the lost summer rolls

I started using my mamiya 645 in 2009, first time when Ariane was on the beautiful island of Texel. I bought a few rolls of color and black and white negative film and left Osnabrück. Next stop was months later on Formentera. Even if my Mamiya is just a “small” one in the Mamiya collection, it’s a big machine. I mostly use the waist level finder and not the prism which makes it at least a little lighter. Well maybe a D200 has the same weight but I think the 645 is bulky, especially when you need an external light meter or a second camera to meter.

Because I have no scanner for the medium format negatives I ask CrazyTob if he could scan a few rolls. He did and I’m very happy. Thanks a lot Tob! Now I don’t care about the weight anymore, this machine is just great, the lens (Sekor 80/1.9 ) is outstanding and I even think of using the 645 much much more when I shoot people. It takes much more time and i’m more focused. That can be nice but it also can be a pain. Well, at best you see yourself about the results…

Texel first. This was a pretty old (and probably expired) roll or Adox 25 iso film. This was shot next to an abandoned farm, this wooden sticks are probably for fences?? The Adox tones are a bit fucked, i blame the lab because that’s always the easiest way to blame others. Well, I know this film since I used it in Rome in 2006. It was way smoother. I also overexposed it because my gossen was fucked too so i used the olympus xa as lightmeter.

This was there too. I like this shot. Shooting 25 iso is always fun!

I always find place like this romantic, maybe because Bruce Springsteen wrote “Sleeping in that old abandoned beach house getting wasted in the heat” but these places are scary too. First I was there alone, it was twilight so it became more scary. The next day me and Ariane were cruising around and stopped by that place.

pretty northsea cliché shot but i like it

Some of you might remeber the digital edition of the next shots. I prefer these here. We were hiding from the cold wind…

My pseudo famous shot on film, this time i prefer the digital one…

This was fun, crazy bird! Don’t ask me about it’s type but it looks funny. I wish I had a 200mm lens with me but I don’t want to turn into a bird photographer.

That day it was quite warm, no wind at all. We were fortune to had great weather in general…

These shots were all done on APX 100 or Rollei Retro 100 if you want. I just like this film, its perfect for me, even if the lab treated it pretty hard.

Changing place, don’t know when this was but it looks like resting between a lot of work: thesis writing, paper publishing and a bit of rest…

Now changing location again. Now I will show you a few frames that I took during our vacation in Spain on the beautiful Island of Formentera. All these shots are taken on 120 film, most of the black and white are shot on Ilford Delta 400, Color are shot on Portra 160VC, color shots from the fishing hut are taken with Ektar 100, but now see yourself

So, this is us. Preparing for a nice dinner

During our bicycle tour, a short stop.

I think the 645 is a very “handy” camera if you want to shoot medium format. The 80/1.9 Sekor is a great great lens. I wish I coud use it more often but it’s a bulky machine. I wished I had a Mamiya 6, 7 or one of these crazy Fuji medium format machines. I think I’m gonna buy one of these when I’m a rich man. Hopefully soon!

I found this wreck in a gravel pit so I used the mountain bike to get in the pit. Full of gravel and stuff, not so easy. On the way out I busted the drive of it so I couldn’t use the back break. Still it was worth it. Crazy Fiat but I think this photograph is to busy…

Out in the steppe there are some fig trees. I really like these so I took a frame of one.

We ran into this old windmill or maybe it was a storage. There is this great graffiti on it so we posed. I thought these shots are better.

Far away, a bit more close. I’m not so happy about these shots. I liked the scene so much but I couldn’t put it in a good shot. They looks normal and I don’t like the Portra in here too. Yeah, blame it on the film and the lens. Germans say: “Wenn der Bauer nicht schwimmen kann liegt es an der Badehose – If the peasant can’t swimm you blame it on its trunks” (bad translation, I know).

Another coffee stop. Of course Ariane took this of me. I like this shot a lot!

…and the other way around.

Full Sekor action. I like the bokeh in this one, as much as I like her red shoes.

Found this tree on a cliff close to our hotel.

This old fishing hut was behind the cliffs, a 15 minute walk from our hotel. I like the romanticism in it. Most of these shots are taken on Ektar 100, black and white was Ilford Delta 400.

