Digital with the Helios 44-2

In my pursuit of capturing imperfection, I fortuitously stumbled upon the Helios 44-2 lens for my Sony E-Mount camera. This lens has become a bridge between my digital world and the distinct charm I'm accustomed to from my film photography.

Throughout my photographic odyssey, the lesson learned is that perfection often thrives in embracing imperfections. Every nuance and characteristic that the Helios lens adds to my shots contributes to the rich narrative I strive to create. Through this lens, I've not only found beauty in details but also mastered the finesse of seamlessly integrating imperfections into my visual storytelling.

Punkrock in lowlight

we played a show in the fri-son, a famous venue in switzerland. again i took pictures but it was kind of dark. so i pushed ilford hp5+ to 1600. the heaviest part was to find the sharpness in the dark. but sharp pictures are overrated anyway.

Punkrock on a farm

we played a show with our little punkrockband “the monofones” in an old farm in switzerland. what a lovely night in the “k pieterlen” with wonderful people. as usual i took some pictures before and after the show. ilford hp5 plus at iso 1600 works quite nicely. i was surprised how smooth the grain turned out with rodinal.

Go into portraits

I want to move away from streetphotography and learn how to make simple, honest portraits, analog of course. I still use 35mm film. I read an interesting article about developing ilford hp5+ at 200 asa the other day. When you overexpose the film and underdevelop it about 30%, the grain is very creamy. Here’s the first try. I just love the smooth look in this one. And by the way: i scanned it very flat, no auto settings at all in silver fast. I only adjusted the contrast a little in lightroom, that’s it.

Expired Delta 3200 and a punkrockshow

I played a concert with my band “The Monofones” in the Safari Bar in Zuerich yesterday. I still had an expired Ilford Delta 3200 in the fridge which i wanted to try. I took the pictures while we were doing the soundcheck and then wait for the show. Well, the results are very grainy, but some pictures have an interesting look. The photos were taken with the Minolta XD5 (my favourite cam at the moment), 50mm 1.7, developped in Rodinal.

Photowalk in Zuerich 3.8.19

I did not take any film photos for almost a year. Actually i did not take a lot of pictures in he last year at all. I had to wait for inspiration to come because i realized, that i copied myself over and over again. Social media like Flikr or Instagram are not helpful at all. People applaude for what they already know (Every musician knows that as well, people applaude when they start to know the song after the first chords. A badass musician should stop playing and say: “If you already know the song, i play something else for you”). You only get likes for the same sort of picture over and over again. This stopped me from being creative and find new ways. From now on i decided not giving a fuck and do my thing. What a liberation.

All the Photos are taken with the Minolta Alpha, 50 mm 1.7, Kodak Tri-x and developped with Ars Imago Monobath.

andalusia

december 2017: two weeks of travelling in andalusia and 6 rolls of hp5+ later...

the speakers corner

so i spent a weekend in london. for the first time in my life i visited hyde park and the famous speakers corner. it was a blast. i've never seen such a cool thing in my life. people were discussing capitalism, religion and everything else. it was loud, funny and totally crazy. i love it.

those mountains

i spent a few days with friends in the mountains of switzerland, in the canton of wallis to be correct. what a lovely and warm october we have in 2017. i had my favorite film camera with me, the the olympus om2 and fomapan 400 which i pushed to 800. at first i tried to make some nice landscape photos. something i'm not used to do at all, normally i rather shoot street photography. so i had ansel adams in mind when i took those pictures. it's really not easy at all to take interesting landscape photos. i'll have to learn a lot. and maybe a 50mm lens is not the right choice.

i don't know why, but somehow there were some serious lightleaks in the camera. it got worse from picture to picture. so a lot of photos were unusable, what a shame.

still quite a lot of photos were ok. many of them were taken around the great aletsch glacier.

the legth of 23 km makes the great aletsch glacier the longest in the alps. the sad thing about it is that within a few years the glacier will disappear. global warming is affecting the aletsch arena's "ice sea" to a concerning extent. measurements show that the glacier is experiencing dramatic ablation, shrinking by up to 50 metres in length each year and retreating significantly at the edges.

the other photos are taken on the way to the the sparrhorn (3,021 m). it lies south of the oberaletsch glacier. my wife is a very talented photographer, she took the photo of me with the bird on top of the mountain.

somehow i still like photos with people in it, even if i want to take landscape photos... kind of street photography in the mountains. but i definitely want to learn how to make nice landscape photos. maybe next time i'll go for medium format. ( i'll need a sherpa )

the lucerne carnival

the wearing of masks in lucerne is a tradition that goes back centuries. for many people of lucerne carnival is the most beautiful time of the year. others just want to get the hell out of the town for these days.

crossprocessing

positive film and crossprocessing means a lot of fun.

normandie

normandie, france 2017. all photos have been shot with expired film. i got lots of fuji press 800 as a gift. they expired in 2005. because i didn't know if the films were stored in the fridge or not, i decided to overexpose 2 stops. it turned out a little grainy, but the colors are still quite nice.

fomapan 400 @1600

i used to push tri-x to 1600 but i never tried it with fomapan 400. so i developed it with rodinal 1:50. the results are not far away from tri-x. i'm quite happy with the amount of grain and the sharpness.

diy color developing

so after many black and white films, i thought it would be the right time to develop color film at home. i used the tetenal colortec C-41 kit. the film was a fuji press 800, expired in 2005. the results are quiet ok - i love those color shifts of the expired film. but in the future i'll bring the films to the lab again. i need more time to shoot pictures, than to develop color film.