Owen Phillips

On Friday night I was invited along to the Blacklight Gallery, in the Byram Arcade, Huddersfield, for their relaunch event. The gallery is run by a friend of mine and I wanted to go along and see what it was all about and show a bit of support.

The night was coupled with a launch event for Dr. Sketchy’s Huddersfield, who provided a fantastic evening of entertainment and made it a genuinely memorable night.

I ended up doing a photoshoot with several performing artists from Dr. Sketchy’s, using several old cameras I’d brought along. Thanks are due to Penny Sweets, Tahlullah Manhattan and Trixie Passion for having the patience to put up with old manual cameras that take ages to do anything with! Also to Morning Star and Daisy Cutter of Dr. Sketchy’s, and Ben Kafanke of the Blacklight Gallery for putting on the event.

The resulting photos are below. I managed to forget my light meter, so they were exposed by guesswork!

Polaroid SX-70

All shots taken using Impossible film; PX600 Silver Shade +UV Black Frame (Poor Pod) and PX680 Colour Shade (First Flush) – using an internal ND filter attached to the top of the film pack to ensure correct exposure on the SX-70.

Yashica Mat 124

I shot one roll of Fuji Superia Xtra 400 colour film and two rolls of Kodak T-Max 400, all shot at f-3.5 using speeds between 1/15 and 1/30, dependant on guesstimated light levels, and how still I thought I could hold the camera! They were processed in Ilfosol 3 – 7 mins at 1:9 for the Fuji, and 6 mins at 1:9 for the T-Max.

Zeiss Ikon 515/2

This is the first roll I’ve had through this lovely old 1937 camera – a single roll of Kodak T-Max 400, shot at f-4.5 / 1/25th and processed in Ilfosol 3 at 1:9 for 6 minutes.

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In the market for a photoshoot? Something a bit different? I have the kit to do a unique shoot for your business that will deliver high quality and utterly unique vintage results. No pseudo-retro Instagram plugins or effects, this is the real thing. Vintage cameras, film and home development. I’ve already done a shoot for Emma’s Tea Parlour, and captured the grittiness of the Nook Beer Festival. I have another booking this week. If you’re interested, check out the selection of vintage cameras I can use to do your shoot, and give me a call!

Read about the cameras here…

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I picked up a Kodak No1 Autographic Jr in an antique shop the other day. It hails from about 1920, and for the time i suppose it was pretty advanced. It has a 4″ focal length, and focusses by moving the bellows in and out. Shutter has 1/20 and 1/50 speeds as well as a bulb mode and timed exposure mode. There are 5 aperture stops, using the old US system rather than f-stops, so I have to carry a little conversion table around to make use of a modern light meter. The lens somewhere in the region of f-8.

Anyway, after putting two rolls of 120 film through it and getting a sea of overexposure back, I had a closer look at the bellows and discovered a myriad of tiny holes. I guess fabric doesn’t fare as well over 90 years as the metal and wood (yes, wood!) from which the rest of the camera is constructed.

To seal the bellows I concocted a mixture of silicon gasket paste and black shoe polish, and painted it into all the creases and folds. The light leak situation now seemed vastly improved on inspection with a bright torch, so I tested using an expired roll of 35mm colour film… 120 film is a bit pricey to waste any more of it. I wedged the 35mm canister into the centre of the roll-film cavity using slices of wine bottle cork and made some film guides from black insulation tape to keep the film running centrally over onto the take-up spool. The result is the full width of the 35mm gets exposed, showing bits of image around the sproket-holes, which I think is quite a nice effect.

The shots are below – the camera now seems to be working much better – still a few leaks visible, and a few scratches on the surface of the negs, but not bad for a 90 year old camera….

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Emma’s is my second office. If I fancy a change of surroundings I nip round the corner and drink too much coffee whilst working in the Cafe.

I did a shoot for her last week to provide some pictures for promoting the business online, the results were appreciated, but after seeing the old-style shots of the Nook Beer Festival, she asked if I could do something a little more vintage.

