2023 ROLL#05 – PARIS IN THE SPRING (2)

Sunday newspapers sold at the corner of the street

As the proverb says “errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum“, so here my second post with the second roll shot in Paris ( in the spring) with the Leica IIIC and its curtain problem

A bright jazz band

Of course I did no knew at the time that the infamous back curtain was lazy and that my pictures would be overexposed on the left and underexposed on the right.

Meanwhile Kuzama was painting a vertical line

I was so happy shooting away because as per my last post ( 2023 ROLL#04 – PARIS IN THE SPRING ) Paris and Leica III make for happy shooting. Particularly when a jazz band is playing at the foot of a giant Kuzama painting in the sky ( courtesy of LVMH advertising) .

Canal Saint Martin

We made a particularly long walk that day from the Seine to the Canal Saint Martin, aiming to reach la Villette ( we stopped before and turned back, that was already a 10 km plus walk).

Silence Kills

When I lived in Paris, I rarely ventures in this area, I probably did not set foot there in 20 years. For the cinema aficionados along the canal is the famous “Hotel Du Nord” from eponymous movie by Marcel Carné with Arletty.

Walk your plants

The canal seems to have become a fashionable leisure area where the young and the less young go for a stroll, a ciggie or a drink on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Particularly if the sun is out.

Rediscovering comics

.. playing pétanque, reading, lounging, studying, making music, drinking again, sunbathing, all typeof activities seems to fit along this calm water piece.

Unwilling victim of my camera

Our road ended at the “base nautique de la Villette”, visiting the park of la Vilette will be for another time.

A Vintage Citroen DS, with its vintage driver, shot with a vintage camera.

In 2023 we bring our empty bottles for recycling

The country of food (like any other country)

Next day was the last day in Paris, time for a couple of snaps like the creperie above of the other jazz band below.

A young fan

Ok I did not emphasize too much but the all the shots show signs of the curtain problem, at various level, depending on the speed of the shutter. I played a bit with Lightroom trying to balance highlights and underexposed areas, but I think as the scanner was fooled by the problem, there is just that much I can do. I think I can try to rescan some shots twice and blend… not sure there as any worthy of such work, maybe the next one…

Hyde Park Corner, London

Back in London I still had a few shots in the roll. I changed the lens for the Voigtlander Color Skopar 21mmF4 and shoot away on a Saturday stroll. The mounted police above is quite nice, very dynamic, the 21 has some charm.

Vintage on vintage again

This roll was shot on Kodak Tri-X (ROll 04 was TMY 400).

So the Leica IIIC went to Aperture UK for a CLA and they called me after a little more than a week to announce it was ready. I went to collect it yesterday and put a roll on it so I am checking that its definitely ok. The CLA cost 240 GBP, already the cleaning of the rangefinder is awesome, even if the window is small, it is super bright, focusing is a bliss. It looks like I have anew curtain also.

Tottenham court road – London

Is it worth it? Well how long is a piece of string? The gentleman from the shop told me a IIIC is about 250 GBP, so I could buy a new non CLA’d one instead of fixing mine : that’s an easy answer. Now on the other hand this starts to be an expensive camera. I bought it for about 200£ 10 years ago, had an initial service of about 200£ and now an 240, that’s a 640£ body. On the plus side its newly CLA’d, is in good condition. I shot something north of 40 rolls over 10 years, you can try to make some maths see how much vintage shooting costs.

Lets see how the new roll turns up…

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2023 ROLL#04 – Paris in the spring

Munching in the sun

“Are you feeling lucky punk?”, the famous line of Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry was probably a warning. How lucky was I feeling picking up the Leica IIIc for a week end in Paris?

Girls in Uniform

I had not used my oldest Leica for a good year, so it was time for a walk outside the cupboard. I attached the Elmar 50mm3.5 and took a couple of rolls of Kodak film. One TMY 400 (this one), one Tri-X (the next one).

