I am a huge fan of post-apocalyptic movies, games, and atmosphere overall. In fact, I really would like to participate or work on such a movie one day. Of course being a mortal I have very little chance to do it, but I had to realize that the receipt of post-apocalyptic scenery is actually very simple.
My main ingredients are some early morning mist, a high tech solar cell covered concrete building (very easy to find), an old Exakta loaded with Kodak Gold and 2 vintage glasses (Zeiss Jena Tessar 50mm f/2.8 and Meyer Optic Trioplan 100mm f/2.8).
For some reason, these shoots remind me of the movie Delicatessen which I can faithfully recommend to watch. OK, there aren’t any high tech in that movie, but the fog creates a similar sensation to me at the opening scenes.
This building, by the way, is a member of the Technological Park of the University in Girona in Spain and I am lucky enough to work in this strange complex. I took these photos a morning during my regular walk to work.
Interesting note that this building is named after Narcís Monturiol i Estarriol who invented the first fully functional submarine. Also interesting the fact that (as far as I know) the solar cells were actually never in use even though the construction has finished around 2009. I hope they will be operational one day. I guess there must be a bit expensive for decoration purposes only. I love the way they look like anyway.
Being a camera addict I usually carry around at least 2-3 cameras of different kinds. Most of the time I have my actual favorite film camera in my bag plus a small compact for measuring the light. This set is mixed up with my medium format madness and the expectation of my family members of having good digital images about family occasions so I frequently bring my budget DSLR.
The fact that I always acting like a packman packed with cameras and lenses has 3 main consequences:
I cannot easily write a “What is in my camera bag” type of post since my bag transforms every week. (Ok, I have 3-4 different setups I used to carry around depending on my mood.)
My bag is very often reaches the mass of a medium size star with a huge gravity field which attracts more cameras.
I use many different kind of films and sensors so it is hard to select matching images to create unified looking set for a thematic series. It is also happening because I love casual shooting during pointless walks without a concept.
To overcome on the 3rd consequence I decided to use the images of my very last roll of film and present it as a diary recorded in photos. Even though there are different topics covered in this series and the photos were taken during several walks in the last couple of weeks, it has a quite unified look due to the same roll of film.
Diary details
Camera: Cosina CSM
Lens: Cosinon 55mm f/2.1
Film: Fomapan ISO100, 36
Developer: Kodak D76
Scanner: Canoscan 9900F
Period: 2012 Jan-Feb
Morning at the river
We are living very close to the biggest river of Hungary (Danube) and I like so much to have a walk early morning (before work) at the side of it. There is a tiny island I used to visit because it is really quite and peaceful at the mornings especially at this cold part of the year. You can hear an army of birds using twitter though. These shoots were taken on an extremely cold day at the temperature around -20 degrees Celsius.
Afternoon downtown
The place we live in is a quite lovely little town with a great history which I don’t even try to introduce here. It almost all the year filled with tourists and their cameras. Seriously, I could start the local …camerastyle.com site focusing on tourists’ equipment. (I do love these sites: tokyocamerastyle.com, saopaulocamerastyle, csmcamerastyle) Anyhow there are tremendous amount of photos taken about the town every day so I don’t really feel like to shoot there as much. Still I always find a little detail worth to capture.
Business plate made of shadow 1.Business plate made of shadow 2.11
Bus stops
Bus stops are great contrast against the downtown, they are regularly dirty, covered by graffiti and offensive adverts about products I will never buy (because I spend all my money on film of course). These are places used by everyone but seemingly belongs to nobody and therefore nobody really cares the way they look like.
This photo is digital, taken with my Ricoh GR Digital camera. Please consider it as a “making of” photo.
According to Wikipedia he was a Hungarian philologist and orientalist, author of the first Tibetan-English dictionary and grammar book. He was born in Kőrös, Grand Principality of Transylvania (today Chiuruş, Romania).
Anyway, I am probably not the right person to describe this sight historically neither theologically, but it was a wonderful experience and we could really smell a special religious atmosphere.
There were a Fantastic sunshine and clear deep blue sky although the air was a bit chilly plus, of course, the stupa which indeed looks extraordinary. I hope the photos will explain better what do I mean.
If I made you interested in this stupa, have a look at this link.
Gear
I used my Pentacon Six TL and most likely the standard 80mm f/2.8 Biometar and some Kodak Ektachrome 100 slide film. This was my first and so far only trial on this film. I would love to get some more of it though. I have used my Ricoh GR Digital digital compact as light-meter.
November is certainly not my favorite month, at least not in Hungary. I am not a huge fun of the cold muddy weather, short days and dying nature. Unless it is in a post apocalyptic SCIFI or zombie movie and I am in a warm comfortable place. But I have to admit sometimes this month could give us some really great atmospheres.
In Hungary lots of people have some small piece of field as a hobby garden where they produce vegetables, fruits during the summer or having grape for self produced wine. Unfortunately recently many of these small parcels are being abandoned and filled with weed. This is really a pitty in my opinion since the new generations will completely forget the knowledge and the joy of producing something like this. This is a strange feeling to see such places especially at this part of the year. So I toke the opportunity of having some sunshine and I tried to catch the combination of the abandoned gardens and the slowly dying vegetation of November preparing for the winter.
I have used the Yashica TL Super with the Hansa 35mm f/2.8 lens which came in kit with the Yashica and supposed to be an excellent glass. In fact it is really a nice lens, there is only some vignetting what I could mention. But since I like this effect I add some extra corner darkening and some more retro look. Also this was the first time when I tried the DM Paradise 400 film (first 2 images). I have to say, it is an affordable solution and has great colours when using around sunset. Being a relatively high speed film it is a bit grainy, but in exchange I could use it in interiors quite well. The photo with the gloves is on Fuji superia 200 which is my most used color film for the reason it is the easiest to get here.
These are the digital shoots from the same location in the previous post. Although this post was not intended as a camera review I can not avoid to write a few lines about the camera I used.
This was my Ricoh GR Digital compact camera which is a good old friend of mine. I carry it since (I think) 2007 and I still use frequently. It has a fix F2.4/f =5.9mm wide angle (28mm equivalent) lens which is great for street, travel and building photography. I love it because of it’s build quality, pocket size, excellent lens, raw output, manual controls and high level customization options. Also it looks quite retro which suits me a lot. Because of the manual controls and possibility of different light metering methods (evaluation, center weighted and spot) I often use it as light meter when shooting film. It also provides a very decent macro performance. The only disadvantage is the tiny sensor but well this is a compact. On the other hand the files don’t show signs of noise reduction what I very much appreciate. because I prefer to filter out noise by myself if I wish so while the original files are retaining way more detail than usual compacts.
That’s all about this camera for now. I may write a separate post dedicated to the GR Digital one day. I hope you like the pictures.
Coupe of months ago I had got a chance to join to a photo tour into an abandoned iron factory. I had no idea what to expect, I only visited one building before to play paintball.
So I grabbed my “grown on steroids” SLR camera (the medium format Pentacon Six TL and), a few lenses (180mm Sonar, 80mm Biometar and 50mm Flectagon) and 2 rolls of slightly expired Fuji Reala ISO 100. Yes, my bag was pretty heavy, but who cares, the quality worth this price for me. Despite my expectations the weather turned good and I could shoot the slow speed film and the sight was even more amazing than I could imagine. I also toke some digital shoots as well. But since those come from my GR Digital compact camera (and nowadays light meter) they are so different, I decided to not to mix with the 6×6 images. They will be published in the next post probably.
camerajunky 