Category: Articles
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5 Frames… On New Year’s Day 2020 in Hong Kong with ILFORD HP5 PLUS (EI 800 / 35mm format Nikon FM2)
This is not your ordinary “5 Frames…” article. Unlike my fellow shooters who took their cameras on trips or journeys, I took my Nikon FM2 onto the busy streets of Hong Kong during a mass rally against the government on New Year’s Day 2020. I have been a casual film shooter for the past year…
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EMULSIVE January 2020: month in review
These are the 31 days and 33 articles that made EMULSIVE in January 2020, starting (as always) with a list of the “top ten” as decided by you and ordered by date of publication. Enjoy!
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Humanity on the frontline of climate change: the Australian NSW bushfires on film
Without exception, every Australian state was burning during the Summer of 2019. Each state has a band of volunteer firefighters alongside paid emergency workers trying to control their own fires. The following is the story of mine. Specifically, the story of my experience as a volunteer firefighter and my photography while on duty in New…
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5 Frames… With Fujifilm FP-100C (Polaroid 340 Land Camera)
I’ve been shooting 35mm and medium format film for a quite a while and was never really interested in instant film. But last summer I found out about pack film. It was so different from what I’ve seen before, sharpness and color accuracy – it was all there. Unfortunately, I was too late, the last…
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5 Frames… With ADOX SILVERMAX 100 (EI 100 / 35mm format / Leica M3)
ADOX SILVERMAX 100 is one of my favorite black and white films. The tonal range is extremely wide, and if exposed properly the imagery is free of grain. I used my sublime Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f/1.4 ZM lens for the first time with a film camera. Using this lens with the Leica M3…
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5 Frames… With Kodak T-MAX 400 (EI 400 / 35mm format / Canon 7)
This past summer, I became interested in Kodak T-MAX 400 in 35mm format. I was hoping for a film stock that was a little more contrasty than ILFORD Delta and less grainy than Tri-X 400. I also chose ISO 400 film rather than ISO 100 film because I wanted a film that would have a…
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Is black and white photography “real”?
I recently wrote an article about the way I find the film process is an asset to an honest approach to documentary photography. This is a topic I feel quite strongly about, especially in the current media climate where the veracity of many aspects of media reporting, from video to photo to interviews require scrutiny…
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5 Frames… Of the Chaophraya River on Kosmo Foto Mono 100 (EI 100 / 120 format / Voigtländer Perkeo I)
On the same day that EM put my 5 Frames with Kosmo Foto Mono 100 with my Hasselblad 500CM I picked up some negatives from the lab I use in Bangkok and took them home for scanning. The first two rolls were also Kosmo Foto Mono 100: one from my Agfa Record III, and the…
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Scanning film: The $20K Imacon 949 vs the $740 Epson Perfection V800
Let me be clear this is not a consumer or technical review, really it is just a bit of fun born out of an opportunity. A few weeks back week I met up with my friend Mark Heaver so that he could give me a large format 4×5″ negative that I had shot using his…
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5 Frames… With Fomapan 200 Creative (EI 200 / 35mm format / Olympus XA)
The camera shop that I frequent in Toronto — Downtown Camera — recently relocated into a fresh, new space down the block from where it had long established itself as a staple of Toronto’s photography community. To celebrate this move, DC sold some “Grand Opening Mystery Boxes” in limited quantities. I purchased a 35mm box and…
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How-to: Your ultimate guide to printing a photography zine
This article covers everything you need to understand when it comes to printing your zine and owning the selection process for paper, binding, finishing and preparing your file(s) for print
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5 Frames… With ILFORD FP4 Plus (EI 125 / 35mm format / Fujica Compact Deluxe)
These images date back to 2017 when I was working Mondays and Thursdays in a camera repair shop to learn a few things and I found this Fujica Compact Deluxe. It was in an old box of equipment for which the repair had never been approved and the owner never came back to pick it…
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2020 film and traditional photography event calendar
This film community is awesome. In fact, it’s getting awesomer(er) every day, month and year. One thing it is missing though, is a way of seeing all sorts of film events across the year in one place. We haven’t all got time to keep up with multiple websites for photowalks, shows, film parties and so…
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Behind the scenes with Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet and the cast of Little Women on 1860s wet plate photography + photographer Q&A
Going against the grain, the on-set photographer of 2019’s Little Women included the use of traditional wet plate photography – also known as tintypes – to capture Saoirse Ronan, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Emma Watson, James Norton and the rest of the production’s cast. It’s not very often that a unit still photographer gets to…
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Bringing a 160 year old giant Petzval lens back to life
It was a normal Saturday afternoon in November when I walked into a flea market. I met some friends there and looked around a little bit. In the end, I bought this Gasc and Charconnet 500mm petzval lens. If you are as old as I am and have seen the movie “Big trouble in little…
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5 Frames… Of derelict Communist hotels on Rollei RPX 400 (EI 400 / 120 format / Rolleiflex 2.8GX)
Recently I went on vacation with the family to Croatia. It was not a photographic trip, so I took just one film camera, a Rolleiflex 2.8GX. I grabbed three rolls of 120 film from the fridge, one of which turned out to be Rollei RPX 400, a film I had never tried before. In Croatia,…
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How to shoot expired film or, no you do not need to add one stop per decade
There is a “rule” for shooting expired film. This “rule” states that when shooting expired film, one should add one stop of exposure per decade it has been expired. The rule is wrong and by blindly following it, you are doing yourself, your film and your subjects a disservice. No-one knows where the rule came…
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Found Film: ~1959 Kodak Verichrome Pan VP 828 film and a Kodak Bantam Colorsnap II
Every now and then my parents present me with an old camera they’ve discovered at a car boot sale or some Freecycle giveaway. This is how last year I came to own a Kodak Bantam Colorsnap II, which were produced in the UK from 1959 to 1961. Old Kodak amateur cameras are pretty much ten-a-penny…
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5 Frames… Showing a different side to Birmingham on CineStill 800 Tungsten (EI 400 / 120 format / Rolleiflex 2.8F)
Around mid-2018, after seven years of shooting digital, I decided to put the digital camera down for a little while as I experimented with learning and shooting film for my personal work. I have been photographing the streets of Birmingham UK for several years, but had never shot film before, so this seemed like a…
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straight 8: The one-roll-no-retakes film competition with a Cannes premiere
straight 8 is an annual film competition open to anyone, anywhere with an idea for a short film, a cool head and a steady trigger finger. Entrants shoot a short film on one roll of super 8 – no post-production, no grading, no fiddling or fixing. Even the soundtrack is created without having seen the…