Category: Film photography

35mm · Film photography · Photography

Freedom?

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This is the first weekend in England under the slightly relaxed lockdown rules, which allow people to travel for exercise or leisure. The weather is forecast to be good in many parts of the country.

Peg skeleton

This has resulted in calls from the national parks, seaside resorts, and other areas likely to attract visitors, that people should stay away. Many locations have not opened their carparks and other facilities to try to prevent visitors from coming. Despite this, there have been reports of full carparks and large numbers of people turning up at these locations. I expect we’ll be able to look forward to another full lockdown in due course…

Corrosion

Today’s photographs were made in the back garden during the Easter weekend a month ago. I was reading William Eggleston’s Guide in the sunshine and it inspired me to make pictures myself. I ended up shooting nearly a full roll of film during the afternoon, so you’ll see some more ot those in the comimg days. Some of them worked out pretty nicely, some not so much, but I’m pretty happy with the Kodak Gold. It’s the first time I’ve shot a roll of this, believe it or not, and I like how it looks.

Red rag, no bull

Nikon F80, Sigma 105mm f/2.8 OS HSM & Kodak Gold 200.

Taken on 11 April 2020

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

New toy. Faulty toy?

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I posted briefly about the Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/2 camera I bought recently, and my concerns that the lens might not be correctly aligned. Well it looks like my fears were correct.

I processed the roll of HP5+ yesterday that I’d shot with the camera the previous day and all the photographs show noticeable soft focus on the left side of the frames. It’s perhaps not noticeable here, but it’s quite apparent if you look at them at a larger size. This isn’t nit-picky pixel-peeping type concerns either, unfortunately. While the slightly askew angle of the lens is very minimal (although enough for me to notice straight away) it’s enough to mean that the results are unsatisfactory. Being the owner of another Zeiss Mess-Ikonta (albeit a 6×6 model), I know thet these cameras are capable of very sharp results across the frame, so having one that fails in this regard isn’t any good to me.

Having looked online though, I’ve seen a number of pages detailing the fact that it’s best to wind the film on after opening the camera. Apparently this action can cause a vacuum that lifts the film away from the plane of focus, so it’s better to open the camera and then wind on the film as you can guarantee it will be taut that way. Whether this is a factor in my results or not (I wound on before opening the camera), I’m not sure, but I’ll probably try another roll using this method to see if it makes any difference. Otherwise, I’ll have to return it for a refund.

The shots below are from the initial roll I shot. The photo of the pylons gives the best indication of the problem as the grass at the bottom of the frame, and the legs of the pylon are equally distant from the camera, so should be of a uniform sharpness across the frame. The grass at the left side is clearly softly focused, as are the leftmost legs of the pylon.

Likewise, the mesh sides of the footbridge in the following shot. The right side mesh is sharply defined, the left side much less so.

Through

Footbridge

Beighton Station

Trip-trappin' away

Zeiss Mess-Ikonta 524/2 & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 @ 9mins.

Taken on 13 May 2020

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Over the fields

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Have I posted a photo of some power-lines recently? I’m pretty sure I must have – because I post pictures of them all the time!

Well here’s another one – this is the FINAL pre-lockdown photo I took, the last frame on the roll.

It’s the same field where I took the shots I posted here, back in November of last year.

Over the fields

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Plus-X (expired 2008).

Taken on 22 March 2020

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

All Saint’s Chapel again

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A few photos today of All Saint’s Chapel in Steetley. I posted about this place once before, about a year ago, when I came upon it by chance while out for a walk – I’d parked my car in the nearby village of Shireoaks and took a long, looping ramble along public footpaths in the area and the chapel happened to be along the way.

I had an email today that my Yashica Mat is serviced and should be back with me shortly. I’m hoping that the viewfinder will be cleaner and that the slight haze in the taking lens will be gone (or at least reduced). It’s a nice camera to use and it produces lovely photographs, and I’m looking forward to using it again.

I also went out for a walk this morning with a new (to me) Zeiss Mess-Ikonta folding camera that I’ve bought. This one is another uncoupled rangefinder model, but 6×9 rather than 6×6. I have some slight concern that the lens isn’t completely parallel with the film plane when the camera is opened and that it might cause some distortion or soft focus in the photographs. It’s pretty slight though, so it might be me fretting over nothing and I guess I’ll find out when I develop the photos. Nothing exciting on the roll, I don’t think, just a few snapshot (in as much as you can take snapshots with an uncoupled rangefinder) of stuff I saw during my walk, but they should highlight any problems with the camera if they exist.

