Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Streetwise

Tried some panning shots that day.. didn't quite get the ones i wanted but i think this one isn't too bad. Skaters@St. Mary's Cathedral.. (Ilford HP5 ISO400 with a linear polarizer filter)


The Woolworth intersection in downtown Sydney has got people crossing straight across the road and diagonally, as well. I took this during rush hour after work and it was such a busy area with so many ppl walking up and down. and yet, as i set the tripod to shoot, this sea of people parted instinctively around me. Felt like Moses really. It's amazing what you can do with a camera :) (Ilford HP5 ISO400 with a linear polarizer filter)


There seem to be a few things wrong with this shot.. but i don't know why i still like it so much. Maybe it's because it's in black & white or maybe it's because of the slight vignette but somehow, this shot looks like an old photo.. i like that :) (Ilford HP5 ISO400 with a linear polarizer filter)

McDonald's cheese burgers have got to be the saddest burgers in the world..
I'm looking at one now and i can't bring myself to photograph it to show you how sad it looks cos that would look too sad.

Even after i chuck on some extra ketchup and cheese.. it's still a small, sad little reminder of how absolutely daft it is to pay money for this sad sorry little burger... at least i had a coupon :D

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Nuff bout my burger woes. I've recently started shooting film again for my black & white photography classes. Did a roll of Ilford XP2 and recently shot some Ilford HP5 ISO400.. It was the single most frustrating thing ever to move back to film after shooting digital. I didn't realise how reliant I'd been on the fact that i can switch ISO between shots, adjust saturation & contrast settings digitally, PREVIEW, get all your exif data stored immediately (manually logging your aperture, shutter speed, etc. for every shot is very VERY annoying) and have control of your white balance. You suddenly realise that every shot you take is precious, you've got to be more creative to figure out ways of getting the results you want, and you need a load of filters (or some nifty sunglasses or coloured glass to use as fake filters).

Shooting my first roll of Ilford HP5 was such a depressing experience that i was quite reluctant to go develop it myself the next day (tho i'd been looking forward to working in the darkroom for ages). Surprisingly tho, it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. sure i had only about 8 - 10 usable shots from the 36 exposure roll but when i considered the fact that i usually only get a few good shots out of a digital CF card of 300++ shots, i felt much better. It was also kinda fun to wait and wait and wait to find out how your film turned out. Just the experience of handling your own film from shooting to developing to printing your own photos is really quite cool :D Besides, the grain you get is so lovely it's enough to make bad photos look better (sometimes - p/s: Please click on the photos above to open them in full-view in another window.. seriously, full-view it and check out the nice grainy dotty bits that the film gives, worth a look to compare it with the smoothness of the skater photo "Take|Off" that i shot on digital in my previous post :D ).

Shooting film sort of make me think twice about what i'm shooting, how i'm shooting it and whether or not i really want to shoot it. It's good in a way, you have only that many frames and you try to make all of them count for something..

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11 Comments:
Blogger Monsta said...
one likes airtime the most...

your b n w shots so emo... nice :)

Blogger Grace Tham said...
monsta: haha airtime is the shot with the most faults but i still like it.. dunno why ;p

i think the emo factor is given a boost by the grain tho.. somehow things shot on film feel more.. real and gritty and pure :)

Blogger Justin said...
a very very very technical post for a person who only likes to be the model..

haha..it made my head spin.:)

but nice shots nonetheless..like what ray said..very emo.

eheh..seems like ur having fun down in Aus.

Blogger albert said...
Film is magic. :D

Haven't tried any of the premium-sounding B&W films though; only tried an expired T-MAX 400. Shitty grain. Worse than Fujifilm ASO1600 even.

Blogger Grace Tham said...
justin: hehe sorry for the technical nonsense.. haha jsut felt like spewing it out soemtwhere *blek*

it is fun here! hehe but so busy oso with work :(

albert: on the contrary i've seen some really good stuff shot with TMax 400.. but it was a fresh roll of film :)

Anonymous Anonymous said...
wat's with the burger? LOL

Blogger Grace Tham said...
ivan: hahaha sorry bout the burger.. haha i've been eating too much McD's and i got used to the bigger aussie sizes but that particular sad little burger was so tiny that felt a bit cheated la.. *sad* i'm such a loyal customer to McDs and they cheat me with a puny burger :(

Anonymous Anonymous said...
i like the perspective of the photo! the only thing im trying to figure out is why there is no shadow of the skater..from the composition, im thinking the sun is form the top right, *unless he had SO MUCH airtime, that his shadow just was was too far away.. :)

Blogger Grace Tham said...
leon: thanks :) hehe you got it right the sun was from the top right corner towards the back of the skater (he's a lil backlit so you can see the glow of outline on the inner part of his jeans.. i shot this in the evening at about 5-6:30pm.. caught the tail end of the sunset but it was pretty much grey-ish already with just small slivers of light passing through the clouds (cloudy day).. hence the no shadow part. There wasn't enough light to cast a proper shadow on the ground. Most of the pics i shot during that time of day had little or no shadow. I was using 400 film and a very very wide aperture so it doesn't look as late in the evening as it actually was :D i like that you can fool the time of day in b/w film.. my friend shot a pic of me at night under a lamp post the other day and with the aperture round f/1.8 and 400 film, it looked like broad daylight round noon.. :D

Anonymous Anonymous said...
you should also try under and over stopping your iso setting on your camera.. eg if ur using 400, try and set ur iso manually to a 320 or even a 640.. that i think is a 1 stop -/+ the grain and all are affected.. quite cool... if you are developing it in darkroom and haven't already tried, try dodging and burning the photos.. its like the dodge & burn tool in adobe photoshop. what u do is rub the photos using ur thumb while its in the devloping chemical to make it develop more and hence make it darker.. use it to make shadows darker. :) quite dynamic.. then there is playing with food dye and so many other techics... i love being and working in a darkroom...

Blogger Grace Tham said...
leon: coolness... you have to teach me more about film la.. i'm such a newbie at darkroom O_o" any sites i can go to to get info on darkroom techniques?