Zeiss

Just did some test shooting with my newly acquired Zeiss. Really love the idea of a 6x9 cm negative on 120 film. I mean my 6x6 Minolta is great, but theres something about a wider frame that i like just a bit more. This camera folds up enough to fit into your back pocket and still gives a huge neg. However the day i went out with the camera to test it, it was Shoreditch festival where a few drinks were had....... Firstly I forgot to take my lightmeter out with me (this camera was made in 1938) and the couple of light shandys i had lead me to forget about focusing for all but one of the shots (haha great photographer i am!) I guessed the exposure for them all as well as handheld them all on a grey day, So anyway the above is the best example from my test roll.

Shot it with my favorite film Rollei Retro 400s. I did an experimental development with this too. Instead of my normal 30 sec inversions of 1:50 rodinal for 15 or so minutes, i diluted it to 1:100 and left the film sitting for 1 hour with a 30 second agitation at 30 minutes in.

Pinholga!

Some more experimental photography for you now. I shot a roll of film yesterday with my pinhole converted Holga. The plastic lens has been taken off and replaced with a piece of copper with a tiny hole and a sliding shutter. Then i taped up the back of the entire thing to stop light getting into the plastic body, so it looked fairly sketchy haha. The pinhole equals something around F215, so its super small. Using 400 film in this camera on a fairly bright day, the exposure lengths aren't bad at all. I had to do a few calculations to work it out using a regular light meter. Exposures ranged from 1/4 of a second, to 3 seconds. The only thing i didn't know was the focal length, so framing was hit and miss! By the look of them, it's pretty wide...maybe 12mm equivalent or something. I was pretty surprised by how well they exposed too. I decided to use a strong development to add contrast too. The didn't turn out too bad considering there was no lens involved in making any of these! My favorite is the bottom double exposure of the tree above the canal, which was accidental haha.

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Rollei retro 400s, dev 20 degrees, 10.5 mins in rodinal. 30 second inversions.

Untitled (In the woods)

Been experimenting with some comps and different techniques. So i present my latest piece in a slightly larger version than usual so you can have a good old look!

Hampstead Heath

Went out with the Minolta at the weekend to Hampstead Heath. Shot on Rollei film, which has higher sensitivity to the red end of the spectrum which means it is near infra-red, i used a yellow filter for these shots but with a red one you get a much more pronounced IR effect. The effect which you can see here is green foliage turned much whiter than you would get with regular b+w film.The first image is actually a black and white taken from the same roll of film as the others, however i have coloured it by hand in post (which takes ages!), this actually turned out pretty great.
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Developing: 17.5 minutes in rodinal, 1:50 dilution at 20 degrees.
Shot on : Rollei retro 400s on a Minolta autocord+yellow filter.

Baishakhi Mela

Here's a few shots i developed last night but laid out randomly here. Last weekend was the Baishakhi Mela festival in Bangla Town so there's a few shots from there in here. The others are odd shots from rolls of film I've shot. A few of which turned out really nice such as the insane chain man and the oddly developed taxi.
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Nerdy bit: Shot on FP4 (120) and HP5 (35mm), developed in rodinol - 15 mins @ 1:50 and 17 mins @ 1:70 respectively. Toned in post.

Getting Medieval!

Some recent pictures taken last weekend in and around Lincoln Cathedral and Castle. One of the images you can see the small grounds of Lucy's tower where the executions took place inside the castle. Here the small headstones had only the executed persons initials on. It's also where this 'bird' came to lay. Such a death chamber. DARK!
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(Shot on Ilford Hp5+ 400, Dev - Rodinol 8 mins, 20 degrees.)

Joshua James shoot

These are a selection of scanned negs taken from my recent promo shoot with London based singer/songwriter Josh Hindley A.K.A Joshua James. Check out some tracks at - http://soundcloud.com/joshuajames.

Things are developing...

Ok, so I've finally starting developing film at home, Easy like Sunday morning! So i've been shooting mostly on film lately using my 1965 Minolta Autocord TLR, it's a beautiful camera. I've been shooting on Rollei retro 400s, Ilford XP2 and FP4. Then developing in Rodinol at 20 degrees. There's a few minor glitches with uneven development and light leaks but it turned out quite cool.
So this is what i shot at the weekend, theres a chance they may be a bit dark if your screen isnt calibrated. They were all taken in Bethnal Green/ Shoreditch in the East end of London (Eels up in side yerrrr, findin' an entrance where they can!)....