Archive for the ‘travel’ Category
Ethnoworld, an artificial village
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009A couple of weeks ago I went to “Ethnomir” (Ethnoworld) – an artificial village featuring houses from various ethnicities, mostly Russian, built in some 100 km from Moscow. It’s not finished yet, but still definitely worth a visit.
There are Seqways for hire and hipsters for work.
The pictures are taken with Olympus Stylus Epic Dlx.
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Girl on film
Monday, August 24th, 2009
A couple of weeks ago I came back from my trip to England and Scotland, bringing with m not just a heap of photos and perfectlly toned legs (for the perfect shape I choose a 2-kg Hasselblad!), but also some ideas on what colour film I like, dislike and why.
Preface: I became a photographer from laziness, unwilling to put efforts into drawing after graduating from an arts school. When digital cameras came, I was happy with getting a result instantly. Now I’m switching to film for the same reason (well, plus some others). When you get to know different films’ characters, you realize which one you need for a particular case. When I shoot film, I do significantly less post-production, because the choice of film has become the pre-production stage.
I had a commissioned shoot soon after my return and did it, as usual, with my Canon 5D. I was kinda struck with how flat the digital picture was after getting used to the medium format film. Dear universe, I was a good girl, please, send me a Hasselblad (the one I used this time was borrowed).
So to the films.
The one used for the photo above is my absolute favourite. I mean, not the guy (less stable results), but the new Kodak Ektar 100. Love everything about it: the sharpness, the colour range, especially the bluish shadows, the pushability (here’s an example of Ektar 100 pushed by 2 stops up to 400).
Kodak E200 is the one I’ll never touch again. Is this what you call excellent pushability? It’s dull and characterless, period.
Kodak Portra VC 160/400 – my long-time favourite, especially for Olympus Stylus Epic Dlx (aka mju II) point-and-shoot. I love the way it gets me not just a colour-saturated picture, but makes it creatively vivid. basically, this film does half of my job, which is exactly what a lazy photographer like me needs.
On the contrary, Kodak Portra NC is so NC: absolute lack of character. However, I still believe that Portra NC can perform great on a particular subject; the problem is I haven’t found such subject yet.
Fuji Pro 400H – I haven’t understood it yet. If the greenish tones are all that differs this film from others, I’ll pass. But for the moment I hope there’s still some colour juice I can squeeze out of this one.
Fuji Pro 800z - the guy on the pic says it gives the picture some mystical shades, can you see them? Haven’t given up on this film, especially because of the ISO 800.
Fuji Provia 400X is a brightie and sharpie – but beware of its smaller colour range, typical for slides. Gives great results even on Olympus P&S. I’d call its look “glossy”.
Fuji Superia 1600 is a consumer film I used solely for its high ISO. No particular up- or downsides; plus, Olympus works good with it.
Fuji Reala 100 – pushable. Forgettable. There are other really great films, so why spending your life on ones like this?
These are all the colour films I have tried so far. As for black and white, my study is still in progress – I shoot significantly less BW.
Tags: comparison, hasselblad, medium format, mju, olympus, stylus epic dlxRelated posts
I’m beautiful, I wasn’t born to follow
Friday, August 14th, 2009In the beginning of August I went to Edinburgh, and, standing in a queue to Edinburgh Castle, I took a picture of a charismatic man in a cool lighting.
But, when I posted it on my Flickr page, a reader found out that it was Bobby Gillespie!
A thorough check on Google and further comments proved this true.
I sent the link to the picture’s Flickr page to Primal Scream’s Myspace, so, hopefully, at least their publicity manager will see it!
Tags: celebrity, hasselblad, medium format, scotland