Some mediocre photos from my last 3 rolls of black and white…Got them developed and scanned from my good buddy Ruskidd; very nice job! Hopefully my next rolls turn out more refined. Pretty sure the first roll I shot was all out of focus.
exp Rollei 100 / Oly
The Morning After
Went down to drop off 3 rolls of b/w at the post office for ruskidd to develop. I love that fella, such a fun guy. Also found out my scanner is balls, hence the shitty quality of my photos. Will invest in a better one soon, once I exchange my doubloons for AUS dollars.
I just finished admiring a book about Saul Leiter called ‘Early Colour’. It was this amazing book of obscurely cropped and perfectly framed photos on the street. The colours are beautifully artistic and reflects his experiences in painting. I went out with my digital today due to having no more film left and tried to get some interesting compositions. I should buy some colour film soon.
Doubloons, doubloons, doubloons.
I got 2 rolls of B&W developed and it set me back an arm and a leg. This was without scanning or printing mind you. I shot on a roll of Tmax 400 and a roll of expired Rollei pan100 film. The Rollei film ended up jamming half way through rewinding and I ended up ripping the sprocket holes and prematurely opening the back to check on it, after forcing the roll into the canister. I’m so dumb ~
I’m still getting these very pigmented/spotty? images and I don’t know if it’s the lens or if it’s the scanner I have. I’m going to do some investigating tomorrow. Besides that these shots are very amateur. Played it safe, it would seem, not trying anything overly ambitious. I’m getting a lot of blur which is kind of cool and my exposures are still way off what i want. It’s safe to say shooting film is harder than a hook from Mike Tyson.
The last shot looks like I took a photo of a running ‘spoonman’ but in actual fact it was a little girl running out from under a lolly machine. How scary is it? It’s like a man made love to a spoon and through the advances in science and medicine, was able to spawn an offspring. The tall ambiguous figures in the photo also don’t help settle my mind about the matter. Spoon babies people.
exp. Rollei pan100 + Tmax 400 / Miya
My recent roll was shot on my new/old Mamiya Auto-Lux 35. She’s quite a beauty and I’ve grown a soft spot for her. Picked her up from an antique store, she shoots with a shutter speed of 500 and a fixed 48mm f/2.8 lens. Cute. It also came with a neato mosquito cover/pouch/bag thing so now i’m like super trendy amongst other film shooters :3
I really hate this film. It’s never crisp enough for my liking and handles horribly in low light. From now on i’m never touching the stuff ever again. The colours are decent I suppose, but could be better. Lucky “super-go go happy-fun fun 200 colour film is balls.
Shooting with a shutter speed of only 125 most of the time with an apeture higher than what i shoot on my digital gave me some really nice blurs. The last two are my favorite of the set. They’re really ambiguous and make the subjects less boring. Not sure if it was the camera or the way I scanned it to get the kid like that. Oh yeah, I have a negative scanner now. Saving money is always a top priority when shooting film in this day and age.
I’ve got a black and white roll in the girl now, so i’ll hopefully get to some shooting when i’m not busy.
Lucky 200 / Auto-Lux 35
Summer time brings out some really great lighting, as well as an excuse for people to wear the shortest shorts possible. Shorts that cut in to and between the fat between your pelvis and the fat that hangs off the top of your thighs. Spandex tight; latex tight even. It looks terribly uncombfertable to walk around in, especially in the heat. Perhaps, the friction of the denim/leather with the skin creates enough heat so that if they even flex a muscle they’re begin to pour like South-East Asia in monsoon season. Then again, the sweat could be some natural lubricate, flowing over their overly fake-tanned skin, gracefully maneuvering around their wast area as to work in conjunction with their need to strut and pose. Yeah, that’s probably it…
Summer brings out the best of us. Besides the guys who wear super tight short shorts, I’ve noticed that girls are wearing them too?
