Fun With Film
I make my living with state-of-the-art digital cameras but lately I have felt myself missing the experience of shooting on film with my old mechanical cameras. I still have every camera I’ve ever owned and recently I dusted off a couple of them and put them back into service. I have started to shoot again with a select few of my old favorites. Specifically they are a couple of Polaroid bodies, a 35mm SLR and a medium format TLR. This negative is from the medium format body, specifically a 1966 vintage Mamiya C33 Professional Twin Lens Reflex camera. It’s like having a reunion with a long-lost friend.
Old is New Again
I put my ancient Polaroid SX-70 back into service this week with a pack of black and white film. I have been feeling the urge to get creative with some of my old gear and this is where I started. The shutter on the camera lags right now from lack of use and tends to overexpose the images. Additionally the internal mirror has years of dust accumulated on it and I deliberately did not clean it. The combination of the dirty mirror and the inaccurate shutter makes for some very unique images. They come straight out of the camera with a beautiful vintage look that otherwise would take a lot of work to create using a digital camera and software. Here are the very first usable images that I’ve produced with it since pulling it off the shelf along with a look at the camera, a work of art in its own right.
Fields of Gold
I am often asked why I have so many 50mm lenses and how do I choose which one to use for a shot. First off they are all old (70′s vintage) and really inexpensive to get. Most importantly they each have a different optical design and therefore they each render a different flavor of lens flare and bokeh from one another. When I shoot a scene in backlighting, (and all my friends know that’s what I love to do every chance I get) I pick my lens based on what I want the flare and bokeh to look like. This is a case in point. The lens I used has a damaged front element and I won’t throw it away because I know it does this when I use it right. You may find it hard to believe but there hasn’t been a single thing done to this image in post processing. This is exactly what was produced in-camera because of my lens choice, the lighting, and the subject matter.
Fun With Flowers
This a test shot I made of a setup I was putting together while helping a student in my studio the other day.
Tool Time
I was testing a light the other day and the closest thing for me to grab and put in front of the lens at the time was a pair of locking pliers that was on my desk. Turns out I really liked the look of the industrial texture and mechanical fittings on the pliers as subject matter.
The Beautiful Bane of My Existence
It’s pollen season again and as you can see in this photo that I took in some lovely storm light the other day the trees around here are full of it. I am terribly allergic to oak tree pollen so being in a place like this with a camera is a double-edged sword in my case. It can be beautiful to look at and photograph but it can also make me miserable at the same time.
