Seven Black and White Polaroids (and a few Color too)

November 19, 2017

Unless you have been living under a rock, you probably have seen some variant of the "Challenge your friends to post 7 Black and White photos" post floating around.

Usually, I take it upon myself to do one of these independently, but this year I was tagged by two friends to complete a week of Black and White photos. This year, however, I had a box of the new Polaroid Originals B&W film for my SX-70 to play with.

This post is a collection of the photos I posted throughout the week of November 12-November 18, 2017.

Along with the B&W film, I also had a pack of the color option as well. I find the color SX-70 film to be much harder to work with (but this current formulation seems to render color a little better than it did in the past).

Week 32 – DJ System Fail (ROLL 52!) – Kodak Portra 400

November 06, 2015

**EDIT** I completely forgot to write anything about this series. As you can tell by the title it is the official 52nd roll of the 52 roll project. I'm still going to try and finish the series through the rest of the year. But it may become a bit of a challenge.

This set was part of my testing of my DIY black background. Check out the Extra blog for more info. Cody aka System Fail saw some photos from an earlier test and wanted to be a part of the process. I gladly took a chance and shot some great photos!

Week 18a – Brianna – Kodak Portra 400

July 10, 2015

I met Brianna through Morgan (which you all should remember since she has been featured twice so far in this blog so far).

It took a good while for us to get together but when we did it was totally worth it. We kinda went into this shoot the same way I work with anyone who models for me. Its all about getting to know how someone works. Nothing too exciting or hard, it was more like "come as you are and let's make something happen". The biggest down side was once we finally were able to get together we were working on borrowed time before the sun went down. But that allowed us to work during a very special time.

It's pretty known that magic hour is amazing. Add Portra 400 to that and it's a beautiful thing. I only wish we had more time to prep a tiny bit more, but between this week and next I am pretty happy with what we got.

Development Notes:
Unicolor C41 Kit
Standard Development
Scanned and Color Corrected in Photoshop

Week 11a – The George Eastman House – Arista EDU 400

April 03, 2015

I had a chance while visiting Rochester, NY for a friend's wedding to tool around the city for a bit before the big event. One of the places I knew I had to visit was Kodak founder, George Eastman's home.

It was like something out of The Great Gatsby, and a really neat stop. The home itself is only part of the experience in going. They also maintain a few gallery spaces and a museum of sorts. If you are ever in the area I think its totally worth the trip!

And before anyone say anything, yes I realize the irony of shooting on another man's film while in the "house of Kodak".

Development Notes:
1:50 Rodinol Dilution
3.5 Minutes Development Time
4 Minutes Standard Fix Time

Week 9 – Trying to learn this color thing – Kodak 200 (Expired)

March 20, 2015

After looking at my previous color works from this year of film, I decided that after having worked in digital so long that I really didn't have a grasp on shooting in color on film. So this week's roll was specifically based around shooting a roll and trying to figure it all out.

I'm actually happy to report that I did learn a few things that I hope to be able to move forward with. Exposure for example is MUCH more important in color than it is in Black and White film. Where B&W can be adjusted in post or printing and look very natural, color can have very different casts and just look like garbage depending on if it is properly exposed, or even over/under.

(Edit: As was pointed out to me as well, shooting expired film stocks can also be the cause of strange casts. I think I may have talked about that on Week 8a's entry...but it'd be worth mentioning it here again. Thanks Aly)

None of these photos are anything mind-blowing really, but I am glad that I learned (or am still learning anyway) something.