Composition(s)

Composition in photography is often seen as a pure technical detail. Often considered as less important than framing (the art of what’s inside and outside the frame), timing (the art of choosing the decisive moment to click the shutter) or the choice of film (BW, color), composition is nonetheless capable of conveying the right message if properly mastered.

Defined as the technique to set up and arrange the elements in the frame, there are at least dozens of different compositional schemes (thirds, golden ratio, diagonal, triangular, symmetrical…) as well as ways to avoid them. Although I think I compose things more or less in the same frame regardless of the film format, I’ve always wondered whether my photos convey a different message if they are taken in 6×6, 6×7 or 35mm format. The first two formats in particular are the ones I am more interested in, as I shoot almost every portrait within these two classic options. My stats tell me that I’ve used the 6×6 format roughly 60% of the time, leaving the 6×7 to a mere 40%…but what does it mean? Can I say that I prefer the first over the second? Is it just a matter of economy (12 shots per roll vs 10 shots per roll – and considering the price of film these days, these things count!)? Let’s find out.

6×6: the elegant square

The square format is often associated with timeless elegance and harmony. Tons of ink has been used to describe the philosophical purity of its geometry and I am certainly biased when I use my 6×6 cameras to compose as if the moment was somehow solemn, even formal. That does not mean the photos are static or rigid, but in a way the format reminds me of the introspection look of Richard Avedon or Irving Penn or even Anton Corbjin photos and I feel like I owe more respect to the sitter in front of my lens.

6×7: the tension is here

A mere 15% increase in one dimension cannot make such a difference, can it? All in all, you just add a 1cm strip, how can things be so wildly different? Well in reality things are different when you choose 6×7: that extra space allows you to introduce the orientation variable (horizontal vs vertical) and to my eyes it gives the photo a touch of tension that is more controlled in 6×6. Peter Lindbergh, Herb Ritts, Araki all used the 6×7 format and I could not imagine them using anything else. To be fair I could include Avedon in this category as well for his large format 8×10 work (which is very close to the 6×7 ratio)

My philosophy (or lack thereof)

I tend to always carry two cameras for my portrait sessions, a Hasselblad for the 6×6 and either a Pentax67 or a Mamiya RZ67 for the…you guessed it…6×7 format. The reason is purely for security reasons: the 6×7 cameras are electronic marvels and as such they tend to fail and break, as it happened to me in the past; having a Hasselblad which is a total mechanical wonder is a warranty that if anything goes wrong, I can still have some shots.

That said I always felt that I used the two format to take different photos, but I never had the occasion to prove it. With that idea in mind I recently decided to take exactly the same pictures on a recent shooting in order to compare the results afterwards and see if my intuition was right. I came to the conclusion that…I don’t know! There are reasons why I sometimes choose one format over the other, but those reasons are more intuitions than weighted thoughts.

If I really need to give a post-shooting explanation, I can see that the images where I wanted to convey a sense of intimacy or something that comes from deep inside, I tend to prefer the square format (as you can see on the images on the right column) while in those cases where I want to share a bold presence I prefer the 6×7 option (as in the center column). The most clear example is probably the images on the left column, which share an almost identical framing and composition yet in the square format the model is directing all her body within herself, looking down to the hourglass, while in the 6×7 shot she is more open to the outer world.

And you, what do you think? How do you choose your format?

Manila, the city of cables

The pandemic imposed new constaints to business travels and long flights are indeed (and thankfully) more rare. Nonetheless from time to time you have to go to the other half of the planet for work and when you do you can always spare two of three hours at the beginning or the end of the day to take some pictures of a city that was never on your bucket list. So these are my impressions of Manila, a city so big you might never be able to fully explore it even in a lifetime, yet so welcoming and open to a foreign eye that you could be tempted to pretend you understand it after a few minutes.

Knowing I had very few moments, I decided to take my trustworthy Nikon FM2n (the camera I mostly enjoy when doing street photography), paired with the gorgeous Nikkor 28mm f2 (I knew I wanted to be close) and loaded with what is becoming a luxury item, the Kodak TriX400.

Manila is fundamentally split in two: the business areas of BGC and Makati (quite boring the first one, a bit more interesting the second) on one side, and all the other older areas of the city on the other side, which are a true playground for any photographer willing to engage with people. One thing that caught immediately my attention was the incredible electric cables that you see floating above your head and across every building, sort of snakes embracing concrete, wood or timber (depending on how rich your area is). My explanation is that the recurrent typhoons that sweep the region could more easily damage the electric system lying at ground or below-ground level…but I could be wrong.

Bonifacio Global City (or BGC as locals say) is a copycat of a modern USA city, similar to Manhattan but without its vibe. It is a boring array of skyscrapers and global brands where filipinos spend their time losing they identity, enjoying the 24×7 air conditioning without any environmental double thinking, and carrying their small dogs with diapers on (it was a shame I did not have the possibility to take a nice picture of this, but it is quite disturbing to be honest). While staying at the Grand Hyatt Hotel (the tallest building in the city) I noticed an interesting area with lots of small houses and a bustling life at every hour of the day and night (check the picture). Naturally curious I went down to have a look and to my surprise I realised there was no way to enter the area. I was puzzled. I came back to the hotel…went to google maps…and it seemed there was not a sigle road leading to this area which was before my eyes and was fully of cars (I later realised that altough google maps did not suggest an entry to the place while being there, the path was clearly shown if you access google maps from Europe). I did not know what to think but I was surely intrigued. It took me some days to finally discover the truth thanks to a Grab driver: he told me “there is a small entrance close to a 7Eleven…you might think that it is to get into a building but in reality it goes behind a fake foliage wall and if you follow the path you will enter the area”. And that is what I did…to finally find myself in a parallel city, hidden just few metres away from the modern BGC, full of life and honest working people, with real street food smells (and mosquitos), kids playing on the street, sari sari shops selling everything to normal people.

The next weekend I managed to spend an entire day in the northern part of the city, starting from Binondo (the biggest Chinatown in the world) and later in Intramuros. I found the first to be a fantastic area to walk around and snap candid shots of the frenzy activity going on at every corner, while the second was somehow less energetic. The shots I took are clearly taken from a stranger/tourist point of view, I guess it takes time to get used to a place like Manila and to really capture the essence of filipinos, that’s why those photos are not masterpieces by any means…although it was nice to have a glimpse of this incredible city. Probably next time I’ll do better!

