As we head into lockdown 2.0, this is inevitably going to polarise the population about the illogical stance of the government in dealing with the shit storm that is COVID19.
Since the back end of the summer and leading up to the present time, I have been busy getting out and about building up a backlog of images to keyword, log and edit.
That coupled with the sheer madness that is the American presidential election results, or at least how someone hasn’t conceded, has provided the heightened need for a little respite.
The one common theme I have noticed during this period, is the sense of folk ‘getting on with it’.
Leading up to lockdown 2.0, there has been the introduction of the 3 tier system in the UK, with the North, initially being hit very hard. Only time will tell if this will be managed well or simply a nightmare.
What I see within the content of instagram, is folk appreciating their predicament, what they have and being close to their loved ones.
Last week, I decided to have a look at some of my old film negatives, I shot film between 2016-2019, as a medium to improve my photography. People have different positive and negatives regarding film, my take away has been that it slowed me down, provided me with a medium to be more considered, but also I enjoy the start to finish process. I.e. from taking the photo, developing the film, scanning and digitally editing in Lightroom.
I took the below images of two Socialist Worker Party Volunteers. The black and white image was taken on my Yashica Mat 124g TLR medium format camera, with Ilford HP5 @ ei 200. The colour was taken on my Sony A7iii with 50mm F1.8. Both images offering something different, not better.
I use an Epson V600 flat bed scanner with Silverfast software. Whilst this is good at scanning medium format film negatives, using this for 35mm is somewhat mixed. Especially where using different colour film emulsions.
The current trend for scanning film negatives, is using a DSLR camera with the Negative Lab Pro Lightroom plug in. Whilst I have been getting some decent scans through this method, I concluded that this was more out of eyeballed guess work than a consistent workflow.
So, now that I am fully re-engaged with film photography, I going to spend the winter months reviewing the archive and also covering the events in Brighton.
Until next time, keep snapping.
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