The 52 Project, Week 4&5: Wedding Edition

Wow, it's already been a month and I'm still excited about film. Something must being going right for a gearhead like me to go analog for longer he typically plays a new video game. Just before we get to the meat and potatoes of this week's post, I'm going to change the structure a bit from previous weeks. Instead of just a few images, there will be about a roll's worth of them; this is because there were four rolls shot instead of the typical one or two. Thereby, top choices were harder to make, and besides, I just love shooting weddings*.

*couple getting married must be awesome like those you'll see below ^_^

Color Division

1) Katie's Gorgeous Dress

2) Just a touch of makeup

3) Moments before the wedding.

4) The cliche bouquet shot.

5) Meet Mr. & Mrs. Tomas Menec.

6) The Radl sisters, yes, Katie has a twin.

7) Baby with a Mohawk, nuff said.

8) We were all glad to see this cake go >__<

 The color shots were a little risky, IMO, because I'd never shot in the films used. To some it's not a big deal, but I like to know exactly how a film looks in a given situation. (See Week 1 and Week 2 of The 52 Project for examples of Portra 400VC vs 400NC) I even explained to this cool couple how I'd occasionally pop a film shot during downtime of digital (filled buffer, etc.). To my complete surprise, they were ok with it! Onto the mini-critique.

Shots 1-3 are shot in Fuji Pro 800Z and 4-8 are Pro 400H. I like the look of both, however, I noticed a lot of flaring issues with the 800 speed film in a lot of the getting ready shots. Compare the grain you see in shot 1 over shots 2 & 3. The main difference? Positioning from the window/main light.  This flare doesn't appear to be a lot, but that's about a 60 degree turn away from the window. Trust me, you don't want to see what the shot into the window exposures looked like. x__X And what about the 400H? Beautiful, accurate skin tones, little grain, and fantastic exposure latitude. I shall be working with 400H much more in the future.  My only gripe about shots 4-8 is that shot 4 shows the Aquiles Heel of the Hasselblad closeup filter; excessive, excessive vignetting. Sure it's not much, but it muddles Katie's skin tone in that shot; thank goodness the focus is the bouquet.

B&W Division

10) Copy & Paste the aforementioned.

9) Simple, elegant, and outdoors!

12) During the ceremony

11) Rings in a flower, who'da thought?

13) Dancing with Dad

 Not too much going on here that couldn't have been covered with the color film. Live and learn, I guess. Overall, the B&W came out great. I shot one roll Tmax 100 and one roll Tmax 400. They were hand-developed in D-76, and came out just as envisioned. The scanning, however, is a different story. I'm getting there, but there's still a long way to go with this Epson V700. Notable traits about Tmax 100 vs 400 were that 100 seemed to pull a much wider dynamic range while the 400 tended to yeild a very narrow band of midtones that needed to be "fluffed up" in Photoshop.

Something Good: I got paid to play around with my Hasselblad, and managed to score some real keepers for the album.

Something Bad: I took a HUGE risk in playing around with film during a wedding that was supposed to be delivered digitally (though permission was granted). Also that nasty flare thing with the 800Z.

Something Learned: Millers Professional Imaging, aka MPIX, aka the best print company EVER, are rediculously fast and good at what they do. They provided me with postage paid priority mailers to deliver film in. The package was mailed 7:30am, the Monday after the wedding. Once it got to them, rush processing with FedEx overnight, I received it on Wednesday afternoon at 2:00pm, processed, proofed, scanned, cut, and sleeved.  All this for ~$10 per roll. This was a very good thing considering Katie and Tomas were leaving for the Czech Republic the next day for ceremony number two and their honeymoon. If you're reading this and thinking about adding a touch of film to your next event, seriously consider Millers. No, I don't get a kickback from them everytime you check out their site, I'm just very impressed with the speed and quality of their work, coupled with top notch customer service.

Next Week: Slowing down back to the normal posting pace, but get ready for a LOT of the same film. I just scored a ton of recently expired 120 film that's basically carrying me through to the end of The 52 Project. Oh yeah, and 4th of July pics, whew!