Along with the wedding that I recently photographed, I also spent a Saturday evening in an airplane hangar photographing a Bar Mitzvah. I have been to my fair share of Bar and Bat Mitzvahs in high school but this was certainly an impressive event. Taking photos of a bunch of 13 year old kids may not be the most exciting way to spend my Saturday evening but I was able to take a few noteworthy photos, featured below.
Recent Wedding Photos
This summer has been full of work, including but certainly not limited to: making a large website, product photography, event photography, and of course working in the photo studio. It is all of these things have unfortunately kept me from updating my personal work, although the work has been very rewarding. I have already photographed a couple events this summer, one of which was a wedding. I was working as the second photographer and snapped a few shots that I thought would be nice to share.
These images are un-retouched other than the conversion to black and white and raw processing.
Polaroid/ Fuji Transfer
Polaroid may basically be dead but I can still make great images with Fuji transfers. For the final assignment in Photo 2 we had to shoot a roll of 35mm slide film and have it developed. Which is sadly a very challenging proposition on short notice. Most labs in Northern NJ do not process slide film in under 1 or 2 weeks. I luckily found Tech Photo in Fairfield who could develop the film the same day! They did a great job (no scratches or anything) and were less expensive than a couple other labs I called; even the long drive for me was well worth it.
For those technical folks:
I used a Daylab Jr with Fujifilm FP-100C film because unlike the original Polaroid transfers, these can be done on dry paper. There is a lot of experimentation needed to find the right setting for each slide. This is only made more difficult because you can not see if the color balance has been dramatically shifted while trying to play with the sliders. I always found that some yellow needed to be removed so I kept that slider around 10 and the cyan and magenta sliders around 20 or 30. I also found that keeping the brightness dial one tick above (brighter) than the middle value worked pretty well since I intentionally underexposed my slides to preserve detail.
At some point when I have access to a nice scanner I will hopefully scan the slides and add them to the blog but that will have to wait for a later post. The images below are some of my favorite transfers:
Double Exposure
It is commonplace to see photo collages or layered photos thanks to the digital age. It seems to me that the art of making double exposures both in camera and through sandwiched negatives has been lost. While I was working at SF Camerawork in San Francisco, California I had opportunity to view the portfolios of many local artists. One of these artist had added texture to his photographs though a slightly different process but the idea got me thinking of how I could add another layer of interest to a rather bland photograph. I could easily sandwich some of my old negatives together to accomplish this but I decided to work solely in camera because I like a challenge and the unpredictability. That is why I shoot film after all. The photo below is an example of 2 exposures taken in camera.
First B&W 120 Negatives Processed
After the success of my first roll of color 120 film and the Polaroids from my Hasselblad I decided to buy some B&W film and shoot it in place of 35mm for class and personal projects since I have access to a free darkroom. This is the contact sheet that I printed, I wanted to post this now instead of waiting until I had made full prints to emphasize my excitement surrounding the usage of my Hassy and the amazing photos it takes. Nothing beats the smoothness of the prints and relative ease of use. I am sure that I would get even better prints if I was using a 4×5 or 8×10 camera but I have no intention of lugging one of those around. I also have no intention of wasting thousands of dollars on a medium format digital back when film is still plentiful, cheap, and beautiful.
High Speed Photography
This weekend was the first time that I attempted high speed photography. I have been looking into the idea for a long time but most ways to take high speed photography require homemade or very expensive pre-built audio/ laser sensors. Carter Kegelman had a great alternative, Pocket Wizards, which would trigger both the flash and camera to freeze the action. We used Nikon flash units connected to Pocket Wizards and a TTL cable with the flash units turned down and placed very close to the glass so they could fire repeatedly. I used my camera to take stills for the time-lapse clip showing our setup and high speed photography success.
UPDATE: If you want another way to take high speed photographs take a look at some awesome work by Chase Jarvis.
UPDATE: You can read more about the technical details and view more photos on Carter Kegelman’s Blog.
First Hasselblad Prints
After I finally got my Polaroid back working with the Hasselblad I was excited to see the results of the film I had dropped off at the lab. These are just a few of the scans that I got back. I look forward to processing more film and editing these photos for printing.
BCC Gallery Opening
This past Tuesday I attended the opening of the Student Show at BCC. The show featured over 100 student artists and covered every inch of the wall space in the gallery. The 9 matted B&W images in the photo below are my submission.
