The 52 Project, Week 33: Kittens!

In photography, like anything else, there's a time and place for everything. Some days I'm feeling intense about photography, therefore I bring out the 8x10. Other days its playing around with Polaroids. This week, though all shot on the Hasselblad, is far from being serious business.

Lauren getting a handful of cute. ^_^

A flickr friend of mine, Claygrl, said it best:

"I am not a cat fan, but I did hear a voice in my head say 'Oooh, kittens'."

Cat lover or dog lover, everyone seems to have a soft spot for adorable little kittens. Luckily for me, my parents always have a fresh batch of barn kittens lying around waiting to be photographed. They're not "crazy cat people" yet, but I often fear they are getting there. >__<

This little guy had a cold back then, he's fine now.

This weeks photos were all taken with one of my new low-light favorites, Ilford Delta 3200. This roll was hand processed in Kodak XTOL in a dilution of 1:1, to give the shadows a little extra time to come up, while keeping highlights in check.

*Insert LOLCats-worthy captioning here*

So, aside from testing the film, why 3200 speed film?

Simply put, kittens, puppies, children, and all things youthful tend to move quickly, and with little regard to the fact that you want to take a picture. Once your shutter speed falls below 1/125th of a second, your chances for any sharpness in these little fuzz balls are gone. Cranking up the speed of your film, on top of whipping out some fast glass, is really the only way to stop them right in their tracks. And considering the time of day these shots were taken, about 30 minutes to sunset, being able to snag f/4 @ 1/250th of a second was pretty good!

Closeup filters + tiny kitten = always adorable

Something Good: Got to work with a cute girl, cute kittens, and got a some usable material to boot.

Something Bad: Looking at the tone curve of these images after scanning, the push development may have been a little long. The tone curve was very clumped up in the mid tones with a lot of expansion needed towards the ends. In darkroom terms, I would need to add about 1/2 grade of filtering plus extra print processing time to get the blacks and whites I wanted in the image.

Something Learned: For a 3200 speed film, Ilford Delta has some really nice grain! Upon further review, Delta films are Ilford's signature brand of "T grained" (tabular grained) emulsions. These are comaprable to Kodak TMax 100, 400, and 3200. And coupled with a developer made for push processing such as XTOL, you've got yourself a winning combination.

Next Week: New Year, new gear. Stay tuned!

The 52 Project, Week 21: The Large Format Candid

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when bored on a late September afternoon? No matter your answer, I’m positive nobody else responded,

“Take my view camera out on the streets, of course!”

I've taken to scanning 8x10 proofs, they're easier.

“Huh, this kinda looks like a candid,” one might say. Well, it most certainly IS. Here’s the long version.

Itching to see what the view camera can do with people in the picture, I loaded up the 50+ lbs. of equipment into my car, driving until I was struck by something interesting. Little did I know, that drive would be only about half a mile drive from the University of Findlay campus.

There it was! This poorly kept, icon of dilapidation just begging for an interesting photograph.

“Hmm, there’s still a little too much symmetry there for me,” I thought.

Looking down at my watch, it was 2:50pm, school was almost out. Somebody was just bound to bike/run/walk through my frame. Little had I remembered that my metal monstrosity of a camera is less than inconspicuous. >__>

Luckily, I had my handy dandy decoy tagging along with me. My first attempt at a set of subjects involved a brother and sister pair of school children. Lauren had them all but coaxed, until the little 1st grade girl, wise for her precaution, decided it would be better to not be in a picture taken by a stranger. About ten more minutes went by, and then, there he was. Overweight, wearing a cut-off shirt, and he even had his dog with him. This was it!

Removing the darkslide from the film holder, I readied myself to release the shutter. But just as my subject starts walking into the shot, he looks my way.

“What do I do? He’s looking at me!!” D8 “Quick Mat, think fast; do something, anything! Just DON’T look over at him.”

Having run out of things to do at the last second, I leaned in towards the lens, turned away, and pretended to clean the lens during the 1/15th second exposure. And there you have it, the large format candid, or as candid one can make an 8x10 camera.

Something Good: I got the shot I’d envisioned in my head, thanks to careful metering, pre-visualization, patience, and steady processing.

Something Bad: This shot took a while, again. About an hour in the field, and a little over a half hour in the darkroom; too bad the darkroom times can’t really be brought down too much.

Something Learned: It’s not impossible to go somewhere with a shot in mind, but very hard to get the shot you’re looking for before you get there. Any number of unpredictable things can happen, and it’s best to keep an open mind about what you want in the shot. If you don’t mind camping out a while, by all means, wait till the shot walks in front you; and at $10/shot, I’ve got all day. ;)

Next Week: We’re off to the races! This time capturing action with the 8x10...seriously.