Monthly Ian's Monthly Musings

[Harlequin565]

Inspired by @Cobra and his thread, I also intend to do a monthly thread.

Thinking about it, it would be good to post the image once the month is concluded, so I've given myself 4 weeks panicking time grace to find something decent.

For me, the output will be an A3 book (which I've always wanted to do since seeing one at the Photography Show) of my favourite images, which I will hand make. Therefore all the images will be in one orientation, which I'll decide on in Feb.

I'm planning to update the thread with images and thoughts over the course of the year.

 

[gjhill]

Love the idea of hand making the book
Fancied giving it a go for the next zine swap
Just need to find some resources explaining the technique

 

[Harlequin565]

I went through my "experience" here. It wasn't a great result, but every time I move it on the bookshelf, I keep thinking it would be cool to do it again.

Making multiple copies though...

 

[Hadron]

This is something I’ve been contemplating as well, I’m sure I’ve either seen or read recently about someone doing a shot a month in their locale. My thoughts, at the moment are a decent shot a month within a mile radius of my front door. I live in a fairly flat boring area but I’d like to think one image a month is doable

 

[Harlequin565]

Yesterday kicked off with me dusting off the lights to see if they still worked (or if I could remember how they worked).

My (el cheapo) Godox radio trigger refused to work on my X-T2 (but worked fine on my EOS 1v) but thankfully when I changed to the Lencarta light & radio trigger that was fine on both.

Took a while to get back into the groove of taking pictures of people but Mrs H and I (and Dusty!) had fun. At this point, these are just candidates for a final selection...



Looks soft on forum display, but it isn't. I tend to do most of my portrait work with lights at f/8 a) because I can and b) because once I start getting down to f/4 and wider I start missing, which at longer focal lengths can be a real issue. Better by far for me to just get the shot in focus.



And some shot on film with Delta 100. The scans came out pretty contrasty which I wasn't expecting as I've had nice balanced results with this film before.



The above, pretty close with the Canon EOS 1v and Ilford Delta 100, developed in Ilfotec DD-X. Was shooting this at f/5.6 (base ISO of 100 vs the 200 of the Fuji) with the Sigma 50mm f/1.4. Perhaps a little close for the fifty, but I'm still pleased with sharpness and resolution of 35mm. Just need to find out where the contrast came from...

 

[Fuji Dave]

What a great set of images Ian, very nicely taken and the black BG really does inhance them well.
I am thinking about also doing my own monthly.

 

[Harlequin565]

I need a January update....

Curating my "best" images of the month wasn't too hard. I didn't take that many good ones

My wife's favourite has to be Dusty. Taken on the R6 with the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 I think this image might make it onto a few birthday cards this year. All the people we know are old, and another birthday isn't often celebrated. We're just knocking about captions at the moment...



My favourite would be this one. Again on the R6, this time with an adapted 35mm Summilux. Been walking this path for many years and on that particular day, the light was just lovely. As a print, I really like it although the household opinion is that it's barely average...



Finally, I think this is my favourite image. Mrs T messing about with makeup and me in the mirror. I do like reflection based images, and catching the eye in the mirror was a stroke of luck genius. Not quite got the hang of focussing the Hasselblad at short distances, even with the prism, but practise, as they say, makes perfect.

 

[Bebop]

Lovely collection of shots Ian.