I have a very tight knit family. Being a big family, we all gather at Christmas time to, I suppose, appreciate all we have and who we have. We’re all comedians; my family that is. We never use to joke around that much, but in the past few years you’d think we we’re from a bad family sitcom; a chain of bad jokes and horrible puns that you can’t help but smile along with because they’re so bad. I’m not saying i’m an expert or anything though, my years of Seinfeld aren’t exactly a credible comedic resume to say anything about humour.
This one year the adults thought it’d be funny to play a prank on us kids. They have an…unorthodox sense of humour. For some reason we all had similair sized presents that year. These little boxes, so charmingly deceiving, like that bad guy from a the movie who you can’t help but go ‘damn, he’s bad, but he’s good at it.” Anyway, we opened these boxes and revealed were these lightbulb boxes. I thought to myself, “Oh cool, lighbulbs.” Looking back now why would i be happy with a new light bulb? We decided to see these bulbs and inside was another present. Now we were confused. We tor through the wrapping only to find these dull, dirt covered, harsh textured blocks of wood. Straight out of the backyard, we all laughed and it’s become one of my fondest Christmas memories to date.
Merry Christmas internet people.
Shot these on my trip to Sydney, but sadly the half of roll I shot prior to my trip didn’t come through. It’s a shame, i was looking forward to some of those shots, but that’s the serendipity of film. Not pleased with this film either, it does pretty good on nice sunny days, but even then the colours are poor. Serves me right for using strange smelling film.
Lucky(?) 200 (*Super-Happy-Go-Lucky-Film) / A-1
Strange. That’s how I describe Sydney; strange. Of course I’m accustomed to the workings of Melbourne and the demographics here, but Sydney has an odd atmosphere. Perhaps it was due to the mix of heat and rain. Trekking through the city over three days of indecisive sun and rain is always a challenge.
I find these photos sad. Perhaps not sad, maybe ‘emotive’. It could be the black and white or the sensual orchestral music playing from the french movie playing on SBS, either way there’s some strong, gloomy feeling i get from looking at this set of photos. A strange loneliness that I share with my subjects even though Sydney was such a busy city. The confused pedestrians waiting for a sign to be able to cross the road, the man lying in the middle of the park, the man walking along the empty platform whilst a sea of people await their train on another platform and lastly the man by the docks with the gulls. I could be completely wrong about these photos. Perhaps, to someone who isn’t me, they are happy candid photos of a city they know as Sydney. Who knows?
I find the photo with the man by docks completely silent. You’re forced to contemplate what he’s contemplating and empathize on his presented loneliness. Perhaps he’s not lonely? Perhaps he’s waiting for someone hence the action with his hands. Maybe it is a ‘sad’ photo. Then again, I find the photo of the dog taking a pee with an spread-legged stance, incredibly funny and cute. You decide.
*longest and wankiest post to date.
What a wonderful way to spend a Saturday. Whilst many were off filling their eardrums with loud ‘doof’ music, I was out walking in the hot sun through sharp thorns, tall grass, rocky paths and muddy grounds with a few friends. Fun right?
Exploration has never seemed so regrettable before. Sure we saw some awesome places, insanely old pieces and fragments of history that has long been forgotten in today’s ‘culture’, but walking for 3 hours in such horrible conditions with a bag full of cameras and lenses and minimal water, you tend to turn bitter.
Airports are always full of interesting people. It isn’t exactly the ideal place for children to roam around, although, I loved the airport! For one, it was always an excuse to get McDonalds or splurge on some other junk food. The best thing of all though? Was this Simpsons arcade game they had there; hours and dollars wasted away trying to defeat Kang and Kodos.
I remember I use to be so sad when relatives had to leave. Now that i’m older, it seems somewhat trivial to cry over something temporary, let alone cry in general, but as I walked around I noticed so many mixes of emotion flying around. The tearful children crying over the fact their parents were leaving or fearing having to fly on a plane, the families filled with joy to be going on a holiday, the frustration felt from those who didn’t get their way. It’s such a festival of actions, but at the same time a place that can stand completely mundane and lifeless.
Well, that was my Thursday night.
Just trying out some double exposure shots. I’m slowly wrapping my head around hot it works. ‘Till the next roll i suppose.
Kodak Gold 200 / A-1
