Taryn

March 07, 2018 by Abhishek Mukherjee in Photography

Taryn and I met at the Florida Southern Campus a few weekends ago. We met at 10 AM, a departure from my typical afternoon shoots. The last time I worked with a model among Frank Lloyd's architecture was five years ago. It was nice to come back to this campus.

I started our session with the Nikon FE 35mm film camera. Pretty much all those photos are crap. However it gave us a chance to understand each other's working style before switching to the Mamiya C220.

I shot two rolls of Fuji Pro 400H, one roll of Ilford Delta 100 and one roll of Ilford FP4. Total 48 frames. I am not thrilled by the photos from the color film that we took under the shaded esplanade: too much grain and dull colors. The Fuji, however performed quite well directly under bright clouds.

I love, love the photos from the Delta 100 (see white tank top). I think I prefer them over the photos form Ilford FP4 (photos in black long sleeved tee). I barely edited the Delta 100 photos but I had to adjust contrast in every FP4 image I liked.

Finally, I am starting to prefer the fashion-ey poses over the straight portrait poses. We will see where I go with this.

Sylvia and Corey

February 27, 2018 by Abhishek Mukherjee in Photography

Febuary 18th was a busy day. After photographing Whitney in the morning, having lunch with my wife and father-in-law, I drove off to meet Sylvia and her friend Corey in Winter Park, FL. We met at 3 PM in Mead Botanical Garden.

It was a sunny day and the sun was intense. So I decided to start with the Cinestil 50D since it is daylight balanced. I had high hopes for this film but the results disappointed me. The images had a dull yellow tone to them and I had to correct color significantly. I shot the rest with Ilford FP4 before switching to Fujifilm Pro400H when the sun got lower in the horizon. I shot a total of 4 rolls with Sylvia and Corey — the most we could shoot before losing light.

I shot all images that afternoon with the Mamiya C220. I particularly like how the otherwise desaturated Fuji Pro400H gave warm yellow tones (images of Sylvia against the stone wall). The jury is still out between FP4 over Delta100: both films are wonderful. I must admit that I had to crop and edit these images a bit more than I like to do. Maybe the long day interfered with my photographic sense.

Nevertheless, shooting with film continues to offer pleasant surprises.

"Sylvia" and "Corey" are pseudonyms.

Whitney

February 26, 2018 by Abhishek Mukherjee in Photography

Whitney was my first photoshoot in the Analog Portrait project. I had photographed Uncle Bill and Aunt Carol earlier but I already have some familiarity with them. I had never met Whitney before. We connected on Model Mayhem and decided to meet in Lakeland for a morning shoot.

Whitney is new to the area. She is very energetic and focuses on fitness and dance themed shoots. This was a challenge for both of us: I operate at a subdued level of energy and my project demands a slow, deliberate pace. But I don't think you can tell we struggled with this dichotomy.

I brought my Canon DLSR as an insurance in case I fuck up using the Mamiya. However, we shot only two pictures with the Canon, a half dozen with the Nikon FE 35mm SLR and the rest on the Mamiya medium format camera. I used one roll each of Kodak Portra 160, Ilford Delta 100 and Fujifilm Pro400H. The Portra emerged without question as my favorite film from this shoot.

TheDarkRoom.com processed and scanned the photos and I edited the scans lightly.