Everything that shines…

I also packed the Sekonik 308x light meter, as I cannot guesstimate and I found it easier to use than the flash shoe one I use from time to time.

A movie character

The IIIC is charm to use, and shooting with it you really feel lucky (I do). The Elmar itself is another story, the aperture setting at the front of the lens is not very user friendly, and it puts me in a mode where I set my speed and aperture only every few shots.

Pass me the lotion

So far so good, and I can add, probably for the 10th time, that the camera is quiet small and funky so it is quite appropriate for street photography ( I don’t like the term cause I am a bit snobbish, but that’s what I kind of do).

Another kind of street artist

So where does it go wrong? As usual with film photography it goes wrong when you get home, wait a week for the lab to process your film and you discover that the film has not turned out quiet as expected.

But the band played on

With some reframing and photoshopping I managed to minimized it, but on that beautiful week-end where most of the shots were done at high speed ( for the IIIC that means 1/100, 2/100 or 1/500, I never trust the 1/1000) the left of the pictures is constantly overexposed and the right underexposed.

Ciggie break

It is more noticeable in the scenes which are brightly lit, like those at the market, not at all in the one below shot in dim light. This is due in my experience to the back curtain being lazy.

Sketching in St Eustache

Lost

The painter

The two pictures above were actually shot in landscape and resized, as half the frame is black.

The harder rat will last (I can’t translate the French wordplay)

So what happens next? Well first thing I shot a second roll because I did not knew, and you will see it in a couple of days.

Then last week I brought the camera to Aperture UK in London to have it serviced. For the second time this little fellow will cost me more than I paid for it in the first place (230 USD back in 2013). Ok I realised that this is 10 years back! I can’t believe it. I think I shot about 35 rolls with it, so we’ll probably say that each roll cost me 20$ of camera usage, not counting the lenses. Film is definitely not cheap.

A popular Japanese place

I hope you enjoyed the reading, be patient, next roll is coming

2023 ROLL#03 – LONDON IN COLOR

Borough Market – Hot Chocolate

OMG this is roll 03 already ! But one sec where is roll 01? Well ok Roll 01 is sitting tight in the computer, waiting for its blog post, but I think I could share a few colour shots for a change.

The players – Clerkenwell

So actually the trip starts where Roll02 finished, in Borough Market, I had a bit of a hard time to load a roll of Portra 400 in the M6, god knows why. This is always so easy but not that day. So I missed a few shots and soon after it was loaded it was too dark for the Summaron 3.5. On the way back we walk up to Smithfield market, then up to Clerkenwell, where we met these gents playing chess outside of a church.

Who cares about signs when you drive a Jag – Chelsea

Sunday was more a Chelsea / Thames river walk where I first met the above Jag then towards the Thames I met again the following acquaintance.

The return of the penny farthing- Chelsea

The guy on the penny farthing this time in colour, the cars don’t make much for a background, but I had not enough time to move them around.

Then a long walk along the Thames.

My photographic weeks are long tunnels where nothing happens until the next week end, so after a long apnoea I carried the roll of Portra ( with the camera around it) to the west side that time.

The three wise men

Around Harrods I met these three happy Chelsea pensioners, they are retired servicemen from the British army, leaving in Chelsea. They were happy to pose for me in front of a big car. When I told them with such a big car one may think they were having a good life they told me that indeed they had. Nice to meet happy folks from time to time.

Kensignton Palace entry

Through Hyde Park and towards Nothing Hill I notice the doorbell of Kensington Palace, next time I am invited I’ll know where to ring. Two Pictures are not much for a Sunday but ok there’s no hurry.

Meanwhile life goes on

Opposite 10 downing street Ukrainians continue demonstrating against the war that is still going on in our backyard, while here life goes on.

… a special tourist

Moving eastwards, Benjamin Netanyahu was in town, causing some of his countrymen to express what hey think of his visit to the UK and recent policies. The man travels in style, staying the Savoy.

