Photography

Rooftops II

Rooftops and Mountains , Sanico, Italy
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Ilford Delta 100 in Ilfosol 3 1+14 for 4:30 at 26c. Taken with a Lecia M7 and Zeiss C-Sonnar 50mm f1.5. [Edit] As an aside, I have a equivalent image of this scene taken with the Olympus E-M5 and Panasonic 25mm f1.4 (a lens which has some connection with Leica, but which is nonetheless made by a company better known for its vacuum cleaners…). The u4/3 camera was shot at ISO 200 with a roughly equivalent aperture of f4, vs f8 on the Leica: In comparison, the digital image completely blows away […]

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Photography

Barcelona Pride 2015

Barcelona Pride 2015
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A short set a photographs from the Barcelona Pride march, 2015. The march felt smaller in scale than previous years. In part this is because the march seems strongly diluted by non-LGBT politics. I think that there were more Catalan Independence flags than rainbow flags, driven in part by a large presence from groups such as the Assemblea Nacional Catalana and ERC. There were also people promoting Animal Rights that seemed only tangentially connected to the original motivations for these marches. And perhaps that is a good thing, as it reflects the immense […]

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Photography

Film Scanning: Epson v850 Flatbed vs DSLR

Chiesa de Mornica
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A quick and dirty comparison of scanning a roll of Delta 100 film with a DSLR (a Canon 5D Mark III using the Canon 100mm macro lens) and en Epson v850 flatbed scanner. The Delta 100 was chosen as it is a very fine grained and sharp film. It was processed in Ilfosol 3 1+4 (unfortunately at a very warm 26 degrees, which meant only a 4:30 developing time). Three scans were made and normalised to 4800 DPI by upscaling in Photoshop using Bicubic Smoother: Canon: single image at f14, […]

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Photography

Besos de Barcelona

Barcelona - Migrants
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Migrants selling handbags, jewellery and selfie sticks, Rambla del Mar, Barcelona. The writing roughly translates as: With kisses I understand But sometimes not The interrupted sleep Migration is not a crime (I would be interested if anyone can more accurately translate “la duermevelas”).  

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Photography

Mountain Life

Village Furniture, Sanico, Italy
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Still-life, from the Italian Alps. This was taken with Ilford Delta 400 processed in Ilfosol 3. It seems to be marginally sharper than HP5 but otherwise very similar – I think that a lot of the more subtle differences between films (particularly tonality and differences in grain) are lost after scanning and processing digitally. As an aside, you might have noticed that almost all the films we shoot now are from Ilford. Unfortunately, it is becoming harder to find good films at a reasonable price here in Spain. And online prices for […]

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Photography

Ilford SFX200 Infrared Sensitive Film

Four People on a Mountain, Il Giumello, Italy
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Some shots from a test roll of Ilford SFX200. This is a specialised black and white film with extended infrared sensitivity. The film is interesting in that it can be used to shoot fairly conventional images, while use of red and infrared filters can produce very exaggerated effects on sky and foliage. The above image was shot in daylight with a dark-red filter. The sky and foliage (both foreground and on the distant mountains) have come out very dark compared to the people and stoney path that they are sitting alongside. I […]

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Photography

First Experiences of Developing Black and White Film

Barcelona SOS - Black and White Film Photograph
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  After much trepidation, I finally processed a set of films at home – and surprisingly, they seem to have come out reasonably well. These were all taken using Ilford HP5+ and the Zeiss Sonnar lens (the softness in the first shot is from shooting the lens wide-open with a ND filter stack – not the processing!). I expected that the most difficult part would be loading the film in to the spiral and tank. This has to be done in complete dark, and I used a large bag rather […]

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Photography

Stillness

Long exposure, black and white abstract street photograph.
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Abstract street photograph, taken while panning the camera by hand using Ilford HP5+ film. Although it was getting dark at the time, it still needed an ND filter to get a sufficiently long exposure for this picture. The next set of films will be processed at home. I think I am going to have a lot of abstract images from here on…

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Photography

Ghosts

Long exposure street photography.
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Panning hand-held low-light street photograph, taken outside of the Liceu, Barcelona. I took several shots like this, trying to get a balance between motion blur on the background with a reasonably sharp subject. I think this needs more practise, although film tends to discourage experimentation…

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