The following shots were taken on a Yashica Mat 124, medium format TLR. I used Fuji Superia Xtra 400 colour film, and developed the negatives at home, cross processing the film in black and white chems. The results are soft and grainy, and Emma’s pretty happy with them!

If you’d like something similar doing for your business, please give me a call. I have a selection of old cameras of various types to give your shots the true vintage feel -giving so much more character than some phoney Instagram effect…

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The weekend just gone was the Nook’s Spring Beer Festival. I gave myself the unfortunately arduous task of documenting it on film. I felt the gritty nature of the occasion warranted a black and white film approach, as opposed to Digital.

I took a Pentax ME Super, using a 50mm f 1.7 Pentax lens, and shot using Kentmere 400 film in the ambient light available. The results are grainy, blurry, dark, scratched and mottled. I think they suit the venue and the atmosphere well!

The film was developed at home in Ilfosol 3, and the negatives scanned.

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It was a beautiful day today. I had a few new spots lined up for taking photographs, so I had a bit of an expedition with the dog and the camera…

Lots of HDR shots to show off the autumnal colours, and a few vintagey black and whites. It was a bit difficult up at Winscar to avoid the throngs from getting in the way of shots – had to choose angles carefully, lest I end up with a beautiful scene incorporating a car park chock full of cars and vans. It seems there were plenty of other people out enjoying the break in the weather!

A really productive day though. Some of these will soon be making their way into print, adorning cards and canvasses – and perhaps making their way onto the new 2012 calendar I’m putting together. Keep an eye on the shop!

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I’ve got hold of an old Polaroid 450 Land Camera – the kind with the peel-apart film – it’s really wonderful to see what it can do – especially since compatible film is still made by Fuji – at a not too extortionate price!

Interesting things happen if you keep hold of the throwaway part of the peel-apart film… It’s a bit sticky, and you have to transport it in a careful manner – but once you get it home you can tape it down onto a piece of glass and use ordinary household bleach to carefully remove all the black emulsion on the back of it… what results is basically a large format negative that can be scanned like any other.

The result of the bleaching and scrubbing leaves the edges dirty and mangled, and adds scratches, texture, and a generally rough effect that – to me anyway – looks rather wonderful.

I’m treating this like vintage digital camera! You get the small Polaroid print straight away and can use it as a preview to see how your shot will come out – then you take the negative home and work it up into something special.

Fun times! This selection were captured on holiday in Normandy this summer. More to come soon!

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Here’s a large collection of pictures from holidaying in France, and just bumbling  around locally. These are taken on an array of old cameras I’ve been collecting… The venerable SX-70, an old Lubitel 166b (cheapest of the cheap Russian made TLR), a Holga 120 TLR (even cheaper chinese toy-camera), and a nice old Yashica Mat 124.

Polaroid SX-70

Yashica Mat 124

Lubitel 166b

The Mighty Holga

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Some more images from my second pack of PX100 Silver Shade. A Mixed bag. Things are working much better indoors where the light is a lot more controllable, it seems. I’m going to continue posting all the results, good or bad. It’s a process of experimentation.

I’ve also just taken delivery of some PX600, which is faster (600 ASA as opposed to 100 ASA), and should provide some different results. The packs need customising to work with the SX-70, which is designed for the 100 speed film. Some scalpel-whittling to make them fit, and the addition of an ND filter to the top of the film pack to ensure correct exposure.

I’ve also got some of the Impossible Project’s TZ Artistic Paul Giambarba Edition colour film. Results of that to follow once I’ve finished this pack of PX100.

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I’ve just received possibly one of the most exciting birthday gifts ever. Adele has hit the jackpot and spoiled me rotten with a beautiful 1974 Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera, complete with leather case, original box and instruction book, and original-boxed accessories including tripod mount and close-up lens.

The way the camera opens up, and then closes neatly back into an oversized zippo-esque oblong of brown leather and brushed chrome, together with the satisfying clunk of the reflex mirror and the reasurring mechanical whir of the motors as it ejects the resultant print make it a joy to use and an object of fascination. They certainly don’t make things quite like this anymore.

