Studio

The Human Form in Architecture

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I’ve been exploring indoor spaces a lot lately. In part because the weather has been incredibly cold, but also because it has been thrilling to entire a defined space and figure out ways I can use four walls to my advantage. There is something about photographing in a studio sometimes that really forces you to just work with what you have in front of you.

Photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford Pan F ISO 50 medium format film.

I am particularly happy with the light play here and the way the bright highlights were bouncing off the white roof out the window, creating heavy shadows that wrap around all the shapes in the frame. There is a fun juxtaposition here between the straight lines and sharp corners of the studio space and the curvy lines of the model.

I’m also particularly pleased that I managed to retain a lot of shadow detail even though I was working with Ilford Pan F film. Anyone who has ever worked with Ilford Pan F knows that it is very easy to get out of control with the contrast! With gentle agitation in the developing tank and mixing a slightly cold chemical bath I think I kept it under control though.

Extreme Light In The Studio

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It’s been an incredibly hot and bright summer here in the Pacific Northwest. To spare myself, and the people I work with, the pain of dealing with extreme heat I’ve been booking work in local studios instead. This has been rather fun for me as I don’t work indoors all that often and exploring the slow pace and creative freedom of being indoors has been nice.

Photographed with a Sony A7c and Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 lens.

For this particular session I booked the studio at 8am thinking I should get some nice soft morning light to work with. I was quite wrong!! Despite the early morning hour the light was harsh, bright, hot, and incredibly intense coming in through the studio windows. So really I had no choice but to try and embrace it and use it to my creative advantage.

Photographed with a Sony A7c and a Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 lens.

I exposed a few rolls of film for this scene, but to cover my bases I also figured I would expose some frames with the digital camera. I haven’t developed the rolls of film yet but I do think these digital “test shots” came out pretty cool.

Photographed with a Sony A7c and Zeiss 5mm f/1.8 lens.

There are times when I’m really impressed with the dynamic range digital cameras are capable of these days. Naturally I photographed these images in RAW format and brought up the shadow details just slightly in PhotoShop. They didn’t take much editing though which is good. Sitting on my laptop with PhotoShop opened up for hours on end is never going to be my thing.

Using the Hasselblad SWC In Small Spaces

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I’ve mentioned before on this blog how much I really like using the Hasselblad SWC. The 38mm Biogon lens is an absolute marvel and I very much appreciate the almost point and shoot nature of working with the SWC. Set your focus distance, meter the scene, and you are good to go just pointing and clicking to your hearts content.

Photograph of a nude model made with a Hasselblad SWC and Ilford Pan F ISO 50 film.

I’ve noticed a lot of camera reviewers making hay about having to “guess” the focus distance with this camera but in real world use I have found this to be a complete non-issue. Even at a wide open aperture, the depth of field is so wide I never miss out on focus.

There is one scenario where the Hasselblad SWC can be a bit of a challenging tool - working in tight spaces. To be fair, I’m not sure the SWC was really meant for small rooms. This is a landscape camera through and through. However, I’ve never been one to be contend with using a camera purely in the situations it was designed for. I recently used the Hasselblad SWC on a balcony overlooking downtown Portland that was about four feet wide and only about three feet deep. It was tight quarters for sure, but I think the Hasselblad SWC is perhaps the only camera I own that could have pulled off some good images at all.

Photograph of a nude model made with a Hasselblad SWC and Ilford Pan F ISO 50 film.

The challenge to using the SWC in small spaces is the fact that the closer you get to your subject, the more the viewfinder on the top of the camera becomes “off”. The fancy term for this would be Parallax Error. In other words, what I’m framing with the viewfinder on the top of the camera isn’t the same thing the lens is seeing just below it. When your subject is far away, the difference is minuscule and practically undetectable. The closer one gets to the subject, the more dramatic the difference is. On a tiny balcony I was forced to be only a few feet from the model meaning I was guessing my adjustments big time.

Thankfully practice can make perfect. Or as perfect as visual art can be anyway.

Olympia SM3 - Playing With Form

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I’ve mentioned on this blog several times that along with photography I also have a passion for typewriters; my Olympia SM3 being a personal favorite. I’m not a particularly good writer mind you, but I do spend a good deal of time journaling with typewriters and writing letters to friends. It is a fun way to pass the time and I think it creates more meaningful and memorable communication with people; something that is sorely lacking in this day and age of social media, memes, and texting.

Olympia SM3 photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford FP4 120 film.

Generally speaking, I have great admiration for machines dedicated to a single task. Film cameras, typewriters, a well made compass, a useful pocket knife. There is something special and admirable about a device that performs a useful function, especially when it can perform that function through mechanical engineering alone.

Seriously, I could ramble about this topic for a very long time.

Put a couple of cocktails in my stomach and you’ll find me talking endlessly on the subject. Every so often my admiration for typewriters merges together with my love of photography. It honestly isn’t really much of a leap when you look at it from a visual perspective. Since a typewriter is meant to be used by humans, the form and interface are designed to be pleasing in a physical sense, despite the fact that it is made from metal and rubber. A typewriter is an extension of your ability to communicate. Using one show flow effortlessly from your brain to your fingers to the page in front of you. It’s no accident that the lines and shape of a typewriter are similar to those of the human body.

Olympia SM3 photographed with a Hasselblad 500c/m and Ilford FP4 in 120.

Of all the typewriters in my collection the Olympia SM3 is probably my favorite. It is just engineered so well. Completely bulletproof and yet so elegant at the time. This is the typewriter that has a permanent place on my desk and it is the typewriter I use about 90% of the time.

It doesn’t hurt that it photographs beautifully.

Ilford Pan F 50 and a Figure Study

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I’ve long had a love for Ilford’s Pan F ISO 50 film stock. It captures a ton of detail and its exceedingly low grain can give images a very painterly kind of feel. It is also the film stock that I probably find the most challenging to work with and my results can be a little bit hit or miss with it sometimes.

Photographed with Ilford Pan F in medium format and a Hasselblad 500c/m

I have often found with Ilford Pan F that is it very easy to blow out the highlights and let contrast get out of control. With portraits and figure studies this is not such a great thing so I have to be very careful with my exposures and development. Often I find myself exposing the same shot, bracketing my exposure. In addition, the detail captured with Ilford Pan F can be unflattering with human skin.

Despite these challenges I like the give the film a go every so often. Usually I’ll pull out a roll after working with film stocks that are a bit easier to work with like Ilford FP4 or HP5 so if I don’t get results I like with Pan F then it is no big deal. With the image I posted here, this was exposed at the tail end of a session done in my living room. All I did was move my furniture out of the way giving me a blank wall to work with and a single strobe light to the right of the frame. It was a tight space to work in, but I think the results look rather nice.