A couple of shots reminding of the Empire and its colonial past.

Monuments to the Gurkha’s

A Royal Enfield Side Car

Dancing in the streets

Luckily all is not doom and gloom and people are still dancing in the streets.

I hope you enjoyed the walks, maybe a bit of Paris action soon…

There is no Planet B

This is not a piece of sci-fi write up, just a few shots from a protest about Climate Change on Trafalgar Square in London in early November.

It seems to become a recurring pattern in my posts (check here ), but this is a reality : some people wants to let the others know that climate is changing and its time we do something about it.

I don’t necessarily do enough myself (oh that business trip to Asia makes me guilty) , but maybe sharing pictures is a small action I can do?

It cannot be less productive than wearing an extinction rebellion tie 🙂 . Ok ok and what about the impact of film processing? Frankly I don’t know. This was shot with my Leica M4 from 1967, with an even older lens, so probably it has less impact that a digital sensor made in the recent years. Tough question, a bit like electric car battery impact vs thermic engine oil consumption.

This guy’s accordion is probably not younger than the M4, he kindly started playing when I asked to take his portrait, but even in 2022 the M4 is still not capturing sound. I used the KEKS EM-01 Light meter , it is nice and light and quite accurate, but I still have problems reading the measure.

This is another roll of my 100ft HP5 roll that I still have not finished, it is not so old, so I don’t think age has deteriorated it that much but I am not really enthralled by the grain. Well another 4 rolls to go. It seems it never finishes, but all in all it should be about 18 rolls overall. I think I’ll buy something else next. Maybe some Ultrafine 400, but it seems the Extreme is sold out. They now have a different product, Finesse, I have to dig a little before engaging me for another 18 rolls, but also that is just 60USD for 100ft roll.

Rebels at rest

By the way this is roll 23 of this year, all in all better than last year (in term of number of rolls anyway) but far from my 55 rolls from a few years back.

Oh I have decide to go back to Caffenol, so watch this space for badly processed pictures in the coming weeks.

I hope you enjoyed the pics, and remember : “There is no planet B”

The happy people party in the park

A few time last summer we bumped into this lot of happy skaters, who were engaged in what can be described as a party.

Good atmosphere, disco music and smiles all around, all lead by the above MC.

Hurry up Alice or you ll be late to the party.

The sun was going down and available light was no much, but good enough for the Summicron 50 and the roll of HP5 loaded in the M6.

A bit of line dancing.

I m just passing by, please ignore me.

A Royal Week-end

Last week end (2nd to 5th of June) was the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, a celebration giving some picture opportunities.

Friday, all started by the air parade shot from my window with the crappy Canon Serenar 135F4 mounted on the Leica M262. The lens was already mounted on the camera, I was just playing around last week.

WWII planes, I think a Lancaster bomber and four spitfires

The city was generally dressed up in national colours and royal memorabilia’s. Here the newspaper kiosk on Sloane Square, shot with the Summaron 35mmF2.8, the M version with goggles. I really went al vintage lenses this week,

A couple of “street parties” happened through the kingdom over he week end, mostly involving food and drinks, here in Mayfair Friday.

Paul Smith window in Marylebone.

I was expecting more silliness in the street, but ok some people really played the game.

Friday a steel band was playing on Kings Road, a couple of ladies made their best to warm up the atmosphere.

The queen of the afternoon

But they were not alone.

Even the Chelsea Pensioners were out.

Some people were rushing to parties in the hood.

The party went on until Sunday.

Chinatown

People rushed to the Mall on Sunday morning to see the parade.

But I met Stan Laurel.

and actually walking against the flow, we reached Hyde Park Corner and met the parade, with no crowd at all.

Sunday I changed the lens for the Summaron 35mmF3.5 ltm, a better choice as it is easier to focus without the goggles.

