I've been busy mostly dealing with family bullshit but am on a little project scanning images I shot for my high school yearbook. In the midst of that, probably after seeing another music special on AXS TV where Don Was was once again the bass player and musical director, I remembered that I had photographed him in Russ Meyers' old house up on Mulholland in the Hollywood Hills, where Don had a studio. Here's a process that I'm pretty sure isn't possible anymore, but maybe. This is a Polaroid Transfer done from a Beseler 45M enlarger directly onto a piece of Polaroid color film in the Polaroid 545 holder, then partially developed and immediately sandwiched with some Arches fine art paper until the latent image fully migrates from the Polaroid neg to the fine art paper.
Don Was Polaroid Transfer, Hollywood Hills, July 1994
XP2, N80 & 18-35G, the lens is seeing more use with film than digital. Liking XP2 shot at 200, good way to kill time mid day with harsh light too.
Also took the Bellami out to play today... I dunno. It’s tiny and dead simple, but the third or forth frame will be an upside down out of focus selfie, I didn’t believe it was firing though I checked it before loading film. I wouldn’t say it inspires confidence or exudes quality but if the ends justify the means it’s a tiny thing that can just live in my bag. Look forward to seeing the results.
Matt, these scans are really soft. Almost look like watercolor plugin was used. Weird. And no thumbs in the frame, so...
Peter - Great photo of Don. And very cool "process". I am a big fan of the Was brothers, and wore out my Was Not Was LP back in the day. "I Walk the Dinosaur" still makes me laugh.
Thanks. That shot was in the swimming pool with the wine cellar at the opposite end where Meyers shot soft core through the underwater window. At least that's what I was told. You remember the important stuff, right?
Also took the Bellami out to play today... I dunno. It’s tiny and dead simple, but the third or forth frame will be an upside down out of focus selfie, I didn’t believe it was firing though I checked it before loading film. I wouldn’t say it inspires confidence or exudes quality but if the ends justify the means it’s a tiny thing that can just live in my bag. Look forward to seeing the results.
C'mon Mat, I just put a roll through my second one (the one I bought as a spare as I loved the first one so much!) and this camera just rocks. Super sharp. This was shot on Lomo 800 that I rated at 400, only because the camera only goes up to 400!
But I think anyway C41 film in the Bellami should be shot at +1.
Went out with my 4x5" camera for a bit last week. Taken with Schneider-Kreuznach 210/5.6 and Osaka 400/8 Copal lenses. Shot with Arista 100 film and developed in Xtol (1:1) with MOD54 and Paterson tank devices.
Good point, I spend too much time on my phone. I'll have to revisit them... Thanks for the thought, I'd be ignorant otherwise...
Activatedfx wrote:
Matt, these scans are really soft. Almost look like watercolor plugin was used. Weird. And no thumbs in the frame, so...
Peter - Great photo of Don. And very cool "process". I am a big fan of the Was brothers, and wore out my Was Not Was LP back in the day. "I Walk the Dinosaur" still makes me laugh.
Yea, same base scans but resized more efficiently and added a bit of sharpening. I haven't gotten the negatives back yet actually, these are just quick Pakon scans the lab runs. If I have a frame I like I usually do a high res scan on a V600 (I'm too cheap for a V800). Only pull that out rarely. My goal once my girls get a bit bigger is to do more self developing and scanning, but it's not happening in our house now.
Activatedfx wrote:
Looks like you changed out the 3 images. They look a lot better now!
I'm gearing up to shoot film again. Took a little hiatus due to work schedule being super crazy, but I just bought fresh 120 rolls yesterday (FP4 and Provia).
I think I'm going to pick up a V600 for scanning. While I like the DSLR scans, I can't leave the rig set up in my apartment, and it's a hassle to put it together every time I want to scan. An always ready solution like the V600 would be one more barrier removed from the process, hopefully prompting me to shoot more film!
I think you'll like it. I could never get good results from camera scanning of C41, but that aside, i found it clumsy and slow to image each frame. Scanner isn't fast, but you can walk away and let it do it's thing while doing I think 4 645 shots at a time.
Activatedfx wrote:
I'm gearing up to shoot film again. Took a little hiatus due to work schedule being super crazy, but I just bought fresh 120 rolls yesterday (FP4 and Provia).
I think I'm going to pick up a V600 for scanning. While I like the DSLR scans, I can't leave the rig set up in my apartment, and it's a hassle to put it together every time I want to scan. An always ready solution like the V600 would be one more barrier removed from the process, hopefully prompting me to shoot more film!
