Another flying visit to London (I think this makes it 5 time in 2 months?), this time with pretty much zero free time, could barely take a single snapsh!t. Oh well!
Gotta go wide~
Tag: Christmas
Return to Covent Garden
Back in December 2011 I was in London with a Yashica-Mat 124G that I had just bought on eBay. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the Mat was actually broken & of the full 12 shots I took on that first roll only half actually came out. As far as I can tell, the rest were actually shot onto the backing paper. That roll was also the first time I ever developed a film myself, so looking back at it I was incredibly lucky to get such a nice photo of the Christmas decorations at Covent Garden, which looked even better when I rescanned it when I got my Epson V600.
I told myself that if Covent Garden had the same decorations up again, I would go down better prepared with a tripod & camera I knew worked properly. Well Christmas 2014 came around & the same decorations went up, so I hopped on the train with my RB67 Pro SD, a 5-pack of Tri-X & a nice Manfrotto tripod borrowed from work. Well, not so much hopped, as it was rather a heavy setup!
Of course ‘the best laid plans’ etc. & the shoot didn’t go quite as perfectly as I had hoped. It was quite late on a Sunday night by the time I made it out & got set up, so there were far fewer people than I had expected & the same bustling Christmassy atmosphere wasn’t really there. But conversely, because there were fewer people & the parasols were down, you could actually see from the vantage point all the way to the back of the building & the pillars across the entry. The flare from the lamps is unfortunate as well, but I’m honestly not sure how I could’ve avoided that – something to learn for the future!
I took a bunch of shots, both from the same off-centre position as 2011 & from the exact centre. None of the shots jumped out like that original 2011 shot, but there were a couple that I was relatively pleased with (click for bigger).
Narrative Clip – Week 7
Week 7, covering the second half of November & through December.
Starting off with an early RAG Week, which of course means a copious number of purple balloons!
Covent Garden at Christmas [Re-scan]
I rescanned the Covent Garden photo I took back in 2011 & originally scanned with the CanoScan 9000F, this time using the Epson V600 & producing a much better result. Whether that’s because the Epson is actually better or I simply chose more appropriate options is open to debate though!
Epson
Canon
Yashica Mat 124 G test roll (own development!)
I got a bit obsessed with the gorgeous big viewfinders of TLRs so I grabbed myself a Yashica Mat 124 G on eBay from a guy in Nepal (couldn’t quite afford a Rolleiflex…).
I shot a test roll in London back in December, hence the Christmas theme, but only just got round to developing it myself in the darkroom at the Students’ Union. It was my first time developing medium format but it went surprisingly well until I dropped the negatives onto the dirty floor whilst hanging them up to dry…
This is definitely my favorite of the bunch, taken at Covent Garden, 1 second exposure with the camera rested on the handrail.
Not sure if I like this composition as much.
I found the waist-level viewfinder to be much more stable than an eye-level viewfinder on an SLR though, so I managed this shot of the London Eye after dusk without camera shake ruining it – must’ve been 1/8th or slower.
The carousel proved more tricky though – it was too dark for a short enough exposure to freeze the movement, but I couldn’t hand hold a long enough exposure to blur it sufficiently.
These were developed in Ilfotec HC diluted 1+31, using vinegar for stop because the darkroom were out of proper stop chemical, 4 inversions per minute. I scanned them on a Canon CanoScan 9000F which my advisor has in his office & doesn’t mind me borrowing – much better results than my last solution!
I suspect the large amount of dust is largely due to me dropping them on the floor… will have to be more careful next time!