After watching so many horses, we moved to the Belgravia street party on Elizabeth street (the well named).

God save the queen

The queen

And all finished with a bit of music (and beer)

If you are not bored by now, I will have some film shots from Saturday to post as well.

All shots with Leica M262, with in order the Canon Serenar 135mmF4 ltm, the Summaron 35mmF2.8 M, the Summaron 35mmF3.5 ltm

My first roll of Cinestill XX

London, where else?

A bit more than a month back I bought two rolls of Cinestill XX in the Aperture UK shop in London. I have read about this film, but its the first time I saw some available for purchase, so I picked two rolls to see what it is like, keeping in mind that I will have a road trip in France a few weeks down the line.

I loaded the first roll soon after and started shooting in London over a couple of very sunny week-ends we had in late April.

The XX box claim to be a variable speed motion picture, but on a conservative move, I set the M6 speed dial to 200, and put a 50mm lens in front of it, most likely the Summicron v5 or the Summilux v2 with a yellow filer.

Balthazar’s bride

It is very difficult to tell which one I used from the pictures.

Twins

Off the wall

So a good first part of the roll was shot in London, the weather was nice and my brain clicked in shooting mode.

Fashion addicts

When holidays started, I spent a day in Paris, with not much shooting action, then drove to the Loire valley, where frankly I felt more compelled to use the digital M and 28 mm cron.

But here are three shots of the park of the Chenonceau castle.

At this point we drove to Bordeaux witch I never visited before and seems to be a good place for street photography, just enough people, and specific places.

A street in Cite Fujes built by Le Corbusier

Worth visiting for modern architecture buffs : the cité frugès built by Le Corbusier, one house is a museum and can be visited upon appointment.

The market

The blue oyster cult

Street life

The film was processed by my usual lab here in London : Analogue Films in Shoreditch, it seems they were not very familiar with the film at first. They managed to do their usual good job as processing and scanning.

The last part we moved to Biarritz in the Basque Country, capital of surfing in France.

Life is a beach

I always found very odd to shoot sea side in black and white, but hey why not, my parents did this ages ago.

Bay watch

Local artists

The market

I found the XX a bit too grainy for my taste, maybe blame the processing, who knows? Lets see how the second roll turns out.

Oh yes, the cost. The film was 11£ a roll ( almost 13 Euros, 14 USD, 19 SGD), mmm I think I still have some HP5+ in my 100ft roll. And Analogue Films charge about 8£ for process and scan.

Hope you enjoyed the ride.

Last black and white shots of 2021

Oh my Oh my. We are in March already and here is my last B&W roll of 2021, where was I? Well not shooting for sure, as I just brought my first roll of 2022 to the lab. Well time flies, photography is one of the losers in the adjustment to my new life.

Anyway, last roll of 2021, shot in December in France, first 4 shots in Paris, next 5 in Cannes, the others in Antibes.

This is a single roll of Ilford HP5+, still hand rolled from the 30 meters roll I bought last year in Singapore. Pictures were taken with the M6 classic with the Elmar 50F3.5 or the Summicron 35 Asph v2. Oh by the way that’s not my last roll of 2021, no no no sir, I quickly shot a roll of expired Portra 400 at the end of December, but I am not sure there are enough shots to share on that one, or maybe yes I ll do next week.

Hope you enjoyed watching…

More Chinese New Year spirit and a bit more

The love of the two oranges

These two auspicious oranges offered during CNY period, here at the entrance of a restaurant in Clarke Quay. As often I make associations in my mind which are quite irrelevant, why think of Serguey Prokovief Opera The Love for Three Oranges where actually I just have two? Maybe the essence of photography : showing what’s not there.

Posing for CNY the Buddha Tooth Relic temple

I started this roll in Chinatown a while back, and as we were during CNY period, people came around the Buddha Tooth Relic temple to take selfies.