Fomapan200 is gorgeously the worst film ever…let me explain.

I’ve been using film for the last two decades and I’ve developed thousands of rolls, mixed the classic developers, experimented, used all the gorgeous medium format cameras that you can dream of, so I think I might be somehow relevant in what I am about to say. Fomapan 200 is one of the most beautiful stock option yet I will never use it again in my life until its serious quality issues are fixed for good.

Why I fell in love in the first place

Let me first start by saying what is good about it: as all the products from Foma, it has a quite nostalgic and old style look that bring an interesting punch on the negatives. These are probably not the easiest to print (contrast is usually quite high), they require condenser enlargers to add the crispness you may lack from the lower resolving power (it is said Foma200 used both traditional and tabular grain but the Tmax, Delta or Acros are on another league), the real speed is usually far from the one announced on the box, and are the curliest ones when dried up. But when you consider how cheap they are, you easily forgive and want to use them.

Below are three examples of how the film can shine when all the planets are aligned. It cannot out-resolve the spectacular performances of the Zeiss Planar 80mm on the Hasselblad shot or the SMC 105mm 2.4 on the Pentax67 portrait, nonetheless you can easily think these are taken with a TriX or HP5. (the first is developed in Rodinal 1+100, the other two in XTOL 1+1).

And now, the bad news

I tried hard…I gave it another chance multiple times, but I have to face it: the quality control of the production chain of Foma film is really bad (not to say it’s completely s…it). 120 format seems the worst of it all, with scratches and emulsion inconsistencies in many cases. Large format and 135 are usually a safer bet, although tiny issues may be found from time to time.

While I think Fomapan400 and Fomapan100 are still acceptable (given the price tag), where things get nasty is with the 200 and images are simply not usable.

Full disclosure: I keep my film in the fridge as I’ve always done with other brands, and whenever I need to use it I take it out hours before loading the camera. I also tried to store it at normal temperature in a dry place, but the results were the same. I’ve used different Hasselblad backs, I loaded a Mamiya RZ67, a Pentax67 and a Pentacon Six…nothing seem to change the outcome that you will see down below. I souped my films in XTOL, D76, Rodinal in the hope of better luck. Useless to say that on all the shootings I did I also used other films, and the same chemicals, and I never had a problem whatsoever. That is why I decided to stop wasting my money.

I contacted Foma last year and they referred to a quite curious paragraph in their datasheet, namely the fact that some medium format cameras may introduce the issues due their mechanics:

FOMAPAN 200 Creative emulsion contains T-crystals providing high resolution and very low granularity of the film. Relating to this it may emerge its higher sensitivity to mechanical strain mainly during movement of the rollfilm throughout some middle-format cameras. That may result in occurrence of desensitization records on developed negative. Within first usage of FOMAPAN 200 Creative type 120 it is recommended to test its compatibility with the particular camera.

Quite honestly, I am extremely doubtful that it might be the cause, and in that case I wonder which cameras should be used as I think I am quite lucky when it comes to choosing a tool to take pictures.

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Exhibit 1

Vertical line in random positions of the frame (Pentax 67, XTOL 1+1)

Exhibit 2

Same roll as previous, vertical lines (Pentax 67, XTOL 1+1)

Exhibit 3

Same roll as previous, many straight and curved lines (Pentax 67, XTOL 1+1)

Exhibit 4

Individual lines, packed lines and rain-like marks (Hasselblad 501CM, D76 1+1)

Exhibit 5

Horizontal packed lines on the edge of the frame (Hasselblad 501CM, D76 1+1)

Exhibit 6

Same as previous (Hasselblad 501CM, D76 1+1)

Exhibit 7

Multiple rain-like marks across the frame (Pentax 67, XTOL 1+1)

Exhibit 8

Multiple rain-like marks across the frame (Pentacon Six, D76 1+1)

Exhibit 9

Multiple rain-like marks across the frame and vertical lines (Pentax 67, D76 1+1)

Exhibit 11

Heavily backlit photo showing multiple rain-like marks across the frame and vertical lines (Pentax 67, D76 1+1)

Exhibit 12

Multiple rain-like marks across the frame and vertical lines (Hasselblad 501CM, Rodinal 1+50)

Exhibit 13

Multiple rain-like marks across the frame and vertical lines (Hasselblad 501CM, Rodinal 1+50)

A thousand rolls after…

The title is a bit exaggerated as I did not reach one thousand rolls developed by me (still a couple of dozens) yet I felt it was time to take some numbers and do some analysis (all in all that is what I do for a living). Even though I’ve been playing with film photography since 2007-2008 (not to mention the fact that I’ve used film cameras as a teenager), it was only around 2013 that I stopped sending my film to a lab and decided to play with chemicals.

This post (which is boring in many ways) is just a recap of what I’ve been doing and what I’ve been drawn to…most of the times based on my artistic preferences, sometimes given the crazy price that some brands are asking these days (Kodak, Fuji…I’m talking to you!).

First things first…what do I usually shoot?

It should not be a surprise that Ilford takes the lead. There are many reasons for that: this company has a true longlasting love for the film community and has managed to keep its offering quite consistent and with a reasinable price given the high standards. At the very beginning I used to pick HP5+ as a cheap option to its main alternative TriX but with time I came to realise how perfect this film is in many ways. Very versatile, you can pull it at 200 or push it at 3200 iso, develop it in XTOL or Rodinal…the results are always fantastic. It is true that it might not have the most beautiful look but there is a reason why when I have to choose, one time out of three I pick it up.

The second most used option is another Ilford film, Delta 400. Technically speaking it is far superior to the Plus series (Tabular grain vs Cubic grain) and in some cases it really shines. The look is not too cynical (as you might get with Tmax400) and the contrast is fantastic when pushed at 800 iso.

When you don’t see in the graph is why I did not shoot more of some other options…I would love to go back and use TriX (there is indeed something magic) as well as Fuji Acros 100 (in terms of beauty of tones and grain I believe the best of them all), but I can’t justify paying 2x or 3x the price of other brands. You might be fooled by the numbers of Tmax400…most of those rolls are in 35mm where I simply believe there is nothing as good as that film.