Signpost

Chapel

Shadows on the chapel door

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Plus-X (expired 2008).

Taken on 22 March 2020

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Expired Film Day 2020 – I won a prize!

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Back in mid-March I posted about my entry into this year’s Expired Film Day competition. I’d entered three images shot on a roll of Kodacolor Gold dated 1989. All three photographs had been made during my visit to Magpie Mine.

A couple of days ago I was alerted to the fact that one of my photos had won in one of the categories – the Lab Rat’s Choice award! I’m not sure that I’ll be able to use my prize as it’s a free dev & scan of a roll of film. In itself this is a nice prize, but as Old School Photo Lab (who kindly provided the prize) are based in New Hampshire, USA, and I’m in Yorkshire, UK, the cost of mailing a roll of film for development will likely outweigh the benefit of taking them up on their kind offer.

Whether I manage to claim a prize or not, I’m nevertheless flattered to have had my photo win in one of the categories.

By way of connecting todays photo to the words in the post, here’s a picture taken of the same location, on the same day as my winning entry. This one shot on a different camera and film though.

Scale

Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100.

Taken on 16 March 2020

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

To edit, or not to edit? To photograph, or not to photograph?

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Another photograph I made on my final pre-lockdown roll of film today. It’s a photo I like a lot, but it’s one that, from an aesthetic perspective at least, could probably do with some editing. I’m talking primarily about the twigs at the left of the frame and the light stalks of grass at bottom-right, but also possibly the modern turbine (although I do like the juxtaposition, I’m not so keen on the placement of the old and new structures). I don’t mind removing distractions from my photos – although I never add anything in – but I’m also conscious to not completely change the reality of what was observed. Based on this, the twigs and grass are probably fair game, but I feel the wind-turbine is maybe a bridge too far.

Ideally, I would try to avoid distractions such as the twigs when taking the shot, but this particular composition has a very limited vantage point and reaching over to move the twigs would likely involve a fall or a nasty laceration from the barbed wire atop the fence through which I made the picture. Perhaps I’ll try again one day though.

In other news, our government in the UK has announced some loosening of the lockdown measures that will come into force this Wednesday. The key one for me as a photographer is that it is now allowed to drive to an outdoor location for the purpose of leisure as long as social distancing is observed. Although there was no mention of photography specifically, sunbathing and picnics (albeit only with members of your household) were both given as examples, so I’m pretty confident that photography would be ok.

While I like the fact that I can now venture further afield for purposes other than exercise or essential shopping, I’m not convinced that this is a good idea where reducing infection rates from the coronavirus is concerned. While I’m quite happy to just go for a walk around some agricultural land where I’m unlikely to encounter any other people (or can easily distance myself if I do), I fear that it will give free licence to masses of people who will now see it as ok to travel to the seaside, to beauty spots, and to other “honeypot” locations, meaning that these places will become potential hotspots for the virus to spread. Even if everyone maintains a two-metre distance, there will still be the need to use toilets and other facilities where there will be multiple opportunities frof conamination.

I’m not sure if, given my concerns, that my going out for photography – even to a place that is likely going to be deserted – makes me a hypocrite?

Generations

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Plus-X (expired 2008).

Taken on 22 March 2020

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

The last of the pre-lockdown photos

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I scanned my final roll of pre-lockdown negatives a couple of days ago – a roll of expired Kodak Plus-X shot with my Yashica Mat 124G. They were all taken the day before lockdown was introduced in the UK, and I managed to get them developed by my local lab on the actual day of the lockdown (it wasn’t announced until the evening). All the subsequent rolls I’ve shot have been developed at home (as of this weekend I’ve now self-developed five rolls).

I’d strongly suspected that the lockdown would be coming and so had taken the opportunity to drive out and get some photos before movement was restricted. Concious of the fact that there was a growing pandemic, I nonetheless chose an area where I was cofident that there would be few (if any) other people around.

The outing also marked the last time I’ve used my tripod oustside of my house or garden. While I’ve taken plenty of photographs since the lockdown began, I feel that carrying a tripod on outings that are supposedly for exercise would be breaking the spirit of the thing. Consequently all photos taken while out exercising have been handheld shots that I could take quickly and safely – literally a case of: spot a composition; lift the camera to my eye; click the shutter; and done. All in the space of a few seconds. There are many more photos that would be possible with a tripod, but they will have to wait.

On the day that this roll was shot though, I had my tripod with me. What I neglected to bring, however, was a cable release! Thus I learnt on the spot how the Yashica Mat’s self-timer function worked. Quite well as it turned out – all the shots where I used it are perfectly sharp and correctly exposed.

