From the archives

The first portrait I ever shot (with any consideration) back in 2003.  Ilford HP5 Plus with the Chinon CP-7m.

1x1x1 - Auchmithie

At the start of January I set myself a challenge.  I would pick a location on the map, set a 1 mile radius and give myself 1 hour to shoot 1 roll of film.  The idea was that I would do one location per week.  Then it started to rain.

Not entirely keen on taking any of my vintage cameras out in the deluge, I waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  Then at last the sun came out.  I loaded my Nettar with a roll of Ektar 100 and headed for Auchmithie.

The old hotel, once a youth hostel.

Looking down at the ruined harbour from the Old Coastguard
Houses.

Waves breaking on the beach.

From a roll of twelve exposures I got three that I'm reasonably happy with.  The last four shots were done in a rush as the hour was running out and I didn't take enough care over exposure.  The others are fine but compositionally lacking.  One of the things I noticed working with this camera is of course the fixed lens.  Normally this isn't a problem, you just move around until you get the framing right or abandon the idea entirely and move on.  With a time limit, however, you can't spend long clambering about trying to get things perfect.  You've got to keep moving.

I'm really looking forward to doing this again.  I'd be interested in trying this challenge with a zoom lens and see if I do any better or differently.  Unfortunately I don't have a vintage camera with a zoom lens, at least not a working one, so I'm either going to have to do some repairs or get myself back on eBay.

© Ross Bull

Wardrobe Convos with the 35B

Occasionally I do some photography for Kim and Helen over at Wardrobe Conversations, usually shooting on either my Canon 600D or Helen's Panasonic G5.  So it was a nice change to try shooting some material on the Rollei 35B.  These shots weren't for use on their site, just for my own amusement.  Check out this post if you'd like to see the G5 versions.

Helen and I went for a day out in Dundee, taking a snoop round the grounds of DJCAD and also a visit to the world's smallest street market.  We managed to get some nice shots using cracked concrete and graffiti as backgrounds which always works well for fashion shoots.  The street market, organised by Richard Cook, took place on the site of one of Dundee's slums and now home to Richard's vintage spectacle shop.

 

An old roll of Klick film.

Remember Klick?  Are they still on the go?  Turns out they are, only now owned by Max Speilmann which is owned in turn by Timpson which in turn, it appears, is about to be sucked into the gargantuan folds of Tesco.  Such is the wonderful world of choice promised by free market capitalism.

Stuffed away in a box in the garage I found a few old rolls of Klick's own brand 35mm film which I'm now putting through the Rollei 35B.  Although I sent my negs away to Peak Imaging for processing and printing (good, speedy service by the way) the whole process took me back to when I first started and would get my films developed on the high street.  Having to pay for each roll of film then pay for it to be processed meant that it cost far more to take a picture back then than it does today.  Not having much money, this is probably how I ended up developing my painfully slow shooting habit.  A habit, which despite having shot on digital for the last ten years, I'm just beginning to break, or rather evolve.

I don't consider my style to be slow in the way that fine art photographers spend hours working on every minute visual and technical detail.  I spend my time looking for emotional connections to my subject matter.  The actual taking of the photograph I often do in a very fast photojournalistic manner - shoot and move on.  But I like to spend time around the people or places I'm photographing, either physically or mentally.  Then once I've ever so slowly found that emotional resonance, snap and the photo's done.

Zeiss Ikon Nettar + Ilford Pan F Plus test shots

I got these shots back from the Ilford lab a few weeks ago but have been so busy I've not had time to do anything with them.  Overall I'm pretty impressed.  I struggled with the focusing on several of the close up shots and portraits so must get onto eBay and see if I can find a suitable rangefinder.  The portraits were also all shot indoors in really gloomy lighting - not the best for a 50 ISO film such as this, so my guess if that at least some of the blurriness is down to movement.  The group shot was done with my Ziess tripod and a modern cable release.  The tripod was fine once I got it on the carpet but a slippery devil on the laminate floor.

My scanner was having trouble recognising the medium format negatives so these shots are scanned from Ilford's prints.  No editing other than cropping and rotating has been done.

Eduardo Paolozzi sculpture at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Family portrait

Canal, Wakefield

Dad painting a bird table

Coming soon....Ektar 100 colour negs

That's my first roll of Pan F Plus in about 10 years off to Ilford for processing.  Freshly loaded in the Nettar is a roll of Ektar 100 colour negative film from Kodak.  Looking forward to seeing what I can achieve with "the world's finest grain color negative film".

Rollei 35B + Ilford XP2 Super 400 test shots

These are some test shots I took earlier this year with the Rollei 35B and a roll of XP2.  It was the first time I'd shot 35mm film in a decade so a few of my exposures were a bit off...to say the least!  Still I got a few frames that I was quite happy with including some of Alyson Conway's brilliant Lemming sculptures.

It was really nice to see genuine film grain again, even if it did show up in ways I hadn't planned for.  It's also worth mentioning (in my defense!) that the film was several years out of date and had been lying in a box in the garage for who knows how long.  I've ordered up some new rolls for shooting further tests and will post the results here as soon as I have them.

Negatives were processed by Ilford then scanned into Photoshop by myself using an Epson V700.  Other than cropping and framing, these images have not been post processed.

Lemming sculpture by Alyson Conway. Seabraes Park, Dundee

Sheep's skull. Auchmithie.

Dundee from Newport-on-Tay.