The moment all techies have been waiting for: the cameras

It is true that the photo is made by the photographer…and the look is made by the film…yet I believe the tool used is important as well. Not necessarily on the final quality, as even though there are differences between the glass of a Zeiss glass for 6×6 and a Nikkor for 35mm, this is less important than you might think. On the other hand I realise that I take different pictures with different cameras, hence the choice is not completely useless.

Again no surprise here, Hasselblad V-series cameras are the ones I would choose should I have to go to a desert island. I started with the 500CM and eventually moved to a 501CM to leverage the Acute Matte screen and better focus (I’m indeed getting older). The sound of a rewind crank is one of the sexiest sound you can hear and composing on the ground glass is pure joy (although there are better options like the screen of a Mamiya RZ67).

Recently I’ve been enjoying also the 6×7 format, especially for portrait and with vertical orientation. The Pentax 67 is not a fantastic camera but its 105mm f2.4 is probably the best lens out there. Too bad it is quite complicated to focus perfectly (that’s why the Mamiya RZ67 is reducing the gap quite quickly), I still love the combo.

In 35mm the FM2n is a pure joy to use, and while the results are often not as good as I expect (I know, being used to medium format my standards are quite high) I tend to use it quite frequently especially when traveling.

How to cook all these?

I admit I did not experiment that much when it comes to developers choice. I started with Ilford DD-X but while it was really great, I quickly abandoned it given the high price per roll. I tend to use XTOL (roughly 50% of the time) and D76 (roughly 25% of the time) almost exclusively: the first is without any doubt the best overall developer as it is cheap, extremely easy to mix, quite environment-friendly and gives excellent results with all films (expect Bergger Pancro 400 where don’t know why but D76 is way better). When I’m in the mood, I also enjoy Rodinal, especially in stand development.

Final thoughts

Well…not sure what to take from all of this? Developing film is tedious, slow, un-efficient…yet I kind of like the wait and the mechanical process…and that’s why I think I’ll keep doing it for a long time.

I did it again…this time in large format

Does buying a brand new camera in 2022 with the same technology of early 19th century make any sense? Of course not, at least no more than buying a piece of marble to create a statue when you have cheap 3D printers these days. But if you are here you already know that, although being quite at ease with technology (sometimes I forget I am a Computer Engineer), old or traditional photo gear is my weak spot!

And so here we are to discuss, or rather give you my first impressions, of the magnificent Chamonix 45F-2 I just received from China. I need to say first impressions as at the moment of this writing I still haven’t had the time to test if, and for some good reasons:

• I just came back to Paris from a long 2 months stay in Sicily and my house is in a huge mess
• I finished all my 4×5 film (and I am waiting to see whether Bergger will release again the Pancro 400 that I want to test in large format)
• I have no Linhof boards to mount my lenses (as I have them on Sinar boards right now)
• I really don’t have the time…

Waiting for a more in-depth analysis, this is what I can tell you: the camera is a pure joy to see and to handle. I am not a huge expert in large format cameras but having used a Sinar P for quite some time, and being used to go around with a Mamiya RZ67 or a Pentax67 or even my Hasselblad 501CM, this thing is LIGHT…extremely LIGHT. Entirely made of high quality woord and carbon, it is perfectly crafted and, even though you lose the micrometric adjustments of a monorail camera, I believe it will not make any difference for those like me who take portraits (landscape photographers might think otherwise).

The camera will allow me to use all the standard lenses I have (65mm and 150mm) and the ones I would probably buy in the future (210mm, maybe a 300mm) without heavy extension tubes, with a good range of movements, and most importantly a bright fresnel ground glass. I might lose the ability to micro-adjust and have extreme movements but again, for portraits, I think I might only need a couple of degrees of front rise and front tilt.

Stay tuned for more to come.

David and Goliath

Comparing brands is probably one of the worst way to excel in a given craft and most of the time it is just a tedious exercise. Debating whether a Rolex is better than a IWC, or if a Lamborghini over-performs compared to a Ferrari usually leaves the reviewer with a totally subjective conclusion; yet I must admit that the exercise is sometimes quite funny. It was quite clear in my mind that, immediately after being offered the possibility to use a Leica camera for some days during the summer, my idea was to test it against what has become my go-to camera for street candid photography.

The web is full of comparisons between the red dot rangefinder luxury brand and its Japanese robust counterpart, and most of the times it is a M6 vs FM2 battle which is exactly what we are going to explore here (you guessed it, David is the FM2 and Goliath is the M6…and if you know the history you already realised where my preference goes).

Photographers – idiots, of which there are so many – say, “Oh, if only I had a Nikon or a Leica, I could make great photographs.”
That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. It’s nothing but a matter of seeing, and thinking, and interest.

Andreas Feininger

Without further ado, let’s go to the actual outcome of my personal comparison: I will list here the aspects I’ve found worth mentioning and should be taken into account when pondering the purchase of one or the other. Practically speaking I shot two rolls of film with the Leica M6 (1 roll of Ilford Delta 100 in D76 1+1 and 1 roll of Kodak Tmax400 in XTOL 1+1) in Capo d’Orlando, Sicily (a place I know very well) and two rolls of the same type in Palermo (my birthplace). I didn’t want to shoot the same picture twice as it would have been such a boring exercise and pixel peeping is not really my thing. Regarding the two cameras, the Nikon is a FM2n (the latest model) which I almost exclusively paired with a Carl Zeiss ZF.2 35mm f2 Distagon; the Leica was a M6 TTL version (0,72x viewfinder) coupled with a Summicron-C 40mm f2 and a Voigtländer 35mm f2.5 Color Skopar.

The things I dislike on the Leica

• What am I shooting?
  There is no way to know what film is loaded as there is no way to keep a tag of the film (like pretty much all film cameras) or to see through a small window like in recent models from many brands
• Avoid wasting frames
  No lock mechanism means you can store your camera in the bag and (quite easily) click the shutter to take blank images without realising it.
• Save battery life
  You must put the lens on B mode (or avoid loading the shutter) in order to prevent the meter to work.
• 1/1000 max speed? Seriously?
  I was extremely surprised to realise the max shutter speed was 1/1000th of a second. That means is is impossible to shoot on a sunny day with fast lenses at wide aperture and with fast (or pushed) film stocks. I don’t pretend to go as high as 1/4000th as the FM2n…but 1/1000th is the same speed of my Pentax67…I don’t get it.
• What are my setting?
  There is no indication of the current aperture and shutter speed on the viewfinder.
• Should I sell my liver?
  The price is ridiculous. Nothing more to say. For a fraction of the price you can get a Voigtländer Bessa (better framelines options), or a Contax G1/G2 (with autofocus, parallax correction and incredible lenses).

