As I sit at my computer on this dark and dreary, I finally have time to reflect back at these 4x5 photos that I shot and developed.
To give you some backstory, I loaded up around 20 4x5 film holders in hopes of taking my Speed Graphex down to Georgia for my first ever flat track race that I am hoping to test my Bultaco Pursang/Astro against some of the other bikes. Motorcycles make the perfect subject for 4x5 photography because, lets face it, looking at the ground glass, focusing your image, taking a light meter reading, etc, etc. By the time your all set the action has long past!
These photos were shot on Fuji Xray film. Why x-ray? Well since I got into the hobby of large format photography I have noticed that the prices for regular film has steadily rose. In fact, for some polaroid film that I used to use it was $23 for 10 shots. Well that's not so bad, $2 a shot. Well that same film has skyrocketed to $87 for 10 shots. thats $8.70 a shot!
This Fuji X ray film is much cheaper, it comes in 8x10 sheets which is perfect for future plans of an 8x10 camera, and it is workable under a normal darkroom safelight. So I go into the darkest reaches of my basement, turn on my safelight headlamp, and cut the sheets down to 4x5 and load up the film holders. Easy as that!
Now Orthochromatic film definately has its limitations. All of these photos look very spooky and ghostly because they are not very blue light sensitive. This means that anything blue in the image appears much lighter, and everything that is red will appear much darker.
And wouldn't you know.... both of my Bultacos are BLUE!
Definately some interesting exploration here. I would love to see how this film reacts to portraiture. If anyone would be interested in sitting for me, let me know and we can set something up!
Stay tuned!
Comments
Post a Comment