Still-life – Steel City Snapper photography

So here’re two photos of an apple from my debut home-developed roll of HP5+.

A few weeks ago, and before the current lock-down was thought of, I bought a small home-studio setup from Amazon. It’s a fairly basic thing: essentially a collapsable plastic cube with one side open. It has a couple of strips of adjustable-brightness LEDs (powered by USB) and a set of different coloured foam inserts that can be hooked to the inside back of the cube to provide neutral backdrops. The whole thing collapses down into a neat package that can be easily stored.

It’s big enough to hold small items (such as an apple!), but not much use for anything larger. Despite that, it’s a useful thing for small still-life shots or macro – something that is of definite value now that our outdoor movements are restricted.

Both today’s images (plus the shots of the onions I featured in yesterday’s post about home developing) were shot with this setup. I used my Minolta SRT 101b and 50mm f/1.7 MD Rokkor lens. Even at closest focus some of the walls of the cube were in frame, so these shots have been cropped to remove those areas.

I’d hoped to have a second attempt at home developing this weekend, but the film I’ve shot is 120 format and the negative sleeves I’ve ordered haven’t arrived yet. Unless I manage to finish another roll of 35mm B&W before the weekend is out (something that, pre-lock-down would have posed no problem whatsoever) then I might have to defer those plans until next weekend instead. I do have a partially shot roll of Delta 400 in my Sure Shot Telemax though, so if I take that out with me if I get a chance for a walk, then maybe I’ll get enough shots to finish it off. I don’t want to just take pictures for the sake of it though.