Unfortunately, the supply of available film is a little limited. Since Polaroid went to the wall a few years ago, supplies of film became scarce. It was only when a group of artists and ex-Polaroid employees stepped in to save the world’s only Polaroid instant film manufacturing plant from the receivers’ hammers that a future of any kind was preserved for the medium. The Impossible Project, as it became known, aims to reproduce the old film and allow the format to continue on.

These shots are taken using The Impossible Project’s PX100 Silver Shade film. It’s an unpredictable old Hector, highly sensitive to light, even for a few minutes after exposure, and with evolving colours and saturation, depending on temperature and storage conditions of the print… It’s nice to experiment with, but unfortunately at £2.50 a shot it’s going to cost me…

Each pack holds 8 shots. Here’s the first. More results to follow.

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A few more shots taken recently, the landscape varying in the space of a few days between icy cold, grey and dreary, and beautiful crisp and clear sunshine.

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Having done a bit of reading up, and perusing through people’s flickr libraries, I’ve gone and got myself a grad ND filter, in an attempt to achieve the more realistic balance of exposure obtainable vie HDR, but for a single shot and without the intensive post-processing.

The weather here at the moment is spectacular – snow getting up to my armpits in places, and it’s hard going wandering around, but the landscapes are stunning. And I love breaking the pristine snow and being the first person to venture to a particular place.

Most of the following shots make use of the grad ND filter. It’s like putting sunglasses on the camera, and I love the shots where it creates massive contrast between the dark steely-blue sky, and the white of the hills.

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This year’s winter Lakes trip has been fruitful! The conditions were beautiful, and despite taking the compact camera for up in the hills, I decided it was a waste not to lug the SLR up there. I’m glad I did. The results, I think,  speak for themselves.

The weather was clear and cold while we were up there, but there was still a lot of snow on the tops. In some of the shots you can just see the top strand of a wire fence peeping above the snow, giving an indication as to the three feet or so of depth we were walking on top of.

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Not wanting to be put off by the lack of light at this time of year, I’ve been using evening dog-walks as an opportunity for light painting, suitably equipped with camera, tripod, torch and two flashguns with coloured filters.

The cemetery seems a little contrived for this sort of thing, but it was there, and added a different subject matter to woodland trees.

All these shots are taken by leaving the camera on a tripod, taking a long exposure, whilst running about lighting up things with the flashguns and waving a torch in the air. The dog seems to think it’s tremendous fun, and has nearly brought the whole thing crashing down on more than one occasion as he runs back to the camera after me…

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I’ve finally succumbed and bought myself a DSLR. Canon 450D, with the 18-55mm kit lens. The infuriating thing is that at this time of year it’s too dark in the evenings to play with it, and I’m at work all day, so can’t experiment then. Some of the following are shot on my morning dog walks, others are the result of weekend-wanderings. I’ll be mostly confined to weekend experimentation until Spring and the longer days.

Again, HDRs seem to be the order of the day. Being able to shoot in RAW mode allows me to create HDRs, to  a certain extent, from a single exposure. The shots here are a mixture of those taken from one RAW shot, and three bracketed exposures as before.

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Just spent a few days in the Lake District, enjoying the mountains and the company. The weather was bitterly cold, but the conditions were fantastic. An opportunity for more HDRs…

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Over the last few months I’ve put some more HDRs together – making the most of the wintery conditions and how they shape the landscape. The colours and clarity of winter mornings and evenings have offered some lovely views to capture – together with a particularly still day up at Digley reservoir, where the reflections were unbelievable.

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I’ve been experimenting with a few HDR techniques recently – shooting local landscapes and basically trying to get the technique down. The shots are created from three exposures of the same scene, merged together digitally to retain detail throughout the shadows, highlights and midtones. This sort of detail could never be captured in one exposure using a camera, but is much more true to what your eye sees when taking in a scene.

Many of these shots do have a slight blurriness, due to my reluctance to lug around a tripod to ensure my separate exposures match up nicely. The processing software allows you to get away with quite a lot of movement – where it falls down is where the subject has moved between the exposures, such as when shooting water, or tree branches in the breeze.

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