My blog, although I don’t see myself as a blogger but as a Photographer I will try to blog some interesting material during the weeks.
Expect at least 2 updates a week.
Some Impossible blue scans
Polaroid, which photographer (and non photographer) doesn’t love the stuff?
When Polaroid stopped making the film a lot of people were feeling bad about it, but then there was “the Impossible project” rebuilding the instant film following and materials. I think they are doing pretty good because you see the film popping up everywhere and they keep making improvements.
When I visited the store in Vienna I bought some Impossible Blue film, it was already “tricky” by then and it’s now 2 years later so to be honest I kept my fingers crossed to see if something usable would come out, but to my surprise it did, it’s not perfect but it also adds a bit to the charm I think.
Shot on a Mamiya RZ67ProII / 110mm during a session with our model Corine.
Some film scans
As you all know I love shooting film, there is something special about it.
I won’t say it’s better than digital, just different.
I do have to add that we recently switched from the Epson V750 scanner to a Reflecta MF5000 and that difference is pretty huge, I dare to say that the scans from my Mamiya RZ67ProII actually out resolves my 36MP Sony A7r but then again you can’t really compare the two, where digital is razor sharp film is very detailed but not “razor” sharp, it’s just ….. well pretty sharp. But that is judged on screen, as soon as you print it does look razor sharp and in essence that’s where it counts.
For me shooting film is that “different look” it’s a bit more organic and I love the large frame from the RZ67ProII, I use that camera also with my Leaf Credo60 but on the RZ it results in a pretty severe crop (although the Credo is actually slightly bigger than a 6×4.5). With film all that is gone and you can enjoy the huge real estate the camera gives you.
These shots were done during a shoot with Nadine on location and were shot with the RZ67ProII with a 110mm f2.8 lens (closed down because we used strobes) on FujiFilm RPII positive film. Development of the film I did at home with the appropriate E6 chemicals.
One tip if you are into film, make sure you invest in good scanning software, this makes a HUGE difference.
I’ve been using Silverfast studio for quiet some time and when I switched from the Epson software to Silverfast the difference was very noticeable, now with the Reflecta MF5000 Silverfast really shines, it’s not the fastest to learn software but if you scan in basic mode you pretty much are good from the get go, if you dive into it there is however an enormous amount of extra detail to be extracted from the files.
These files were scanned with one pass (double pass gives you a bit more dynamic range), and are straight out of the scanner, only thing changed is a slight touch up of the skin.
The eyes, the eyes !!!
Sometimes you are thinking “what can we do to spice this up”…….
Believe it or not but masks can really help to give your shoot a little bit of extra “oomph”
In this case Corine (our model) brought a what I call “Hello kinky kitty” gas mask, and I have to be honest as soon as she put it on… I loved it.
the million dollar question however is always “How do you shoot this”
One of the things I like about shooting masks is the way how it takes away the expression of the mouth and face, now one could think “that’s important right?” well yeah it is, but….. by using a mask you actually get the option to add a lot more expression on the eyes. And that’s what I really like about this, the images are actually way more intense than without the mask, eyes are indeed the mirror to the soul and the place of most expression, although normally we are more drawn towards the mouth for expression for example a laugh, a scream etc. When you take this away you can actually see how important eyes can be.
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