Photography on jono shields

Experimenting with Double-X

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

For my birthday my amazing fiance got me the gift of a bulk roller and a 100ft roll of Kodak Double-X 5222.

I have wanted to get into bulk rolling for a couple of reasons..

Film of any length with minimal waste. Short rolls to experiment with new gear or developing.
Getting intimate with a single emulsion, learning the ins and outs and how to make the most of it.

This is my experience and my first 6 rolls.

Imposter Syndrome

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

You know that feeling, when you really want to do something, but something holds you back?

Well, I really want to get into doing more portraiture. I think about it quite often now.

I also get this feeling though, I don’t know whether it is anxiety or imposter syndrome. But something makes me feel small, inadequate and scared.

Its not just strangers, asking family and friends is the same.

Summer Roadtrip

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This year we are moving into a smaller place and I just know that at some point I will have to say goodbye to my Pentax 6x7.

So this summer I decided to take it with us on our roadtrip around the north island.

On the way down we stopped at the Three Sisters.

Exhibit

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

These last couple of weeks have been the most exciting. I entered one of my photos in a competition to be exhibited in a gallery in Auckland. And lo and behold it got chosen to be one of 25 exhibited.

It isn’t often I print my photos and never big. So walking into this gallery and seeing this thing on the wall was just awesome. A massive thank you to The Black & White Box who organised the whole exhibition, it has been so cool getting to see so many talented kiwis showing off their film photos.

Catching up

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I haven’t written a post in a long time. Like at least a year.

So here are some photos that have been memorable…

Towards the end of 2019 we attended the Animal Rights March. It was incredible to see people from all walks of life protesting together to end animal cruelty. This ten year old boy and his sister marched for what they believe, he holds an Animal Liberation sign, while hers reads “their lives not ours”.

New Camera Day

Mon, 29 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I recently acquired my grail film camera. The Leica M2. Leica is a heritage brand and has a long history with press and documentary photography. The build quality is beyond excellent and their cameras have always been built solid. This bad boy is roughly 60 years old.

Why not the M3? It doesn’t support 35mm framelines, so shooting with a 35mm lens means that I wouldn’t be able to see the whole frame. Why not the M4? No good reason. I am just a little less fond of the plastic trimming and the fastload take up spool is a bit harder to know if you have the film secured properly. Why not the M5 or newer? These started getting out of my price range very quickly. And from the M6 you get a bunch of features I don’t really need. Especially because I am quite keen to learn to shoot without a lightmeter.

Gospel of Luke

Wed, 03 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Recently a friend reached out to me to help him with a project he was working on.

He is studying Theology at St Johns and wanted to highlight the role of women in the Gospel of Luke.

I am not religious in the slightest, but I liked the idea as most texts of this age downplay the impact of female characters.

We met at St Matthews to talk about it and plan each of the shots on location. And wow, what a beautiful and interesting place to take these photos.

How to do street photography?

Tue, 11 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Street Photography. It’s not that scary.

And just like every other aspect of photography you can make it your own.

You can focus on the environment.

Or on people.

You can set up your composition and wait.

Or you can walk and shoot.

You can get up close and personal.

Or you can shoot from afar.

You can talk to your subjects and ask for them to pose for you.

Jono's first attempt to develop film

Wed, 06 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Lately photography (especially analog stuff) has taken a bit of a back seat.

This week I decided to take the next step in the process and have a crack at developing my own film.

What follows is possibly the worst first attempt in the history of photography.

I decided the best idea was to develop a roll that I had accidentally exposed by opening the back of the camera without knowing how much film had been exposed. I considered it basically ruined. So why not experiment with it.

Getting into Portraits with the Pentax 6x7

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We went to Stanley Bay in the evening to catch the sun setting behind the harbour bridge and as I was setting up this cat appeared.

It would not stop hissing at me. It was seriously pissed off for some reason. And then when I got closer to take a photo it hissed loudly and started coming towards me.

I wussed out and ran away, but managed to get this shot.

Early Morning Photography

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a morning a person. Every day while I have been in Christchurch for the last two weeks I have been up at dawn, exploring the city in the hours that I can before I have to go to work.

This old school 1950’s Studbaker sat on the side of the road.

Panoramas with the Pentax 6x7

Sat, 28 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Another new camera?

Yep.

This beast of a camera came with a 45mm f/4 lens and a panorama kit. Now I can do super wide shots like the above.

The pano kit lets a roll of 35mm film cross the entirety of the 120 frame. I can get about 21 shots off the roll.

The Yashica 35 M

Fri, 22 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Look at this beauty!

The Yashica 35 M is now the oldest camera I own, from 1973 it’s more than twice as old as I am.

It shows its age in how you use it. It has a lightmeter on the front that I thought was a flash hahaha. It uses Selenium, a chemical, to measure the light rather than the more modern silicon semiconductors.

A Photographer's Perspective

Tue, 29 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

My camera is always by my side these days. And I’m always on the lookout for interesting ways to look at things. The same things I look at everyday.

The photo above is from a cafe called Rabbit. The main seating area is lofted above the kitchen, but I never once had a reason to lean over the edge and have a look down.

Leading Lines

Wed, 23 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I have been watching more Youtube videos because thats how I learn.

What’s this? Leading lines? Make your landscape shots interesting!

Yes please.

The idea is that you create your composition so that elements flow on from each other and draw the observers eyes into the scene.

In the example above you can see how the path curves into the distance. It brings attention to the clearing.

Shooting Black & White

Wed, 16 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I decided to have a jam with black & white (b&w) film once I fixed up the light leak.

Lots of research later and I discovered that most people recommend overexposing the film by a stop. This adds contrast to the image (we will learn why they need the extra contrast later).

This first shot came out awesome. I love the expression on my mum’s face as she stares into the distance waiting for that first cup of coffee to arrive.

Reversing Negatives

Mon, 14 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I have been going through my photos and found one that missed the scanner. Why not try to scan it myself?

![Photographic Negative of a car in an alleyway](/photos/2018-05-14-1.jpg", “, “90vw” “%}

I borrowed a DSLR and took the best shitty photo I could.

Then using photoshop I used the Eyedropper tool inside Image > Adjustments > Levels to set the white point and the black point of the image.

Light Leak

Tue, 08 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

It turns out the camera I purchased has a light leak😔. Which means that all the photos I took in Japan look like this. I mean it’s pretty cool, but got a bit frustrating looking through 72 of them.

I’m not pro enough at photoshop to fix this (yet).

But I figured out how to salvage some of the photos. First by desaturating and then playing with the brightness & contrast

Day 1

Sun, 22 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I just bought my first serious camera today in Tokyo, Japan. It’s a Canon AE-1 film camera. Gorgeous. I have been eyeing up film cameras for the last couple of months.

I often see something cool on reddit and think to myself. Wow. I want to do that. Then I go through a phase of learning. Handwriting, 3D printers, drones, sewing and more…

This time film cameras. I think the physicalness of it attracted me, the way you create a physical output rather than merely flipping some bits on an SD Card.