The Mamiya & Me. 3rd January.

So, I own what is one of the most wonderful cameras ever made (in my opinion) a Mamiya RZ67...  but I know I could always use it more. I love shooting film, and the quality and aesthetics of the photos I take on film win hands down to the photos I take with my Nikon DSLR; but somehow I use digital more than I should do due to it's instant results and capacity for thousands of photos.

Right now I'm itching to get out with it, so I'm planning a few shoots over the next few days where I can have fun with my camera once again.

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Police Cars and Film Scans. 9th October.

Today's photo-a-day ^ ^ ^: a picture hanging in my house which I thought was a little bit interesting.

Most of today has consisted of Negative Scanning, these photos are from my early days of shooting film... they're definitely not the worst of my early-days photos, I cringe looking at the over exposed, out of focus, chemically-stained negatives, these were some of my successful ones:

Les Paul Epiphone (Mamiya RZ-67)

East Finchley Tube (Centon K-100)

Enlarged. 30th March.

This morning I was working in the darkroom on prints of the film which I shot today. I was in there with a group of other photographers, I love working in the darkroom and it's great to gain feedback on your prints an share opinions on other peoples prints! I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with traditional printing, but it is amazing when you print a perfect photograph and know that you had hand crafted it!

Mamyia. 25th March.

So recently I've been shooting with a beautiful beast of a camera, the Mamyia RZ67, it produces slightly larger than medium format negatives (6x7), so pretty great for landscape and portrait photography! I've been using this for my current project about the English and how we live, the negatives are amazing quality when scanned in and it is an exciting piece of kit to use. 

I can't lie, it is a very hefty piece of kit, especially when you have a tripod, lenses and a digital SLR to cart round... but it does make me feel like a legitimate photographer rather than someone who just sees a photo and takes a snapshot of it on their phone. Cameras like the Mamyia take time to use, they make you focus on creating the perfect shot, that's one of the reasons why I love these cameras so much.

Noel McGlinchey - Security Guard. 16th November.

This photograph is inspired by Richard Avedon's "American West" portrait series, I took a 5x4 large format technical view camera ( sinar ) into Peterborough and photographed a couple of people who I thought looked interesting, one of them was this man, Noel McGlinchey. I had stuck some white colourama against a wall to serve as a backdrop and got him to stand against it for a portrait. I love the portrait, only shame is that scratch that is on the negative due to the tray developing process. 

I took this photograph last wednesday, but I had only got round to printing it today.. so I think it does count as my daily photo as darkroom printing is a process which finalises a photograph!

Just Like Polly Chandler. 14th November.

Today I was using the 5x4 technical view camera, I asked my friend to model (Mary Tenney), and I took a couple of Polly Chandler inspired photographs. I also developed and printed this negative today, so it is actually a photograph which shows exactly what I have done today! I also have another shot which I did not get round to printing, so I'll try and upload that soon... and I have a couple of 5x4 street portraits which I need to print!

I love this photograph, and I am soooo happy with it, I am inspired to take more photographs like this.. so WATCH OUT! :D

This is the photograph I was trying to copy:

Bronica! 11th November.

So, I am shooting with this beautiful piece of image-making machinery over the weekend. It's a Bronica SQ-B and I fear that when I finish using if I am going to end up spending all of my money on one! I have a few different films to try out in it, all black and white (so I'll be developing them shortly after shooting them), I have a few different styles I want to try out with it (landscape/portrait) and I'm just generally excited about using it!

Lloyds of London in 5x4. 3rd of November.

So, today I developed the film from the 5x4 shoot I did at Lloyds of London.. and here's a quick scan from the shoot! The quality is not that great as I have a basic scanner, but looking at the negative you can really appreciate the great amount of quality that using Large Format can bring! 

5x4 Pinholes. 21st October.

Today I had a little go with 5x4 pinhole photographs! The first photograph is my shot and the second is a group photo which was exposed for 2minutes, so a little bit of motion blur! The negatives were tray developed, I was responsible for the chemical process of the negatives, they have a few marks and scratches on, but I shall try and improve my technique! I do really love pinhole work and with the 5x4 it is amazing, the angles are really wide and the depth of field is almost never ending as the aperture is f128. I look forward to experimenting further with Large Format pinhole cameras and seeing what I get!

Time for some film! 20th October.

Today I decided to go for a walk around the city and find interesting things to photograph as I have a roll of 35mm 36exp colour film in my SLR waiting to be used! So I went for a little walk in my spare time and found some rather interesting things to photograph. Some people may say that I was wasting film, as I had no real reason or purpose for my photography, I simply took photographs of things I wanted to photograph. I have still got a few exposures left, but when I get my film developed & printed I will upload the best shots :)