I used to have one of these - cool?

I used to have one of these - cool?

So this is the first film from a Voigtlander Bessa R and 35mm Skopar Classic Lens. Using a rangefinder camera is a little new to me, although I use the viewfinder on my Canon G10 quite a lot, this is a different experience.

I’m pleased with the results of this first film, nice sharp images, possibly a little under-exposed, but OK after Photoshopping.

It is great to get back to basics using this all manual camera, set the exposure then check the near and far focus, set the lens for hyperfocal distance, finally compose and then CLICK!

No way of checking that I got it all right, just hope and wait for the film to come back……..old school style.

School Wood, originally uploaded by Christopher Preece.

What a great winter we are having, lots of long walks in the Herefordshire countryside. The snow changes the landscape so much, it provides light and simplifies all around it. More winter photos.

Helen, originally uploaded by Christopher Preece.

Abby taken in July, in the Sullivan House temporary studio with lots of Elinchroms and a plain paper background.

No posing required, just let her natural self show through - stunning!

A little bit of Photoshop to sort out the colours and contrast and something special to make her radiate.

Thanks Abby for being so patient.

Thanks to Kate and Stef for giving up their well earned lunch breaks to model for me in my make-shift studio in Sullivan House.

Natalie 5, originally uploaded by Christopher Preece.

Natalie is a work colleague who I have taken a few casual photos of in the office. However I have been lucky enough to set up a temporary studio up in an adjacent office. So after a little gentle persuasion she agreed to sit (and stand) for a short session.

She was quite nervous at first but ended the session all smiles having enjoyed it. Luckily my wife, Hilary was on hand to provide some inspiration and confidence building.

I used a white paper roll background and four Canon Speedlites, two bounced off umbrellas on the background and two in soft boxes. I used a wireless transmitter as a master and set them to manual.

I have been following various blogs such as www.strobist.blogspot.com and www.joemcnally.com/blog recently to get an insight into wireless flash using speedlights or flashguns, and to follow this ‘strobist‘ movement that is popping up everywhere from Flickr to Ebay.

Well it works quite well, providing you give them a bit of time to recycle and have some good batteries in them. I think that on location they are fantastic, in terms of lugging smaller amounts of kit about and avoiding power cables. However they don’t have as much ‘guts’ as my Elinchrome D-Lites and sometimes one or other of them does not fire. Also I notcied that  sitters tend to blink more, possible due to there being not modelling lamps to acclimatise their eyes.

I don’t do much black and white film photography these days, however I have found a way to re-create my favourite look on digital using Photoshop.

This looks like Ilford FP4 with a red filter, developed in Paterson Aculux and printed on Ilford Multifibre paper at grade 4.

I guess this is all academic now that most of these materials are no longer available (I have shot some FP4 lately but haven’y located any Aculux yet!)

Thanks to Hilary and Helen for hanging around under the bridges of the Worcester and Birmingham canal last Sunday, they were very patient as usual.