Join me for a few rolls of black & white film travelling across the Atlantic and up into the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, USA.
After a 2 year hiatus my brother and I flew back to Vermont (via Boston) for our annual pilgrimage to rowing camp at Craftsbury Outdoor Center. This being out 9th time visiting, I had taken enough shots of the camp in previous years so I decided to opt for a much lighter weight, bringing along my Leica MP and my Rolleiflex medium format camera.
I decided to finally use up a roll of Ilford SFX200 that has been in my fridge for ages and opted for a clip-on Adox red filter (that annoyingly kept on falling off), thinking that this might bring out some of the near infrared effect the Ilford film supposedly has (I have had good results on its medium format version). What I didn’t account for was remembering that my Leica camera light meter is behind the lens, so there is no need to adjust the ISO for the red filter (as I do on many of my medium format cameras). In fact I didn’t even think about it and proceeded to adjust to ISO on the back to about 50 (thinking 2 stops for a red filter), but of course the light meter already adjusts for this as it would read the light coming through the filter already. The end result? Very (I mean very) under exposed shots. Surprisingly some of them came out quite OK (I am not sure how).
The shots taken in Boston (towards the end of the post) were shot on Fomapan 100 film and (I think) by this stage I had taken the red filter off on some of them.
Some off duty emergency workers playing volleyball near Munich international airport.
I really like the strong contrast and simplicity of this image.
If you don’t like airplanes, look away now! Some good, but too dark, shots of planes in London Heathrow.
I particularly like this ‘through the viewfinder’ shot of my Rolleiflex (with the resulting final shot underneath).
Grainy London Heathrow airport from the air.
Two of the better exposed shots with Ilford SFX 200 film. A disused railway station somewhere in the middle of Vermont
Great Hosmer Pond at Craftsbury Outdoor Center.
The colour shots
I took along my Rolleiflex medium format camera (a really great travel size camera) and some rolls of Kodak Portra 160. I have shot plenty of action shots at the rowing camp in previous years so here is a bit of more of the same…
“Boston’s T”, the oldest public transport network in the United States. Shot on Fomapan 100 film with a red filter.
A taste of Boston.
We were pretty sure those buses had the NBA Warriors team in it as they were playing Boston that evening.
A selection of Boston portrait shots on Fomapan 100 film with a red filter.
Overall observations
Despite messing up the exposure settings on most of the black and white shots, I quite like how some of them came out, at least I can’t complain there isn’t enough contrast! It does make me laugh when such silly mistakes are made because it just shows it can happen to anyone if you’re not paying attention.
Despite that I really enjoyed having my Leica along with me for the journey and taking some snaps along the way. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did taking them.
Thanks for stopping by!
Neil