The things I missed on the Leica and that I have on the Nikon

• Where is the double exposure feature?
  I used only a couple of times on the Nikon…but it is nice to know you can use it
• Long exposure?
  Unless I plug a long cable release, there is no way to avoid vibrations as a self timer is missing.

The things you must consider before buying a Leica

• Think twice before choosing a model
  Depending on your focal lengths preference (wide, normal or long lenses) you might need to choose a specific viewfinder magnification (0.58 vs 0.72 vs 0.85). But what if you like to shoot 35mm for street and do some tight portrait with a 85mm? The Leica solution is: buy two bodies!!!
• Compose with some approximation
  While rangefinder people tend to say that composition is improved, I must disagree here. It is true that you can see what is coming into the frame but the frame-lines are just an approximation of what will be in the final image (to be fair, most SLR have a 90% coverage as well but at least they don’t have any parallax error)

Where Leica shines

• Pure photography
  Shooting a Leica will put you in a hunting mode even more than a film SLR. You set your settings and start looking for patterns and framing options more than with other systems. I can see why it is so highly appreciated by street photographers
• Build quality
  Yes, the quality if fantastic. A Nikon is probably 90% as good as a Leica from this standpoint, but Leica has an edge.
• Glass quality
  I haven’t seen the mystical Leica look (but being used to Carl Zeiss glass I am probably a bit more demanding), so I simply trust the judgement of those who say that these are the best 35mm lenses money can buy (let’s put aside the 45mm f2 for the Contax G system which seems even better)

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In conclusion, I don’t think I will buy a Leica system (at least not at this price tag). The overall experience has been interesting and refreshing in its simplicity, but being used to complex DSLR well before upgrading to film, I don’t find myself lost in the settings of the FM2.

The rangefinder system is interesting for its size, but I would consider a Contax G1/G2 or a Bessa camera first as these are clearly superior bodies (and the latter can mount Leica lenses as well).

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Some images taken this summer will speak probably more than many words to show what the two cameras are capable of (at least when used by me).

Stuck for two hours under the worst thunderstorm I’ve ever experienced in Palermo, I managed to shoot this as I was having my 85mm with me (I usually mount only the 35mm or the 28mm). This would not have been possible with a Leica as critical focusing with a 0.72 magnification viewfinder and low available light would have make it really hard

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You can be stealthy even with a Nikon and a quite big glass like the Distagon 35mm f2…people don’t necessarily notice you

Pure sharpness from edge to edge, fantastic contrast…again with a Nikon camera

You can surely be stealthy with a Nikon….but with a Leica things are even better. I think I was 30 or 40cm away from the guy and I managed to check the focus with no problems without being noticed.

Another example of how easy it is to come closer. This time I also managed to find the right framing.

When you nail the focus at close distance, the bokeh you can get from those little lenses is quite nice (here the Summicron-C, the cheapest Leica lens you can buy)

San Francisco belongs to the cars

I recently spent roughly ten days in San Francisco. In reality I went there to attend a technology summit but I managed to spare some time during the weekend to explore the city a bit. I cannot really say that I was (positively) impressed by what I saw: this part of California summarise everything that could go wrong in our modern society, and it is really hard to understand how a place where the wealthiest companies decided to put their HQs can have such a high percentage of homeless and desperate people roaming the streets 24/7 like invisible ghosts.

For that reason I decided not to take many street pictures as I felt quite uncomfortable in my position of well-paid, wealthy tourist. Was it the right thing to do? I don’t know…in any case I decided to move my attention to one of the nicest aspect of the city…the cars! At every corner you can see those magnificent examples of engineering, ready to hit the road and climb the incredibly steep hills that made my feet and heels burn with pain for so many days. This is just a random collection of what I have seen:

Technical info: Nikon FM2n > Carl Zeiss Distagon 2/35 zf.2 > Tmax400 and Trix400 in D-76

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Paris Photo 2019

Probably not the best “cru” (as the French would say) but still a dream coming true for all the photography lovers out there, Paris Photo is a massive fair during November (a month already incredibly rich for those living in Paris, with Fotofever, Salon de la Photo, Saint Germain Photo Festival and tons of other initiatives around the city) that fills the huge Grand Palais with incredible works from the past and the present.

The number of things do see is so high that I still don’t understand why the exhibition opens at midday, leaving only 6 hours to go through the immense space and browsing through the masters of photography as well as new joiners and lesser knows artists. Not to mention the artists’ talks (what a joy to hear from that crazy character that is Bruce Gilden!) and the publishers boots (which call your attention – and your wallet’s content – with their new books and signing sessions).

Of course it would be impossible to do a comprehensive recap of what I have seen, so I will focus on things that I particularly loved this year (in no specific order).

Flor Garduño is a Mexican photographer I discovered a couple of years ago, one of those hidden master who are known only to few experts, despite her incredible work, especially on nudes. I was impressed by a picture of a man fishing a big fish (one of those living in the abyss) and sitting on a rock. I can’t find the same image on Internet unfortunately.

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Iromi Tsuchida, an old school Japanese photographer, had some very nice prints in BW, especially of large groups of men sitting on open air benches. This made me think that I should start considering more Japan photography as every time I stumble upon it I am quite impressed.

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Who said that you can’t cheat? This is what Gilbert Garcin must have thought when he started playing with photography, way before Photoshop was out there. These pictures are not what I am more interested into but at the same time it is a pleasure to look at the fantasy of artists like him.

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With the reprint of one of his most beautiful series on Serra Pelada, Sebastião Salgado is probably the superstar of photography these days. I don’t particularly like his recent images but the older ones are incredibly powerful, especially those depicting the gold mine workers in Brasil. The prints are out of this world when it comes to quality, probably the most beautiful I’ve seen this year (together with those from Ansel Adams).

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Not far from Salgado I felt in love with a pure masterpiece from René Groebli, a Swiss photographer which I think I’ve seen also in the Leica book Eyes Wide Open. The soft look reminds me of latter pictures from Saul Leiter but this is more melancholic and beautiful on its own.