Ariane said that these are boring ones. I like the shadows on the wood and the tones on the straps… but in general, yeah these are quite boring

I think this is the coolest shot. I think I have it +1 stop because I shot this quite open. The latitude if the Ektar is freaky, from now on I stop using Portra. I often get this pale haze on it. With the Ektar I get a nice pastel tone but clear colouring. I havn’t got that on Reala as well. Since the weather over here is quite bad I can’t really say how good the Reala performs in good sunlight. I saw some good frames with it but I think the Ektar works fine, even if it costs 1€ more per roll. New I need to check it on my 135 Film too.

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Now something old

These two shots are from 2005. Taken with my old Seagull 6×6. When I saw the scans I was shocked about the lens. Yeah of course the “Haiou 75/3.5″ it’s a bad lens but I thought that it might be alright because of the huge format. Now I really value the Sekor. I can see the eyelashes in most of the shots, here I can only see the eye

So this was the selecton of my medium format shots from 2009. Of course I have a few more that I might present in my next blog. So far I’m working on a full formentera post since I have a few APX rolls waiting the be processed.

formentera velvia

by accident i got 20 rolls of velvia. i ordered two and somehow i got 20 rolls. not bad. i got it in 2006 (i think), i shot most of the rolls in rome but the last roll i saved for a special occasion. during this time fuji discontinued the velvia, replaced it and produced it again. anyway, i thought that our first real vacation might be the best trip to use this film. i used it with the 58/1.2 rokkor and the 28/2 rokkor in my xd7.

of course you do handstands on the beach. but it’s not very smart to put a roll or 50 iso film in you camera when the sun is going down.

two lovers in the big big lake

i was checking the latitude of this film… very nice. the scratch is sweet too

this is my favorite shot from this roll. yeah, kitschy with the sun but i like how the light hits her hand and face.

it’s cold when the sun goes down

now this is the piemont kirsche of kitschiness (is that english?)

next day on the beach… zzzZzzzZzzz

well she was not sleeping. the velvia almost looks like portra here

my shades. got them for 4€ on a car boot sale and it’s not a fake ray… it looks cool on her

she’s a true juggler

get me hours to get the horizon straight sine i don’t have gridlines in my viewfinder. well i pressed the button and there it is

one very typical picture of the south or formentera. in the back you see the probably biggest tourist beach on the island (except from the very north where it’s all just beach since it’s all just shelf and beach. this here is in the south, close to migjorn. there are a few old booths that sell coffee, ice cream, a few things to eat and of course schnapps. this was the biggest one with more space to sit. a very nice, not so touristic. formed by generations of flower people and by mr bob dylan of course!

rodeln #1

snow snow snow. last week jan, s-ta and me went to the highest point in the whole münsterland to go sledding. since we didn’t see so much snow during the last years we all felt like six year olds, took our sleds out of our parents basements and take a ride. i took my super waterproof and indestructible “konica off road 28″ and two rolls of kodak farbwelt 200 with me. well, i lost one roll. don’t know how, since i kept them together. so this is part one of the rodeladventure.

thank god this tank is bulletproof. lots of snow on the lens after a heavy ride down the hill

that’s me

a very spiritual place.

yaaaaaaay

it looks so cool, all the white.

this time, on board cam. i was just worried to hurt myself crashing with this tank in my hand. the cam was just right for these “stunts”

of course we had a little snowball fight

the three of us… but i can see something coming

thank you!

on the first film we go downhill on a different way. poor me snaged on a stump with the shinbone…my trophy

on the way back

you don’t have this in a city. people get dragged by a tractor. it looks like so much fun. i need to try that too… i guess it works with a car too.

now i need to find the other roll.

got 8 rolls of c41 from the lab, all scanned on the dlab. it’s all nothing special but i’ll do a longer blogupdate by this week…

Pony Empire rehersal

a few months ago i had the chance to sneek into the rehersal room of PONY EMPIRE in the south of münster. i want to present you a little selection of what i did that day. if you might me interested in the technical side of the game. i used trix, xtol 1+1, 15 min / 1 agitation per minute, lenses are rokkor 58/1.2 and 28/2.0…

…and you have no idea how dark it was…

please go to: www.myspace.com/ponyempire

we arrived and the mic was gone…

searching…

…waiting

so she used another one

thanks for watching and i hope you like it.

thanks to the folks from pony empire

yashica t3

i hope you all had great christmas days and a good start to the new year and the new decade. i really enjoyed the time at home and took the t3 with me a few times. here i want to show yout the first three rolls, taken with it. it’s all nothing serious just p&s things. hopefully you enjoy it a bit.

in mid december i got a pack of polaroid film for my birthday-polaroid. i like it, it’s so nice to see the photo emergence on the paper. but damn, this fun is expensive.

this is taken near an old military barrack. probably the highest point at my hometown area.

