That's from the last roll of b&w I'm going to be using in a while.  I quite like the way it looks, though - it has a 1950s feel, which is appropriate to the anachronism of Marx and Engels standing there so proudly in rampantly capitalist Shanghai, 2011.

I used to love b&w, and I still do in old photos.  But for the times we live in, I've just gotten bored with it.  Bruce Gilden said, (in the youtube linked here)  that he thinks in black and white.  I don't.  I even dream in colour - and I certainly do think in colour.  And cross processing approximates to the way I do that - true colours just don't correlate with what I think we see in our imagination and in our dreams.

Nevertheless, I won't be using Fujichrome Velvia anymore.  I've tried overexposing somewhat, but I'm still getting too much red:



I like the way it's got the green of her bag, but the rest is just far too red.  I bought five rolls of 100iso Provia in London.  I used one there and that's in the Lomography shop in Shanghai getting developed.  I got five rolls because it's no good dotting around with all different films - cameras, ditto - I'm going to concentrate on the Holga and on Provia for the next several months, until I get the hang of them both. 

Meanwhile, my New Big Idea is for portraits where the subject holds the flash themselves.  I've taken a few and I'm starting to refine the concept.  The flash is too strong for 100iso.  But I'm going to ask the subject to put something over the flash - a bit of paper from their pocket, a handkerchief, or whatever.   The reason for that is that, like holding the flash, they're collaborating in the process, not sitting passively.  I'm also going to ask them to put their other hand in the frame, too.  What they do with it is up to them.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

LTPTP XXV: We Shall Overcome

Leech or flatworm? Ants and Swiss Chard

VINEGAR!