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Entering Joel-Peter Witkin, the bad boy of American photography. I must confess I am not always at ease when I see his pictures (dead and dismembered bodies, hermaphrodite show-offs – most of the time in religious contexts…) but some are quite extraordinary. I have found two ordinary portraits which are stunning, alongside more classic images from his portfolio, printed quite big and with a nice lighting presentation. Each print now starts at 20k€…and the more blasphemous the content, the higher the price.

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The Hamiltons gallery has been, as always, the most elegant of them all. Not only they present a short selection of images (which is good to focus on them), but they also build such a diffuse, low-light environment which immediately put you in connection with the frames in front of you. Richard Avedon is always there with some fantastic prints (this year it was all about the Apollo mission astronauts (John Glenn below) in medium format 6×6 prints. Ant then two hyper-powerful prints from Helmut Newton from the series in Ramatuelle.

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Until this day I don’t know how I was not aware of Steve Schapiro‘s work. There was quite a number of incredible prints at Camera Work boot and the glow from those rich black and white pictures was very appealing to me. In particular a portrait of Samuel Beckett was on display and I think I’ve spent at least 5 minutes going up and down his face, delighted at the power of that picture (the digital version below does not give justice to the beauty of the print).

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When I though I had seen the best that you can think of in terms of printing quality, I saw some original prints from the legend…Ansel Adams. I must confess I am not a huge fan of his pictures but that does not change the fact that you cannot stand in front of his work and not realise why it is considered the highest technician of them all (with W. Eugene Smith probably). You have the impression you can touch those rocks, that grass, those trees…and that moon looking down at you above the mountains.

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I must confess I prefer BW photography, but there are some exceptions and Fred Herzog‘s work is one of my favourite artist in this category. The vibrancy of his prints is astonishing, as well as his compositions.

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Among the other artists that impressed me, I noted down Tom Arndt (Man behind a store windows, 1990), Yan Morvan (the series Bobby Sands on the Belfast riots and Blausons Noirs), a fantastic pring from Deborah Turbeville (from the Valentino collection, 1977), Louise Dahl-Wolfe (pictures taken in Tusinia in 1950), Christian Tagliavini and his hyper realistic color portraits, Nelli Palomäki (and his intimate portraits), Bastiaan Woudt.

Lastly, while browsing a photography mazagine, I noted down some other photographers to be checked afterwards…Stephan Vanfleteren, Jitske Schols, Lotte Ekkel and Paul Blanca.

Hope this little recap will give you some ideas to discover old (and new) artists out there.

Salon de la Photo 2018

I can safely say that this year I decided to go to the Salon de la Photo in Paris with a new attitude, less incline to drool over fantastic and hyper-technological gear and more curious about the print technology than the camera and lenses business. I would not be honest if I said that, all of a sudden, I was not tempted to open the wallet and buy yet another gadget, but it was not at all as in the past.

As for the printing business, I was seriously impressed by the InkJet technology and some incredible results that you can get with (relatively) low budgets. The analog print industry was totally missing, and even Ilford and Tetenal (which still propose traditional darkroom print papers) were only showing the digital products.

As for the camera gear, apart from trying the brand new Nikon Z6 and Z7 camera (no pictures though, as I didn’t have any QCD card), I focused on Sigma and Carl Zeiss for my Nikon cameras (more the second as, after recently buying the Distagon 2/35 ZF.2, I felt in love with the build quality), and on Leica for the camera bodies.

(on all the pictures that you will see, the straight out of camera is shown first and the edited version immediately after)

The Leica Q was an incredible surprise. While I am still astonished by its price and I would never buy it, I was shocked by its build quality and ergonomics. What is incredible is its manual focus mode, super precise and fast: you basically turn the focus ring and the camera immediately (digitally) focus on the viewfinder, it shows some nice red zebra lines, and as you wait for a second or two (or you click the shutter butter), the picture is taken. The lens is a fixed Summilux 28mm, making it ideal for street photography. I think the concept is not that bad anyhow, and the camera is (like the Sony Rx1R) a very efficient (and costly) backup option for rich amateurs serious professionals who need to always carry an high quality glass. Probably someone like Garry Winogrand would have buy one as he was always taking pictures at every moment of the day.

 

The SL was the camera that impressed me the least at the Leica boot (the one I absolutely loved was the S typ 007 but seems like the CF card I used was not working properly and I could not retrieve the pictures). I would not repeat what I said about the build quality (of course at the highest) but I can’t really justify buying a 35mm DSLR with a red dot. One funny thing was that the lady who was explaining the advantages of the camera to a visitor said that the SL was the only weather-sealed camera that managed to survive a tropical storm somewhere (I am quite puzzled as I can’t think that Leica can surpass Nikon and Canon in this aspect). The only lens I could try was the APO-SUMMICRON 90mm f2 aspherical…more than enough to understand why the catalog price is crazy. If the previous Q would be the ideal camera for Winogrand, I feel like the SL would be the ideal companion for someone like Steve McCurry, just because his recent move from a journalistic approach to a photoshop-biased story-teller made him a bit too pretentious.

 

 

It was then the moment to try the new marvel from Sony, the α9. Every year they improve something and there is really nothing wrong with this camera…apart the fact that it feels soul-less. This beast can destroy my little Nikon FM2n in every single area, yet I would never switch the two contenders. Who could buy such a camera today? Mmmhh…maybe Robert Capa…all in all the D-day shoot proved he really needed a solid camera!

 

 The first lens that I tried (mounted on my Nikon D810 which I used also for the other lenses I tested) was the exotic Carl Zeiss Milvus 2/135. While the Milvus line is not as beautiful externally as the previous line (which is now called Classic I think), and the focus ring is plastic (arrrrrgh), the sensation of high quality craftsmanship is there as you expect. Manual focusing with such a long focal length at high apertures if practically impossible, and this lens is clearly made for studio portraits rather than street candids.

 

The other Zeiss glass I tried was the Milvus 2/50 Macro. I was curious about its magnification capabilities and, even if I don’t think I’ll ever buy it (but I think I might consider the 1.4/50 in its Classic ZF.2 version), I though it was worth trying. Of course no surprises on its sharpness and contrast, and with such a butter-smooth focus ring and the bright optical viewfinder of the D810, nailing the focus was a piece of cake.

