A Harman Phoenix 200 test roll

Happy new year dear readers. January is coming to its end, but its never too late, so here is my first post of the year.

Back in December we visited the amazing exhibition of Daido Moriyama at the Photographer’s Gallery in Soho ( London) and I discovered that their shop in the basement has a dream selection of films.

I am still going to patronize the usual smaller shops but I think it’s great to be able to put one’s hand on the stuff you read about in blogposts. So I browsed the shelves and found a roll of the just available ( and if I am correct not for long) color film from Harman.

I vaguely remembered that Harman is the company producing the Ilford films, but frankly I don’t know much more. So at the end of December we were back home in Cannes for family holidays and I finished my roll of TMY400 and loaded the roll of Phoenix 200.

As you can see on the first picture the film has a very pretty ( odd?) yellow color out of the canister and once processed a pronounced purple tint. I loaded the film in full light, in the skate park above, but I don’t think it had any effect. And set the meter to 200ISO, although the film is said to have latitude ( but not so much if you read some reviews).

The skate park is a new addition to the Cannes cityscape, that day was really gorgeous and the tint of the film goes pretty well with the colors of the place.

Moving a bit further towards the Pointe de la Croisette I took a couple of shots of boats. I think we see here what people mean by the film being very contrasty.

I quite like the picture above, probably the color scheme fell right into the soft spot of the film, and the light being softer the contrast is less accentuated ( oxymoron )?

The four pictures above are taken along the promenade des Anglais in Nice. A certain atmosphere develops there, probably mid afternoon winter light and overcast day helps with the contrast. The feeling is very vintage.

Back in London, the dummies below were remarkable by their red heads. The glow is quite funny, I would say unexpected.

The Standard building renders pretty well ( overcast, mid afternoon ) with not so much color cast. Definitely vintage and some glow around the lights.

Bye Bye Georg Baselitz sculpture in Hyde Park.

Finally walking on a beautiful lunch time towards Hyde Park I met these two nice Brazilian students, one holding a Nikon F3, we had quite a long chat ( in the cold), and parted our way after taking this shot. This gives an idea of how skin tones are rendered.

Final word? Probably worth a try. Surely has a lot of character, I think Hartman said the film was experimental. A very specific vintage look, a lot of contrast but I probably won’t try again to be honest. If I compare with the post about the Cinestill 400 D I think the Cinestill has a lot less color cast, a smoother rendering of contrast, but ok its more expensive ( 12.5 GBP vs 17 GBP if I remember well).

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.

2022 Roll 10

Paris rue de Buci

I still keep track of my rolls and sort them by date and year and enrich in Lightroom, the camera, film and lens ( Often an estimate). But when I used to boast of my one roll a week productivity, I must say I have now fell below one roll every second week.

Paris – Azabu

I would like to shoot more but I don’t have time and may lack enthusiasm / drive / inspiration. This roll was shot in June 2022, with the Leica M6 classic, over a week end in Paris and the next one back in London.

Paris, 4th Arrondissement – Communist Party “Art and Society” branch.

This is a roll of Kodak TMAX 100, a film I really love for its high contrast in sunny weather, I bought a couple of rolls from Analogue Labs a few weeks before.

A Jazz band busking in “Le marais”

Most of the shots were taken with the Summicron 35mm Asph v2, really my go to lens. I love it for the perspective, but the 35 makes the pictures a bit too wide for me, my subject is always a bit lost in the frame, as I tend to avoid confrontation when I snap in the street with my wife/family.

Histoires de Paris – Hôtel d’Hallwyll

On the other hand I frame my shots with just a couple of different styles, I think I manage to build a consistency in my flickr photo stream. I like my subject centred most of it.

The embrace

We are so much into candid and street photography nowadays that sometimes I find it difficult to shoot non human subjects. They form a big part of urban poetry nonetheless.

Back in London it was Wimbledon and Mayfair offered public screening, with desk lounge chairs and drinks (of course)

Wimbledon

Outside Paul Smith in Marylebone

Finger pointing

Above shot is a bit missed, I thought the shadow would be more obviously funny/interesting, maybe I should reframe, but I rarely do too radical reframing just put upright a bit.

