torsdag 19. mai 2016

Bonus day!


That's what I like to call them, the days you actually should have been off for work but still have to stay at home one extra day because the ship is still at sea. New tickets are now received for tomorrow, Friday. 

I snapped this one a while ago. Me and the daughter was on a short road trip and found this small but weird place to get ourselves some food. I had my very big Nikon F3P and luckily put it into some good old use. Nikkor 85mm lens. The big one with the heavy glass inside, you know.

So, what did I fill this day with then you may think?! Since everything else was ready for me to leave, as you should know. 
Well, I was in the darkroom as it happens. Printing prints on delicate paper, as I do, waisting nothing much for a change. 

I got this telephone call a few days ago, on Monday evening I think, with a question if I would like to do some snaps of their younger son as he is getting his confirmation soon. Since the next day was the 17th of May, which is a very big day over here in Norway, he would be dressed up in the same clothes as he will use on his own big day in about a week from now. 
So, I agreed to do the stuff and found a nice place outside to do the snaps. I had to track down my digital Nikon which has been sitting in my sons apartment for a year of so, and did a serious number of exposures of the young man. As you do when snapping electronically.
I have not even bothered having a very short look at them other than the usual staring at the back of the camera during the shooting session. They looked like crap, I have to admit. Over exposed crap, to be absolutely honest. I pressed a few buttons every now and then just to give an impression of knowing what I was doing, but I don't think they got any better still. I will need to have a closer look, but will bring the memory card to work. Hopefully I can get a few quiet evenings to see if something is worth saving of the huge bunch of electronic files.

I'm soon going over the sea to see these guys, and a bunch more. Here they have seated themselves in the small pub on Sumburgh Airport, Shetland on their way home a year ago or something like that. 

Luckily I also brought a Rolleiflex TLR from 1957, and a Mamiya RZ67 medium format. Real cameras, as you know by now. I snapped out the end of two films. 9 exposures on the Mamiya, and 1 single frame with the Rolleiflex. The plan was to wait until I got home from work in four weeks before I had the rolls developed, but as soon as I heard the crew change was delayed I went home from the cottage for a few hours yesterday evening to throw them into some chemicals mixed with water. The negatives looked good, so I decided to go for it and get something printed today. 
I am currently crossing fingers, hoping the boys mother like the handprinted B&W stuff to such a degree that there will not be any further questions about the digital files... 
Strange feeling it was, doing that portrait job with a digital camera. I did not recognize it, could not make the thing function the way I wanted... everything seemed to be struggling against me, until I picked up the film wasters to do what I'm used to do. Simple equipment for simple souls... that's probably the essence of the learning from yesterday, it seems. 

And the prints? They look like a million dollars, so I put my last few norwegian kroner on the bet that the mother will be going for the B&W's. 
If not, I will certainly not be asked to do some simple snaps another time... that's for sure!

The last frame of some roll of film. It used to be stuck inside that incredible noisy Canon AF35 or whatever the name printed on that thing was. I had it delivered to my post box together with the Diana F+ quite a while ago. Payed next to nothing for the two combined. I duly snapped my work bench, as you might see? Or the bench with a lot of stuff on top of it, as it actually is. Probably no room left to do anything at all around there anymore. 

3 kommentarer:

  1. Great post Roy. Always good to hear your stories about your various cameras - and all done in a good style too. It looks like you made the most of your extra day anyway. You are very brave shooting your work bench - I daren't do that...really! Well, you have me thinking now...perhaps I will, on one of the 'last frames' :)

    SvarSlett
    Svar
    1. Thanks for the comment, mate!
      The workbench used to look a lot better a few months ago, at the time my wife handed it over to me. Nowadays it looks more like a disaster area, but still is a nice place to have. I managed to use it for cutting some film etc. a few days ago, but that was more or less it.
      And I have to take the opportunity to say thank you for the last couple of prints you sent over. They look great, even though I never got the time to really study them. I received them quite late in the afternoon thursday, just before I left for work. Some nice toning work done on them, I have to say :)

      Slett
    2. You are very welcome, Roy. Glad you like them. Actually, there was no toning done on them...they came out of the Lith developer that colour. Very strong colour, as you can see. I don't know if this is normal or not, or maybe I did something wrong, since this was only the second time I used the lith...

      Slett

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