 

Later it was the time to pay a visit to the Sigma booth. The brand  has produced some really fine piece of glass in the last years, especially the Art series. While the 135mm f1.8 Art was clearly the most exotic piece of glass, I was particularly impressed by the 105mm f1.4 Art,a behemoth with 17 elements in 12 groups and, more incredibly, a 105mm filter size!!! I honestly would feel ashamed to go outside with such a beast, but the results are groundbreaking. Maybe too cinematic for my taste, but with a sharpness that I did not imagine possible in a 35mm lens.

 

Too bad this year Hasselblad was missing and I could not play with the H6D; hopefully next year they will come back (together with PhaseOne).

Rodica

From time to time I feel the urge to take lots of pictures and I find myself shooting very frequently and being less demanding. When on top of that I acquire a lens I’ve been wanting to try and own for a long time, every moment is the right one to go out and photograph.

During on of those lonely walk around the street of Paris I stumbled upon such an incredible character that, after taking a couple of shoots from a distance, I could not avoid stopping her and asking for a picture.

Rodica immediately mentioned she IS a model and she would not mind me taking her portrait, even though she “was not sure to have the right outfit”. It just took me less than a minute to capture some nice pictures, even tough on a couple of them I missed the focus on her eyes.

The pictures were taken using my beloved Nikon FM2n with a roll of TMAX 400 (shot at box speed) and developed in XTOL 1:1; but most importantly they were taken with the new baby on my collection, the gorgeous Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm f2 ZF2, a lens I’ve been looking for quite a long time and finally managed to buy for a very good price on eBay.

The reasons I bought this lens is that I wanted to use the 35mm focal length and, although my Nikon 28mm f2 AI-S is very similar in rendition and perspective, the myth around Carl Zeiss micro-contrast won me over and convinced me to open the wallet. The construction is of course on the highest end and manual focusing is a pure joy. I decide to shoot three rolls of film exclusively with it (two TMAX 400 and a Fomapan 400) but also took it for a ride with my Nikon D810 (the “toy” camera I use with my children). With this high megapixel beast you can really appreciate the quality of the lens: the colors are just incredible, the contrast is just right and even at f2.8 and in a backlit situation (only one stop down from max aperture) there is no cromatic aberration at all, as you can tell from my son’s picture (image taken straight out of camera).

The short minimal focus distance suggest to use it also as a poor’s man macro lens but I wanted to try the color rendition against other lenses I own. The season of figues suggested me and easy (and yummy) composition to test four lenses against each other:

• Carl Zeiss Distagon 35mm f2 ZF.2
• Nikkor 28mm f2 AI-S
• Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AI-D
• Nikkor 105mm f2.8 AF-S Macro

Can you tell which is which (answers below)?

and here a crop

1=AFD 50mm; 2=Macro 105mm; 3=Distagon 35mm; 4 = AIS 28mm; 

 

 

 

A cross processing accident

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was waiting for the development of a roll of Fuji Provia 100f from the lab and I had quite some high expectations as I knew the lighting was quite nice at the time of the shooting. It was with a huge surprise (mixed with quite some angry feelings and a desire to kill) that I realised that somehow (still trying to understand how) the guy at the counter though that I wanted the film cross-processed in C41…

Useless to argue with the lab, the colours where totally off and as much as I tried to fix it in Silverfast and Lightroom, there is still some heavy green color cast (especially on the shadows). The only good thing is that the contrast (usually quite good) has been additionally bumped while still retaining a natural look. All in all some OK images (that could have been quite nice)…next time I’ll pick up my lab more carefully.

Technical info:

• Hasselblad 501CM > Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2.8 CFE > with and without 8mm and 21mm extension tubes

Shanaëlle

Even before the actual day of the shooting I knew the experience with Shanaëlle would have been just fantastic. When you have the chance to take pictures of a professional model which, apart from a fantastic beautiful look, has a great unassuming attitude and does not take herself too seriously, you can be sure that you and your camera will be the weak component!

This time I had only 1 hour and decided to go the easy (and proven) way, opting for what is currently my preferred combo, pushed TriX and Microphen (one roll loaded in both the Hasselblad 501CM and the Pentax67). I also had a roll of Provia 100f that was about to expire and so I decided to throw it in the mix (still waiting the results from the lab).

Technical info:

• Hasselblad 501CM > Carl Zeiss Sonnar 150mm f4 CF + Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2.8 CFE > with and without 8mm and 21mm extension tubes
• Pentax 67 > S-M-C 105mm f2.4 > with and without 14mm extension tube
• Kodak Tri-X4 @640 pushed 1 stop in Ilford Microphen 1:1 

Eléonore

Shortly after shooting with Amèl I had the great luck of shooting again with a young yet marvellous model. Eléonore is a young talented student with a wonderful pair of blue eyes, coupled with a very nostalgic and somehow ethereal look that is a pure joy to look through the viewfinder of the camera.

During the almost two hours that we spent together I shot 5 rolls, mostly black and white and one color negative. The big difference is that I decided to try a new developer as my DD-X was finished, so I tried my luck with Microphen, and judging by the results I can say that it was a good bet! The tonalities and grain are very well rendered, especially on Kodak Tri-X (which I pushed one stop) and even better on the roll of Fomapan 400 (I have maybe to review the impressions of the last time I used it). Even the Portra 160 roll came out very nice, which is something quite unusual for my taste.

Technical info:

• Hasselblad 501CM > Carl Zeiss Sonnar 150mm f4 CF + Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2.8 CFE
• Pentax 67 > S-M-C 105mm f2.4 + SMC 200m f4
• Kodak Tri-X4 @640 pushed 1 stop in Ilford Microphen 1:1 + Fomapan 400 @200 in Microphen 1:1
• Fuji Neopan Acros 100 @80 in Rodinal 1:50
• Kodak Portra 160 @125

 

Amèl

Last week I had the great pleasure of spending a couple of hours with Amèl, a young and extremely easygoing girl that accepted the challenge of posing in front of my bulky, slow and old-fashioned film cameras. I met Amèl a week before the shoot just to agree on the style and plan the logistics and I was impressed not only by her busy schedule (she studies, work and plays handball…when she’s not training in taekwondo!) but also by her calm and solid temper. I do hope to shoot again with her as she has such a great potential and I think I haven’t managed to portrait her at her best.

