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Slovakian Gypsies

Flexaret VI

About two weeks back when I was in Olomouc (pronounced Olomoats) in the Czech republic, Greg from New Zealand who worked at the Poets Corner Hostel in the past and was familiar with the town, took me to a camera shop that was seriously in favor of analogue. City's larger than Olomouc in Ireland don't have camera shops as well stocked as this one.

I bought a Flexaret VI TLR for 850 Czech crowns, about €35. I left it in my backpack, and decided not to shoot a test roll till I got back to Dublin. The production years for that camera are 1961 to 65.

The First shot I made with it, the reflection from the back of a Fiat Punto.

The optics seem to be uncoated, yet despite that there is good tonality in the negs.


Theres a wonderful dreamlike softness to the images (due to uncoated glass), more of a portrait camera to be used in the studio or fine art projects, rather than on the street.
The Viewfinder is extremely dark, which can lead to composing difficulty's but I guess thats due to some mold forming in the top lens.
Other than that, I'm more excited about using this piece of gear, than I am about a new D700 I got a while back, yes you heard me right, I'm that much of a nerd.

Xpan scans

Just got back from my three week holiday in Eastern Europe.

I thought I'd upload some old XPAN scans before I start developing and scanning my rolls from the trip.
It was only after seeing the neg come back from the lab did I realise the boy on top of the pillar is holding a Dove.

Killorgan County Kerry.

Please note these scans were done using a €170 scanner, hence the quality is lacking, but I've finally bit the bullet and have put my Nikon coolscan into repair.

I have many more images to sort through going back some month's, but I might as well get cracking on the negs from my travels. Will have my first images by the end of the week.

Jesus Matters

Spiritualism versus Commercialism.
Dublin Ireland. XPAN (single frame mode).

Ljubljana Slovenia. 35mm kodak 125xp.

Obama.

Equal

21mm Lens. Tri-x

O'Connell Street.

Ilford Delta 400, 35mm lens.

A hold Up.

Killorgan County Kerry, Ireland.
XPan in single frame mode.

In Conversation

Second photo of the week.

Photo of the Week.

A little absent of late, but here is the first of my photo of the week project.

Battles.

Some music and moving images, rather then my crappy photos for your viewing pleasure.

Kodachrome

Immortalised in Song by Simon and Garfunkel, the legendary Kodachrome slides are nearly extinct with only one lab left in the world who develops the K-14 (Dwayne's Photo in Kansas USA).

The only type of the brand left available is 35mm 64iso. Many proffesional and well known users of the film are having to switch to either e-6 process brands, negative film, or digital, I my self had to order it from abroad as it is no longer sold in Ireland. It's as rare as hens teeth to come by.
I bought some through 7dayshop.com for sheer novelty value, I heard that Steve McCurry's famous Afgan girl photo was taken with Kodachrome.
I've rarely used positive slide film, shot a roll or two of velvia, I do love the prospect of seeing your film in positive form, makes editing a hell of a lot easyer.
It costs about €8.50 a roll, which has processing and return postage included, from there you have to spend anouther €1.50 to post to Switzerland (with this lovely envelope proved by Kodak), from there they then send it to Kanas in America.
A week later you receive your slides back.
I heard a lot about it, but it is the best and most acurate colour reproduction of reality I have ever seen.
It's decline over over other brands of slide film leaves me perplexed, it's just so good. What started out as a brief experiment, to test it out, has become something that will permanently be in my arsenal as long as it's made.
These are from the test roll I put through the Leica m6.
I scanned the slide carriers on the light box, to give the touchable effect of how the slides are viewed and handled. Makes a change from moving things about on a viewing box, as opposed to digi files in Adobe bridge.
Tourist throwing up in temple bar.
A rehash of an image I took in B&W last year, I'm repeating my self too much these days.
It's a pity the boys in shadow, the poster in the background is a jockey falling off his horse. This will end up in my maybe limbo bucket.
This well end up in my interesting but requires cropping bucket. The second mans shadow is making a shape totally different from his body, a bit strange, alas I was not close enough, I don't print or use images that require significant cropping. Other wise I don't learn from the mistake.

Not that I'm boasting, but out of 36 shots, one exposure was a dud, not like anyone gives a shit anyway.

To be honest the lack of latitude in shooting chrome, is part of it's appeal, the fact that even if your 1/3 of a stop over or under your screwed, you have to nail there and then, easy for landscape photography, anouther ball game for candid on the street moments of people.
It takes the being there and then to a whole new level, your mentalitly has to be the oposite of the HDR photo manipulaters polluting the internet at the moment.

The Revenge of Neopan

I found two rolls of Neopan 1600, lying in the back of a fridge, it's a film I rarely shoot, I don't know why it has a really unique grain structure and quality to it.
Again these images are from last year, some are from March last year exactly, the kissing photos are from St Patrick's day 2008.

I'll explain some other time why I leave it so long till viewing or editing personal photos (besides I just couldn't be arsed).
Probably one of the first photos made with my 21mm Voightlander lens. I suggest full view for this one.
For some reason there were lots of Kissing photos on the roll's, must have been that time of year. Like a scene from Jacobs Ladder, that movie scared me so much when I was twelve.
I came very close to getting the crap kicked out of at this point.
They were carrying a makeshift coffin, I liked the way the boy ran into frame, the 21mm lens gets everything in.

These last two pictures are my attempt at getting an MFA, sadly it's not taken with a 10x8 view camera, therefore it can not be art.

From Last Year

Some scans from last year.


I'll always leave photos sitting for month's before I do anything with them, picky bastard I guess.

Yay for Colour.

People always say to me it's great that you shoot so much black and white film, keeping it real and traditional.
But to be honest it's more of a matter of financial necessity rather than artistic preference. It costs three times as much to shoot colour film which has to be handled in a c-41 or e-6 lab as opposed to developing your own black and white which is cheap as chips.
Believe me if I had my way I would shoot more colour .


I suppose I've shot B&W for some long colour opens up a whole new world and a way of seeing, although after a time of just using colour I'll get bored and go back to the compositionally pure world of monotone.

Besides doing experiments with colour, I'll soon just work exclusivly in the panoramic or square format of the Hasselblad. I'm so over standard rectangles.

Leicaflage

The chrome on the Leica M6 was drawing too much attention, so I decided to break out some black tape and engage in some urban camouflage.


Now that's much better the chrome was too pretty. I might even get some brown masking tape and throw it on there for good measure.