As I realised seeing the results of my first roll of 120 film in the Yashica, portrait was something I should try more often. Melbourne summer is a great time to shoot natural lights portraits and I did a lot of that. I also wanted to try the infamous Tri-X 400 from Kodak after I heard so many good things about it (read this wonderful piece if you want to get an idea of the devotion this black and white magic film has been developing (pun intended) since 1954. I don’t know if it’s the lab settings, the scans of my choice of post processing, but I have to say I was expecting something much more contrasted. But maybe it was (and it still is) me?
During a beautiful summer picnic in Albert Park, Melbourne, I shot this picture of Elodie, our au pair at the time. I still have great memories of this day. Simple things: get a few sandwiches, dips and drinks in a bag, and just walk to the park on a Friday evening… Aussie style! As stated before, I was a bit surprised by the contrast levels out of the lab. After the contrasty Ilford Delta 100, I wanted something even punchier… Nothing Lightroom (or a dark room) could not fix, though.
With retrospect, and after focus off course, another big challenge with shooting with a full manual camera is metering. Kids not only move in and out of focus very fast, they also move in and out of shadows and light patches really fast. I tend to meter with an app on my phone so it would require 4 or 5 hands to do this in real time. This is Inès again. Once you have the planets aligned focusing and metering-wise, well, that leaves you with what matters: framing and actually shooting. I am lucky my kids have expressive faces, so there is always something funny or charming to shoot, but this face was new. I have no idea what she was looking at...