Before shooting I though a lot about the gear and the film I wanted to use; I knew I wanted to capture her eyes as best as I could, so I decided to go the TMax way. I also threw a roll of HP5 in the mix (because it was about to expire) and one of Portra 160. As for the gear, I took both the Hassy 501CM and the Pentax67, both with two lenses, the classic normal ones (80 for the Hasselblad and 105 for the Pentax) and the telephotos (150 and 200). In retrospective I think I should have been a bit lighter and maybe opt just for the 105 in 6×7…the thing is I think I almost want to “love” the 200mm but the 105mm seems to be so far better than it is almost a no brainer (especially when coupled with a 14mm close-up adapter).

I must say that I am a bit disappointed by the look of the Tmax…I pushed it one stop in DD-X but still it lacks punch and character; at the other hand I decided to do something quite unusual with the HP5+ and soup it in Rodinal (yes, you read it right!). To my huge surprise the outcome was quite impressive…and the grain was no bigger than any normal combination (I must confess I decided to rate HP5 at 400 which I usually avoid, and the agitations I did were reeeeally careful and slow).

Technical info:

• Hasselblad 501CM > Carl Zeiss Sonnar 150mm f4 CF + Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2.8 CFE
• Pentax 67 > S-M-C 105mm f2.4 + SMC 200m f4
• Kodak TMAX 400 @640 pushed 1 stop in Ilford DD-X 1:4 + Ilford HP5+ @400 in Rodinal 1:50
• Kodak Portra 160 @125

Cronicle of a tricky TriX roll

Almost four weeks, a dozen of photo walks and a lot of Kms…that is what it took me to shoot just one roll of film this month! Let me explain: for those who haven’t noticed, in the last years I have somehow focused on an almost official personal project to shoot strangers in BW and with a medium format 6×6 camera. For quite some time I managed to be quite lucky and not really obsessed by the speed at which I found my characters, completely embracing the analog attitude that if someone doesn’t really stand out, it is not worth taking the shoot. I keep believing in what I just wrote…but all the the same my extreme lack of free time these days means that if I still want to take some pictures, I need to have luck on my side, and when this does not happen, I totally freak out!

The history of this roll of TriX started early May when I decided that it was time to go hunting again, just some weeks after having shot with a Neopan Acros. I decided to shot with the Sonnar 150mm for some quite tight headshot, which meant additional weight to the already quite challenging load of my Hasselblad 501CM. And then I started going out in the street…carving out a couple of hours here, a lunch break there, hoping to be lucky and find someone. But nothing…really nothing happened.

I spent hours and hours standing at Les Halles when a guy (not completely in full shape…either from some more booze than the average or something else) approached me and asked me about my Hassy. I was so nervous that my frame counter was still at zero that I asked him to take his portraits, and so the first three pictures were done. After three of fours walks I managed to take two street candid pictures, which came out quite nice (nothing exceptional by the way). Yet again one week of waiting and finally I bumped into a celebrity, Cédric Villani, a quite extrovert and talented mathematician who recently became famous (as if winning the Fields medal was not enough!) when he entered the political arena in France. At this stage I was quite happy with the results that I filled the roll with some shots of my son…and that was it.

The nice thing I can say about this is that I start really loving TriX, especially when exposed at 640 and developed at 800 (1 full stop push yields very nice contrast and grain – especially in DD-X and with light agitations – and overexposing by 1/3 of stop can fill up the shadows).

Technical info: Hasselblad 501CM > Carl Zeiss Sonnar 150mm f4 > Kodak TriX 400 @640 pushed 1 stop in Ilford DD-X 1:4

 

 

Pushing Portra 400

Despite my wish to improve color film photography, I am still quite not happy about the results I get (with some rare exceptions). I must confess that even though the numbers say that I’ve been shooting as many color films as BW ones, the latter give me definitely more satisfaction than the former. I think it is just because, for some reasons, I tend to finish the rolls more quickly when I work in color, which usually lead to less than perfect compositions.

I did not really have great expectations then when I loaded my Pentax 67 with a roll of Portra 400 last week. I was not really in the mood to shoot but the expiry date was approaching fast and I am not really into expired film (except for low iso BW) and so I made up my mind and went out to try my luck, this time experimenting with something I’ve never done before, that is pushing color negative. A quick research told me that Portra 400 pushed 1 stop could handle it pretty easily and so it was decided.

After a first walk where I took only a picture of my daughter and a couple of shots of a nice Citroën 2Cv (all in all I live in Paris, welcome to the stereotypes!), it was time for a second walk some days later and this time I was quite lucky. While waiting for my “preys” in Bastille I saw a couple approaching, him wearing some funny clothes and two shoes of different colors, her with a quite assuming attitude and confident look.

When I was only one picture away from finishing the roll a great character approached me, quite intrigued by the bulky, big camera (the Pentax 67 behaves almost as a magnet as the Hasselblad) and after some easy talking, I managed to ask him a portrait, which he refused with a big smile…which led me to insist by saying that if he let me shoot him, maybe one day I’ll be reach…and so he accepted!

Pushing Portra yields nice contrasty results, with quite a punch on the colors, even though grain is quite big for what I expected. I have mixed feeling about that, maybe next time I need to try pushing Portra 160 (which may help having more acceptable grain size).

Technical info: Pentax 67 > SMC 105mm f2.4 Nikon  > Kodak Portra 400 pushed 1 stop

Getting to know TMax

When I started my journey into analog photography I was used to a cynical, noise-less world of perfect (digital) images and I was immediately hooked by the authentic look of grainy pictures, even more in medium format. Dye clouds were there to speak to me and to fill the pictures with matter and meaning and I was not afraid (at all) to see them…so HP5+, FP4+, Tri-X (to a lesser extent as I came to enjoy it really only recently) and Fomapan were great companions of my photo sessions (and still are).

Recently I’ve been shooting and enjoying more and more my little Nikon Fm2n tough, not necessarily for the quality of the pictures (as good as the Nikkor lenses are, they are no match for the Carl Zeiss of my Hasselblad or the Takumar counteparts of my Pentax 67), but for the pleasure of hand holding such an elegant, light and precise tool. The smaller negative has (at least to me) more disadvantages than advantages compared to the big brother (the 120 format) and the grain of classic emulsions is just too much for my taste. When I understood this, I started using (almost exclusively) tabular emulsions in 135 format, and especially Kodak T-Max 400. TMY2 (this is the codename of the new generation T-Max 400 as opposed to the old TMY1) is quite an advanced technical film, almost perfect in all aspects (as Fuji Neopan Acros in the 100 iso category) yet it show some character that I (still) haven’t found in other similar films like Ilford Delta.

