Eating and Instant Film...

Music | You Wish by Nightmares on Wax

I bought myself a box of Fuji FP 100 Colour Instant Film the other day because the black and white Fuji 3000B has been discontinued. Though you can still buy it, it is difficult for me because I have been used to paying under $10 a box. The local photo shop is now selling it for $25... The colour version still can be had for about $12.50 a box, 10 exposures.

I remember in the mid 80's when Fuji came out with this film giving Kodak 669 a run for its money. The Fuji was a better product in that if gave the same typical Fuji saturated colours, rendering beautiful peel apart prints. It has probably been 25 years since I last bought this film. I never made the switch as I was used to the Polaroid product and it was also significantly cheaper.

Now as the tick tock  comes near the end, I'm getting my instant print gratification as I can. I thought about this for a bit as I could obviously shoot digital without having to spend dime and shoot til the sun goes down... I'm roughly spending a $1.25 per exposure with the colour Fuji. At this point, the black and white is costing me $2.50 per pull. I'm down to my last 4 boxes... I spend $80 on a camera that I knew would be a door stop in the next few years along with another $50 on a lens with hours of modifying time to put the 2 together... I am but a poor starving artist, and yet I go out and buy instant film, film, chemicals and spend hours to get a final image.

The satisfaction level, even with instant film exceeds what I shoot digitally. I'm not speaking about analogue vs digital debate, but I just know my soul gets fed a much more rich and satisfying meal...

Fuji 3000B Black and White Instant Film...

Music | Silent Spring by Massive Attack

This is the 3rd time shooting with the converted Polaroid Camera with the Fuji 3000B film. I love working with this combination as my results are so malleable. The rendered print itself is quite nice as is, but with the negative available, so long as it doesn't solarize, gives even more options during and after the scan process.

I am so disappointed that this film is being discontinued by Fuji. It seems I know of so many people using it, it is hard to believe that sales are not able to keep the production going...

As it is, I will be using it until I can no longer afford the film or until it is totally gone...

Sadness...


Mitsu in Kimono and Rope

Mitsu

Music | Everybody Here Wants You by Matthew Herbert & Dani Siciliano

One of the best of the best... Mitsu is a stellar model with a unique look and I am only too lucky to be able to work with her for a 2nd time. Today, without much forethought, we took a total of maybe 25 exposures. That includes 2 ambrotypes, 2 Fuji 3000B exposures (one shot did not expose) and maybe 20 digital images of which I picked 10 to process.

I honestly knew after the first photo, the first plate, I could have called it a day. I'll be posting that image later. I never had that feeling before... one exposure and be able to say, "we're done...", "That's a rap..."

I wanted to give Mitsu more to select from, even though I got what I needed. The Fuji Film, for the second pic was wonderful. I even got the negative to come out nice without solarization. I pulled the digital out because I wanted to shoot the shot below. We continued with Mitsu doing a 180. Any of those frames would look great here or anywhere else!


Mitsu's Back with Rope

Polaroid 250 Land Camera with Converted Lens

Music | Distractions by Zero 7

Great things can come out of shitty situations. I found what I thought was a very nice Polaroid 250 Land Camera, the one with a Zeiss view finder. I was pretty much guaranteed that the camera only needed a battery and I'd be good to go. Well, after getting it powered up, the shutter wasn't working properly. The issue was on the circuit board and well out of my reach to fix it. I did a little research and found I could convert the automatic camera into a fully manual one. I didn't have a lot of money for the project, but being patient on ebay, I found the combination lens and shutter I needed.

It was nice to see how another person was able to convert his 250 and go thru some trial and tribulations for me to follow. It certainly made the project go much quicker. Dremel tool, some grinders and sand paper, screw drivers and some patience was all that I needed. I probably spent a total of maybe 3 hours from start to finish.

I love this camera! The lens I got only had a max 125th shutter, but I can work with that. It opens up to f:4.7, much faster than the f:8.8 of the original lens. Seeing fall off on the Fuji 3000B prints is wonderful!!!


Polaroid 250 Land Camera with Tominon 127 mm f:4.7 lens conversion


Very first image captured by the converted Polaroid. Detail of Cain


Aimée
Having manual controls for this camera is fantastic. Since Fuji 3000B is the film of choice at this point (Fuji will stop making this film all together in the near future...), I can pretty much shoot in almost any lighting condition with the faster lens and various shutter speeds. I got a 39 - 49 step up ring for the lens and a polarizer which cuts light down -2 stops for sunny days.

Fuji and Sarah...

Music | Breathe Me by Sia

In between plates, I got to shoot more with the Polaroid and Fuji 3000B Instant film. The camera does tend towards shooting a little dark, but on camera adjustments make it easy to fix. The Fuji film developes a very sharp, contrasty image. I do get taken back to the 70's seeing the beautiful black and white print with the big white border. As nice as the print is, I'm seeing the real beauty in the negative. The scanned results, inverted to a positive renders round edges, subtle tonal range and just something uniquely beautiful.

In my excitement to scan an image, I jumped the gun and accidentally layed a partial wet negative on the scan bed. I didn't realize it until the scan was complete. Too late to totally salvage the original, I worked on the digital file to have the image reproducible.


Sarah
Needless to say, I'm heading out tomorrow to pick up another pack of film...

Au Revoir, Mon Amour

Music |

I should never say never, but it appears I have shot my last sheet of Polaroid Type 55 the other day. My good friend Tom Moratto recently found a partial box of the gold. He sold his 4x5 gear years ago, so offered me what he had left. Polaroid Type 55 was a very interesting film in that with one exposure, it gave both a positive print and a negative film at the same time. For optimum results, you usually had to expose for one or the other, but still, a fabulous combo within a product. I really believe it is one of the reasons I love Wet Plates so much. The immediacy, the imperfections and especially the borders, which I always left on for my prints.

There really is no reason not to shoot it as over time, it will go bad. My first few images I shot months ago were interesting, but for whatever reason, I only shot one or 2 exposures per sitting. The other day, I pulled out type 55 out of the drawer to shoot Aimée. It is harder this time to stop shooting, especially when the first exposure is nailed and you know it 30 seconds later. One after the other, seeing the print moments later fed us with excitement and 6 sheets later, it was gone...

55

Music | Everloving by Moby

While working with a new model, I got the chance to shoot some Polaroid Type 55 film that Tom Moratto sent me. Of course that film has been gone since 2008, but if you can manage to find it, you can buy a box of 20 sheets for upwards of $200. Tom had sold all of his 4x5 equipment and gave me the sheets he had left.

I loved going thru the motions of loading that film, delicately sliding it into the holder and even more gently, pulling up the cover to enable exposure to the film. Memories of using that film to check composition, lighting ratios and the general look of your scene brought on a great nostolgia. Besides enjoying the moment, I felt history sliding thru the rollers of the holder as it meshed chemicals to film to process the instant photo...

Nej Rose

It is no wonder I love Wet Plate... the closest procedure to get that instant photo again...