Monday, November 26, 2012

Contact Sheet Love

Last week I bought a new lens for the Bronica - a super-wide 40mm F4 - from Ffordes. It's gorgeous, and it only cost £250 - what can you get for a digital camera for that price? Pretty much nothing interesting - you're limited to a used 50mm f1.4.
I'm lucky enough to work for a publication where I can take a risk with my photography, so shooting film is still an option, and an option I'm always eager to take - it gives the mag a different look and feel and sets us apart from the rest of the market. Well, that's my excuse at least.
On Friday I headed down to Bristol to shoot some photos for a feature in Privateer 13. I decided to shoot black and white film, medium format, and for some of the shots I used two off camera flashes. There was a lot of experimentation going on and a lot of opportunity to fuck up, but having got the contact sheets back today, it appears everything worked ut just fine. Now it's just a case of scanning the negs - I cannot wait for these shots to appear in print. They look amazing. Privateer 13 will be available mid January, more info at www.privateer.cc


2 comments:

hamvas balint said...

How did you control the flashes? Proper portable strobes, like an Elinchrom Quadra or speedlights?

Andy Waterman said...

Just speedlights - I don't really see the point of big lights for what I do. If I want to put a flash right in the trail, that's not really a problem; it's not like a race where I need the flashes to be off course.
My problem has always been triggering with the MF - it doesn't have a hotshoe, so I've used velcro on top of the viewfinder so I can strap the trigger to that, and the trigger is connected to the camera via a PC cord. It's not difficult, I've just been too lazy to work it out in the past