500C's and everything in between. I was looking for a Medium format camera, although lusting after a Hasselblad, I knew they were out of my range starting at €700 just for the body with no lens. Looking around I seen some Bronica's, Lubitel's, Roleiflex to name a few. After taking to the shop assistant, I finally decided on a Mamiya M645 camera.
Shooting with the Mamiya was a challenge in its self, with no metering and no hand held light meter I had to first test expose with my digital camera and then take the shoot with film, The view from the waist level finder and ground glass was very similar to the experience I had shooting a Hasselblad 503C, Which is in a previous blog head over and check it out Here. I also found myself using the Sunny 16 rule and making an educated guess at what what the photos would come out like. Taking photos with this camera was a thrill, even more as I couldn't wait to find out what I had captured.
Scanning the film presents another challenge as at the moment I havant got a backlight scanner, so I have to take a photo of them using my digital camera and my computer screen as a light source. It isn't the best quality so I haven't scanned many. but here is a small low quality sample of whats to come when I get a scanner. The films used are Fuji Reala 100 and Lomography Colour 100, 120 Rolls. and C41 processed. I do have some Ilford Delta 100 but that will take a while as it has been sent off to be hand processed. Below The top picture is Kells, Kilkenny where I was using the end of the rolls, below that is Up a windmill in Delft with my Folks.
