King Nate 88

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Scanner make a difference

Here we have an example of why scanning DOES matter. It's a sad fact - the scanner I use my school's library alters the coloration. The first image is self scanned while the second image is professionally scanned. I'm a purist when it comes to this stuff. I don't want color correction on my computer. I want what the film gives me.
Also, notice the film grain. Click to enlarge image 1. Then click to enlarge image 2. In image 2 you can see the film grain in all it's splendor. It actually looks like a photograph - not some digitally high glossed smear.

This last set of images is a perfect example. Look at image 1. Then look at the other self scanned photos. Image 1 has a completely different tonal shift. It doesn't even look like it's from the same film stock. But the scanner auto-"corrected", removing the punch.
Such a shame.

Ringflash Portraits

For Christmas I received a lomoRingflash from my loving parents. The following photos are from my first roll using it - a sort of test roll. While all lomos are exciting in their own way (especially to take - these proving multitudes of fun when I turned off the light and told my friends to make a face) - a lomophoto can still be improved upon in technique. Experimenting is also about learning.
To shoot I used my Holga and Astia 100 film. I mounted a fisheye lens and held the ringflash in hand. The best example of the ringflash is above - Ben, who was not afraid to get up close and personal with the fisheye. If you look close you can even see the rings in his eyes. Toward his forhead is blue, the pink yellow and orange melt together around his face.
As the subject moved farther away, the light spread, and all we can really see is red. Unfortunately I never used the blue ring. But I'm interested to see how it looks.

Then, as we add more people - and more distance is put between the lens, the flash, and subject - Rachel is bright, Rebecca less, and Molly even less. This all makes sense - but to achieve the full effect of this beautiful flash, we've gotta be close up. Why? Because we want multicolored splendor - not just a flash.

You may notice on some of the photos splotches of red. Look carefully - they read 2010 (sideways) and there's a few hearts. Prior to shooting on the film I took it into the closet, unrolled it, and wrote on it in permanent marker. This is the first time I had done this and shot in a dark spot, and I assumed that the marker would still show up, even over the darkness. My assumption however was incorrect. The writing is only visible on the lit up portion of the photo - this of course makes sense now that I think about it.
Also, as I unloaded the film from the camera I slipped, and half of the roll was exposed. The image below glows orange at the bottom because everything else below was exposed. The last is a faint image of David and Zach, lost somewhere in the midst of the overexposure.