A Bak Kwa shop

CNY is also about food, and the Bak Kwa (sliced barbequed port meat) shops are busy. There are queues outside some of the most famous who generally have sold all their goods by lunch time on week ends.

Traditional Cosplay

I was very happy / lucky a couple of weeks later when coming back to Chinatown I saw this group of youngsters dressing up in traditional Chinese costumes, for a fun photo shoot.

Urban sketchers at work in the shade

Caution fierce look

This is a roll of Rollei retro 80s, shot with the Leica M6 and the Summaron 35mmF3.5 ltm lens.

The lady with a fan

The lady in the shadows

The film was processed in Caffenol CM recipe at 28 degrees for 5minutes. Some shots are great, but the ones with big dark areas like above are showing some marks in the dark parts. Fingers marks? Fogging ? Effect of the expired film? I don’t really know. The effect is even more noticeable below:

Japanese restaurannt

It is not super easy to shoot indoor with 100 ISO setting and a 3.5 lens. I quite like the result, regardless of the marks.

Play

A big thank you to Louis Vuitton for this fashionistas playground giving opportunities for a few candid shots. Once again it was 7pm the light of the day was fading so the shots are taken at 1/60 or 1/40 and F3.5

More playground

A few random shots to finish

A pile of bar stools, the blacks and the contrast are really specific to the Rollei 80s, so I am happy this can be rendered in Caffenol.

Some sculpture in a back alley, I think it’s the entrance of a club or a bar.

A bit if tragedy to finish this is the place where 5 party goes met their fate when driving into coffee in the late night hours a couple of weeks back. You can still see the burned façade of the building. A few days (maybe 1 or two weeks) after the incidents, offerings were placed for the deceased.

The new normal

The usual Shake Shack long queue

The title of today’s post is a trap. It should be called Caffenol week 6, but it starts to be boring. Saturday I finished a roll of Ilford Delta 400, and processed it as soon as I was back home.

The uncle just score

This is my second brew that I kept from last week. I have been careful today to limit the time of processing to 5 minutes at 28 degrees, plus 10 seconds for pouring out.

Back Alley BBQ

The negatives  are still a bit thick but on the better side I would say. I also filtered my fixer before using it. As a result I have very few crap on the film.

Fishing in the shadow of the tower

Another innovation this week is that I cut the roll in two before processing to squeegee. Less chance to scratch by carrying dust over with my fingers, less residual water at the bottom of the film. Unfortunately I did not  count he frames so I ended up with an odd number of strips.

A catch like that

The result : this is my best Caffenol film of these past 6 weeks. I must say it is the best film altogether and choosing a small number of shots from it was difficult.

Chef of wheels

But back to the processing, there was very little dust on the film, and I did only  minimal spot cloning in light-room after processing. I also added 1 more minute to the fixing time, this is the 7th roll with the fixer (It should do 17), it cannot harm.

Sometime we feel we are so small

This is shot again with the Leica IIIc, but with the Summaron 35mmF3.5, which is quite a sharp lens. I measured the light with the handheld Sekonic L-308-s, and used my 35mm Leica finder. The finder shoe was bent during my last move and I think the shot above really shows it.

Reserved

The first three shots were taken around Chinatown last week, while the next three where taken around Marina Bay, where I met some friends by complete fluke. Friends are great picture subjects, lets remember this.

Mannequin

Saturday morning I met some fellow shutterbugs in Haji Lane. The two frames above were shot in a kind of artsy enclave where a  lot of murals can be found.

The world’s on fire

The area is far less crowed than usual, but its still a busy place in the morning, with deliveries for local businesses, people having coffee or photographers bringing models to shoot with the colorful area as a backdrop.

The dancer

We hijacked the model above, thanks, thanks, one shot and we move, my camera is so old, anyway.

Haji Lane usual crowd

That time of the year

We have entered the 7th month of the Chinese new year and offerings are appearing outside maybe businesses.

Lets all go home safely hop you enjoyed the ride.