To Describe the Town of Blois, I would begin with the picturesque gardens, the venerable buildings woven together with cobbled streets. Cemented in the history of France, Blois is a stunning destination for anyone with a love for culture, situated in the centre de Loire region and 2 hours south of Paris.

Now, I had never shot Lomography films, before mainly shooting black and white films such as those from Rollei, ILFORD, and Foma. I had seen a few images of Lomography LomoChrome Purple floating around online. Those images enamoured me, they seemed to hang between recognizable yet alien, reminding me of Kodak Aerochrome. So, after being gifted a roll for Christmas I sat on it waiting for a good reason to use it. Unable to find one, I threw caution to the wind and proceeded out the door to see what I could capture with this film. Equipped with my trusty Yashica FX-3, ND filters and my heaviest tripod. I set out to record Blois in a new light (pun intended).

According to Lomography, the film can be rated anywhere between EI 100-400, with 400 giving the strongest purple tones. I choose to set my camera ISO to 200 to have a moderate tone as I planned to explore for several hours and right into the golden hour to see how the colours change over time.

I began my slow meander around the town stopping and evaluating every shot. Unsure of the correct exposure I juggled between my phone and the light meter built into the camera. Using this to slow myself down to really look at my surroundings to see if it was something I wanted to capture.

Knowing that any composition with large amounts of green would have the most dramatical change. I began my journey looking for parks and nature within the town. But as I journeyed, I wondered how other colours would be rendered. In the bright harsh sunlight of the early afternoon, the world is rendered in stark purple tones. As the sun falls lower in the sky the harsh bright purple is replaced with soft pink tones on surfaces like stone, and vegetation turns to a dark blue. These soft colours seemed like an impressionist idea of the moment in between golden hour and blue.

I will use this film stock again, the colours are vibrant, and surprising. I think of this film as a journey into the unexpected as with the changing colour of light you’re not quite sure what colours you will be gifted.

~ Steven

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One response to “5 Frames… Around Blois on LomoChrome Purple XR 100-400 (35mm format / EI 200 / Yashica FX – 3 + Yashica Lens ML 50mm f/2) – by Steven Munday”

  1. The ML 50/2 is way unterrated lens. Almost pancake small. Worse than the ML 50/1.7 optically, but smaller.
    The 3 LED Lightmeter was introduced after the FX-3 into literally millions of clones, still working exactly the same way into the latest PIXXII APS-C Rangefinder, TTArtisan & Voigtländer Lightmeters, and even the mighty Leica M6… The FX-3 Super 2000 is the last iteration, i own the FX-3, the FX-3 Super and the 2000.

 

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