The contrast, especially when pushed to 800 (I previously pushed 2 stops but I think that was too much), is very nice and balanced, and the grain is nice and even. The impression I have is that the pictures and more politically correct than, let’s say, the Tri-X old brother (that would render the same scene with a complete different look). So far I’ve been developing only in Ilford DD-X (which most say is the equivalent of the dedicated T-Max developer) as I have read very ugly stories from those who’ve tried in Rodinal. One odd thing is that, while Kodak suggests the same development time when the film is rated at 400 or 800, I have found two different values in Massive Dev Chart. On top of that the last two rolls I shot have been overdeveloped 20% more than the Massive Dev Chart value and I think that combination yields the best results.

The following pictures have been taken in Paris, and you can tell the huge resolving power of T-Max in the portrait of my daughter (taken with a 80-200 f2.8, a fantastic lens that I don’t use too much given it’s weight).

 

Following some snapshots of the crue de la seine (including a couple of long exposure as the reciprocity failure of the emulsion is excellent, almost on par with the Neopan Acros 100), taken with the recently acquired Nikkor 28mm f2 AI-S (a very nice lens in its own).

Camera Porn 2017

After many years I had the possibility to indulge for a full day into pure camera drooling and technical tests at the Salon de la Photo in Paris. In recent years my obsession for the latest and best photography gear has been fading away, especially since I started being fascinated by the pure magic of film, yet I kind of like to see what can be realised these days with such (expensive) toys.

The first camera I tried right away was the much rumoured Nikon D850, the latest Mpixel monster that recently received the highest score by the DxO company. Just to make things even more crazy, the camera came with an astounding piece of glass, the Nikkor 105mm f1.4, a portrait monster in its own class. Despite all the rings and bells, and even though the pictures came out fundamentally perfect, I can’t say I felt in love with it. Something is too cynical about those files and while I can clearly see how most people will love its perfection, I don’t think I might actually “enjoy” shooting with it.

 

A somehow similar evaluation can be done for the Nikon D810, the “old” sibling of the latest D850. Technical tests basically prove that those two camera are really similar, with the latest model having “only” 1 stop of noise advantage (and a dozen of useless frills and bells that I don’t even remember). That said, I somehow felt less scared by the D810, maybe because I knew that its rapidly lowering price is making it an interesting deal. The photos I took are not perfectly in focus (or maybe it’s just that with so many Mpixel, using a telephoto beast like the 500mm f4 simply make it impossible to have tack sharp pictures) yet they show the incredible way the noise is handled even at Iso 10000

 

The Fujifilm X-Pro2 with the 56mm f1.2 was the camera that surprised me the most. I honestly don’t think that I would be able to tell a picture taken with it apart from another taken with a full frame camera. The colors straight out of the camera are really nice, the out-of-focus area is very very nice and the overall feeling is excellent (even though I am not a passionate of rangefinder cameras).

Sticking with Fujifilm, the next camera that impressed me was the medium format GFX 50S, a 51MPixel robust and high quality product that produces very nice and balanced pictures. In reality the sensor has a “small” medium format size (especially if compared to the big brothers like Phase One and the Hasselblad 6D series) but in any case the outcome is remarkable.

 

The last camera I tried, or at least the last worth mentioning (I tried a lot of other cameras, including the pretty disappointing Canon flagship models) is the Sony α9, another high Mpixel count monster that is, on paper, as good as the Nikon D850. The pictures are very well balanced and sharp (I cannot really say if they are better or worse than Nikon’s counterpart) but what really impressed me was its hyper fast autofocus as well as the high frame rate. 

 

Tasting Athens

Athens belongs to everyone, yet is it hard to fully understand it, let alone capture its essence if you only spend two half-days of an ordinary October. My last business trip has been quite full and this time I did not have the time to squeeze my agenda to enjoy a city I’ve been wanting to discover for so long; with just the afternoon of my arrival and the morning of my flight back home, I decided to pack light and carry just the Nikon FM2n with the 85mm and the 50mm. It was the perfect occasion to challenge my street photography skills with a film camera and, while I knew that the weather was sunny and shining, I opted for two black & white rolls, a Kodak TMAX 400 and an Ilford HP5+, both pushed at 1600 as the development times are identical in DD-X 1:4.

The first thing I did was (for once) what the tourists usually do: I went to the Acropolis…but I did not take a single photo there. I started snapping pictures at the Acropolis museum though, and continued at the near Plaka area. The pictures came out pretty nice, and TMAX confirmed itself as a perfect option to enter film photography with a controlled and stable approach. The grain is very well rendered considered the 2 stops push and the shadows are rich and rarely pitch black.

Technical info: Nikon FM2n > Nikkor AF-D 85mm f1.8 > Kodak TMAX 400 pushed 2 stops > Ilford DD-X 1:4, 12m at 21*C

The second day it was time to load HP5+, an all-time favourite of mine in 120 format that I had never used in 35mm yet. The central fish and meat market was the perfect playground for testing it and, while I can clearly see how grain is more than present compared to its tabular counterpart, I must admit that I like the results very very much.

Technical info: Nikon FM2n > Nikkor AF-D 50mm f1.4 > Ilford HP5+ pushed 2 stops > Ilford DD-X 1:4, 12m at 21*C 

Bianca

Once I became a father my street portrait photography received quite a blow. While shooting film forces you to slow down, I used to shoot more in the past, at least during the summer months, but the recent holiday period saw me shooting no more than 3 rolls of BW film (Tri-X) and just 2 color ones (Portra 400 and Provia 100F). Luckily for me I took some quite beautiful pictures (at least for my taste) and, more importantly, had the chance to experiment and get more familiar with the all-time-favorite Kodak Tri-X emulsion.

I was in Capo d’Orlando and did not take a single picture for days as I did not find any interesting character…and then I saw Bianca, or I should say I saw her incredibly beautiful blue eyes. I tried my luck, stopped her without even thinking, and asked for one minute of her time (just enough to snap three shots).

Technical info: Hasselblad 500CM > Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 4/150 CF + 8mm extension tube > Tri-X at iso 640 > Ilford DD-X 1:4