Today’s picture is of a cluster of teazels framed against some background fields. I’ll publish more from this fianl pre-lockdown roll in the coming days.

Teazels

Yashica Mat 124G & Kodak Plus-X (expired 2008).

Taken on 22 March 2020

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Musings on the pandemic and lockdown and celebrating VE day

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This week I heard that my aunt’s father died from Covid-19 infection. He was resident in a care home where ten more people including a member of staff have died after contracting the virus. There are apparently over a dozen others in the same facility showing signs of infection. Because of lockdown restrictions, his family were unable to visit other than to look in from a window, and so he had no direct contact with his loved ones when he passed away. The funeral will have restriction on attendance, and there can be no church service. They are obviously heartbroken. What would already have been a very difficult experience is made all the more terrible by the conditions in which it has taken place.

He was a WWII veteran, having fought through Western Europe from D-Day until he was injured by enemy fire in Holland, wherupon he returned home to recover. Now he has died during the current pandemic.

As the lockdown in the UK has been in place for over six weeks, and as the incubation period of the infection is up to fourteen days, this means that he has become infected since the lockdown began. At some point, most likely unknowingly, someone has come into contact with a contaminated surface or an infected person and had brought the virus into the care home where it has spread amongst the residents and staff. This fact illustrates why social distancing and proper hygiene is so important if we are to get the situation under control. The high number of deaths due to Covid-19 in UK care-homes is a tragedy.

Earlier this week, government sources gave hints that there would likely be a lifting of some of the lockdown measures announced this weekend, and some hints were given as to what these might be. The mainstream press had a field day. Headlines were written in a way that all but implied that the lockdown would be coming to an end. This, along with the VE Day holiday seems to have resulted in a considerable number of people suddenly relaxing their commitment to the lockdown rules to hold street parties. While many of these street parties were clearly described as being held in such a way as to maintain social distancing rules, it has become quickly apparent that this fell through in many cases with people mingling together like the virus has gone away. I’ve seen footage online of people having group singalongs and even a whole street of residents performing the conga. While they did appear to be two metres apart, I’m not sure this constitutes a necessary activity, even if it was 75-years since the war ended.

My fear is that we will now see a spike in infections in the coming weeks, just as things were starting to get a little better. I can only hope that more WWII veterans (and indeed anyone else) does not become infected or killed by this virus as a consequence of people’s desire to get out and celebrate. It will be a terribly irony if further survivors of WWII lose their lives as a result of people celebrating the end of it.

I don’t really have a picture to illustrate the words in my post, so here’s another from my pre-pandemic outing to Magpie Mine.

Stay safe everyone.

Track, puddle and mine remains

Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100.

Taken on 16 March 2020

Film photography · Medium Format · Photography

Focusing fun

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I went for a walk before work again this morning and shot a few more frames with the Bronica.

One of the things I always find a little tricky with medium format cameras is focusing – specifically those with focusing screens as opposed to rangefinders. I find it easy to get the focus looking good on the screen at initial glance, and for medium / long / infinity distances, especially at smaller apertures, that’s usually fine. But when it comes to close subjects, particularly if I’m shooting wide open, then it’s a different matter.

I find that I’m second guessing myself, twisting the focus ring back-and-forth by marginal amounts, never quite sute if a fraction of a degree one way or the other is the setting that will nail perfect focus on my subject. Flicking up the magnifier, squinting at split prisms and sparkling polygons of ground glass until my eyes ache. I think it stems from a number of images where I was feeling confident of my focusing only to discover later that the negs were soft in the places it mattered.

It’s not too bad with a tripod, where I usually have the gift of time to get things spot on, but on situations like today where I was shooting handheld and at wide apertures, it’s trickier (my fault for loading 100asa film I guess). Even a slight momentary sway of my body is easily enough to spoil a shot.

Will today’s shots suffer from bad focusing? I guess I’ll have to wait until I finish the roll and develop them, but I’m certainly looking forward to the days where I’ll be able to leave the house purely for photography, carry a tripod if required, and not have to bolt the attempt to make photographs onto an exercise outing.

Today’s photographs come from Magpie Mine again. If you’ve followed my blog over the fast few months, you may find the first of the three familiar – some of the compositions are very close to those I shot on the same day with my Zeiss Mess-Ikonta and a roll of 30-year expired Kodacolor Gold.

Two trees a chimney and a gate

History on a hill

Magpie Mine

Yashica Mat 124G & Fomapan 100.

Taken on 16 March 2020