The music shop

Heading to Soho always gives some opportunities, I met an American photog when shooting the above also carrying a M6 and a TLR.

Crossing carefully

Soho I said is always offering some opportunities.

As the light was going down, with 100 ISO the shutter speed had to go below 1/30’s hence the slight blur above.

The Harvest

I carried the camera to the office on Thursday to finish the roll and bring it back to process to Analogue Lab, so I did a few shots between Liverpool street station and Spitalfields market… but not enough to finish the roll. I am pretty good with the rapid loading on the M4 and M6 so I easily hit 38 frames in a film, sometime 39.

I hope you enjoyed the roll.

The last roll of 2020

The back alley

Happy new year dear friend reader! Let’s hope for everybody that 2021 will be different from 2020.

I am cheating a little bit as this is not strictly speaking the last roll of 2020, I have a roll of Portra 160 in the Leica IIIc, that I will finish soon and that technically I will call the roll 51 of 2020 ( I’ll come back to this on the next post).

I love Rock’n roll

So number 50 is a roll of Fuji Across 100 version one, expired sometime last year, shot in the Leica M4 with the Summaron 35mm F3.5 ltm.

28121

Once again I have processed the roll in Caffenol CM, scaling the recipe for 500 CL, with a certain success.

Anchor

As my regular readers have already found out, I was back to Geylang Lorong 3, with some friends. A place that will soon disappear, so no chance to see it again in 2021 rolls.

Heem

I put my favorite pictures at the top of this post, this is my third attempt at the back alley and I am quite happy with this one. And the guitar really rocks.

On most of the shots the Caffenol reveals great details and contrast. I am very happy with this roll. There was also very small dust cleaning required after scanning.

No-parking

The tiny Summaron is super sharp and easy to use. I have used the old Chinese made adapter (not my genuine Leica one) and it seems the focus is spot on even for closer shots.

CCTV ?

Is this the place where even CC TV Cameras get stolen?

Selfie in the making

Good think to tag along with friends is that they can make subjects.

The briefcase

This makes me think about one of these movies where spies or thieves exchange a big suitcase of cash. I did not dare to peak in that one, maybe I should have?

The final hour

Close up

Below a couple of unrelated pictures of the same roll, different styles with the same set-up

The old supreme court

Kid’s story

Fuji Superia 800 galore

One of the members of the Lugs (Leica user group Singapore) and prominent film shooter has ordered a bulk of Fuji Superia 800 and offered to share them. So even if I’m not a Fuji guy myself I picked up the occasion and snapped 12 rolls of 24 shots a 5 SGD a piece.

We met last week with his gang at Brawn & Brains café and had a nice meet up session, discussing gear, film and shooting stories.

I brought along the Leica M6 with the Summaron 35mmF2.8, the fool proof combo I bought last year. A couple of nice camera were on the table, some Olympus, Minolta, Nikon and Leica of course.

Heading back home I met junior at the skate park and had him pause.

The 24 shots were quickly finished in the afternoon, my dad use to favor them over 36 as you could finish them quicker, but also that in a time where you had to pay for the prints  doing extra useless shots was not an obvious choice.

One friend said yesterday that he dreaded two things in Singapore, the haze and the formula one. Well we may skip the haze this year but formula one is upon us.

I must say I am quire disappointed wit this shot. Not only did the big baboon insisted to be next to miss formula one, but the light is poor and the color is so so, making me remind that I don’t like Fuji colors.

I must say the colors for these indoor shots are quite nice, and those of the skate park are ok as well (a bit less nice). The pictures are quite grainy, is it the film or an effect of the exposure I do not know. Well I have 11 rolls left so I can load them in many different cameras over the coming weeks and see what I get.

 

 

CENO2 Graffiti Artist

This is the second time I bump into CENO2  over the past few years he is a Singaporean graffiti artist that lives abroad, apparently often in Chicago.

This time again I saw him working on a mural at Somerset Skate park in central Singapore. This was one of the first days where I was carrying around the M262 and Summicron 28.

Back two weeks later I saw he had already replaced his drawing with the two followings.

These were taken with the old Summilux 50mm V2 mounted on the M262.

You can learn more about Ceno2 at https://www.facebook.com/Ceno2Artkhalytis/