♥

i had to get rid of the snow

on the car…

we had a bit of snow and everything was chaotic, at least a bit. i was happy that the streets were almost cleaned. i had michael david kennedy’s nebraska photograph in mind… well i guess it’s just a very poor try.

it was quite foggy that afternoon. i like how these big windmills disappear

one of the last shots of my parent’s old car. good machine…

countryside on the edge of town

i saw these crows in the sky and wanted to take a picture of them out of the car, so i pushed the pedal…

and hit it. i like it. for this p&s are great. looks very dramatic i think

every year a group of friends meet at the 23. dec to celebrate christmas. i thought it might be nice to shoot a few few rolls with the t3.

the “N.A Scope” works fine but since the cam is quite loud it doesn’t make sense to use this james bond gimmick.

me

most of these photographs are not taken by me, since the camera just lie around. quite of a odd spectacle since most of the guys haven’t seen a p&s film camera for ages.

now this is what happens

me and domme having fun

now we moved to the pub…

after a few ouzo things got loose

i met a lot of old friends from school… it was a lot of fun

and somehow the cam disappeared

but since i know all of these guys it was not a big deal

the old fight, film vs. chip

now roll, you see it in the ashtray

roman in his workwear

the old gang

sometimes the yashica’s adding a nice gloriole to the people when you use a flash. otherwise the lens is quite fine.

a few days later (after christmas) we played Wii…

nice…

me testing f2.8

tennis hurts after a while, i can tell you!

the winner :O

i was on fire…

this is nice too…

baseball i guess..

this is bowling

changing camera because the roll was full. this is the “konica off road 28″

macro on

a different order, there were a few shots from summer on that roll. quite strange to see this when it’s -8°C. it must have been after the hand in of my thesis in very late summer.

♥

having cake

and a look at the thesis

gemischtes

…and again, nothing fancy. next time, i promise i’ll show you something better.

my three ladies, xd7, f80, 645

my recent favorite record, well that was in summer, when i wrote my thesis but it still is

nightshifts and nighmares…

during a break, i think i got myself some ice cream to treat myself well

i had a d700 for a few days and took these shots. on the way home i saw some friends in a café close to my place. sure i stopped even if i had to work

now i jump a little, i gues it was september and these are taken on film

some of you might now this photo

i found a cable release

another jump – rollei pan 25 testfilm, the lab screwed it up…

manchester

mr. scruff’s café “cup” in the northern quarter – full dx power :/

another jump to bochum. practice skateboarding

a backyard in bochum

now a few more recent clicks. i was testing the 50/1.4 g nikkor. a fantastic lens… as far as i can judge with high iso and low light…

that’s my lens… not the 50.

i know that’s not a very interesting post… hope you like it anyway

auf nach münster

die ausgewählten bilder müssen wohl noch warten. hier kommen ein paar harmlose fotos vom heutigen tag in münster

schönstes wetter

auf halber strecke

mittagspause in der hansaklause?

ich

hmm, alles voll… !

ich habe mich bemüht

mann im regen “stell dich doch unter, sonst wirst du ganz naß” waren die worte seiner frau

auf dem weg zum café

exkern

ein schauer tee

wir haben entschieden, dass seine musik etwas langweilig ist.

münster logik…

durch den tunnel zurück in die stadt. alte konzertposter wurden entfernt und zack, wieder 1994

restart

yes yes, i quit. i packed my bag and left this place in a mess to find a new home. i must say, it sucked. it was fine to upload random stuff during the exams that i had to take for the last 24 months (i love my studies). on picasa but i have the impression that nobody was watching, maybe because of the poor images. now i want to reopen this blog here, do a bit more of a selection and show what i’m doing.

this time i try to do things a bit different. people always say it but never do it – so this is not a promise!  the first post will be about the trip that we did to the hippie isle of formentera in october. i’m still scanning the photographs but you get a little preview at the end of this entry.

after my exam i also restarted to do some photographs of musicians. if you follow me on dA you’ll probably recognize PONY EMPIRE’s prima donna. go to see their myspace site and check their music. photography wise i was allowed to cover one of their rehearsals all taken with the fast ass rokkor and pushed trix (for the tec nerds).

i know that some might be still “watching” this here… don’t know… at least i hope, i mean the last post is more than a year ago.  i hope that some of you  stop by every once in a while to see if i did something new. i’d appreciate that.

olé olé

han

looking east from the west, la mola, formentera

i climb a tree, just for the photo… and the look east

mr. ray