Tag Archives: black and white

Scan of a 5x5cm print from a pinhole camera. This came out of a soup package!

Pinhole Photography Workshop this Friday, 13 December!

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Learn the most hands-on, DIY, back-to-the-basics approach to photography there is: Pinhole Photography. This Friday, 13 December at 11:00 there will be a workshop on making a camera out of a shoebox. Or one of those plastic just-add-water soup packages. The picture above came out of a soup package. Really.

The workshop will last about six hours, beginning at 11:00. Participation fee is 20 euros including materials – paper, chemistry, construction supplies – but please, bring your own shoebox or soup thing. I can only buy so many shoes. After going over the basics of why this works at all (essentially, a brief history of the camera), you will be guided through building a camera yourself, from the box and basic supplies. At that point we will go into the darkroom, load our cameras, and then go out on the street and shoot. We’ll develop the pictures right away, and we should have enough time (read: daylight) to do this a couple of times. In the end, participants can take home not only their own cameras but also the photos made in them and hand-developed in the darkroom. It’ll be fun!

Ready to Sign Up? Just send me an email.

Scan of a 5x5cm print from a pinhole camera. This came out of a soup package!

Scan of a 5x5cm print from a pinhole camera. This came out of a soup package!

Learn to develop your own negatives in the darkroom

Announcing: Film Development Workshop, Sunday 17 November at 13:00 in Berlin!

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Analog Photography Berlin is pleased to announce The Real Hipstamtlc workshop on Sunday, 17 November at 13:00, where you can learn to exposure and develop your own black and white film!

We will spend an hour or two discussing the basics of exposure and the key differences between digital and analog photography, then we’ll go out and shoot in inspiring Friedrichshain. Coming back to the lab, we’ll warm up with some tea and then start developing film in the darkroom.

By the end of the day, participants will have exposed and develop their own film, and can take their negatives home with them!

The workshop will last between 6 and 7 hours. Participation fee is 20 euros including materials – film, chemical, coffee, tea, beer…

see you there!

Workshop participants enjoying the world through a twin lens reflex camera

Workshop participants enjoying the world through a twin lens reflex camera

The velodrom in Friedrichshain, Berlin. Shot on a disposable black and white camera

Learn to Develop Film, Friday 1 November 13:00 in Berlin!

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Always wanted to learn how to work in a darkroom? Your chance has arrived! Learn the basics of black and white film exposure and development in a workshop in Freidrichshain, Berlin on Friday 1 November at 13:00. The Real Hipstamatic workshop is a chance to learn the basics of exposure, shoot on film, and learn to develop black-and-white film yourself in the darkroom.

Ready to Sign Up? Just send me an email.

All details are available here. Each workshop costs 5 euros (materials fee) plus a suggested donation of 15 euros to keep the water running. The workshop runs 6-7 hours, and is lots of fun. There will be coffee for the beginning and beer for the end.

Questions? Send an email. More information is available here,

New Workshop! The Real Hipstamatic: Film Development on 1 November

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Strolling towards the Velodrom in Friedrichshain during a workshop

Strolling towards the Velodrom in Friedrichshain during a workshop

The next workshop on black and white film development has just been announced for 1 November, at 13:00. The Real Hipstamatic workshop is a chance to learn the basics of exposure, shot on film, and learn to develop black-and-white film yourself in the darkroom. All details are available here.

Ready to Sign Up? Just send me an email.

In addition, two other workshops which have been previously announced are taking place in November and December. During Printing from a Negative: Make The Magic on 15 November you can learn how to enlarge photos in the darkroom. Perfect if you have some of your own negatives or have attended The Real Hipstamatic and want to keep going deeper into film photography.

At the Pinhole Camera Photography workshop on 13 December 2013 you can learn how to make a camera out of things lying around your apartment. We’ll build cameras and use them right away, shooting pictures and developing them in the darkroom.

All workshops are held in Berlin-Friedrichshain on Fridays at 13:00, lasting about 6 hours.

Questions? Send an email. More information is available here,

Pinhole Photography Workshop on 30 August

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Join in for a workshop on Pinhole Photography on 30 August at 6pm. In this workshop we will turn a box into a camera. We will go over why a pinhole camera works at all, then we will build pinhole cameras. After that, we’ll load our pinhole cameras in the darkroom and go out and shoot. Of course, we’ll go back into the dakrooom and develop these pinhole photographs. This is an excellent way to get into the darkroom, to start with black and white analog photography, or to experiment a bit more. Check out more on this course and others or sign up by sending an email here.

Analog Photography Workshops in English in Berlin!

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Now announcing: analog photography workshops being held in English in Berlin. The format will be  a one-time workshop, with each workshop focusing on a different topic in analog photography. The first workshops are scheduled for August 2nd and 9th and are intended for beginners. Check out the workshop listings here.

To sign up for an analog photography workshop, just send an email. The courses will be held in english at a studio and darkroom in Friedrichshain. Hope to see you there!

 

My grandpa's Rolleiflex, from the attic.

My grandpa’s Rolleiflex, from the attic.

 

Film Recipe: Ilford HP5+ in ID-11

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Tempelhof Airfield, HP5 + ID-11 1:1, 11 min. with constant agitation

Film Recipe: Ilford HP5+ 400 in ID-11 1+11 at 20C for 11 minutes, constant agitation.

This recipe for black and white film development in the darkroom is one of many in a series. Readily available films and developers have changed over the last few years, and this is intended to be an up to date selection of recipes. 

This is my go-to film and developer combination, as it is for many film photographers, with good reason. One of the advantages of film photography over digital is the extraordinary tonal range which film can record. And Ilford’s HP5 is one of the best at doing exactly that. The result is a relatively low contrast negative, but you can always increase the contrast later when printing. Getting information onto the negative is a crucial step in black and white analog photography, and this combination of developer and film will effortlessly do exactly that.

The downside of HP5 with ID-11 is grain. This isn’t a fine-grained combination, and it is too much for some people. That makes this combination a better choice as a  medium format black-and-white film than as a 35mm film. I use it for both, knowing that the final photograph will have a different feel.

Develop your own Black and White film

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The first step to working in a darkroom is learning to develop your own black and white film. Sure, you can bring your exposed film to a shop to be developed, but you loose a lot of control – and it is very expensive. The chemistry costs about a dollar or a euro for each roll of film, you get to try out lots of things, and its fun. Working in the darkroom is sometimes like cooking and sometimes like baking, but it is always like being in the kitchen, except the lights are a bit dimmer.

The main piece of equipment you’ll need to develop your own black and white film is a development tank. You can get one from Fotoimpex in Germany or Adorama in the U.S., for $30. You can also buy larger or more expensive film tanks from Jobo or Paterson, for hand development I like the cheaper version because it is often easier to get the film on. A thermometer is needed too, because the chemistry should be quite close to 20C/68F. Then you need a developer (ID-11 or Rodinal are good for getting started), a stop bath, and a fixer.

The most important thing in developing your own film in the darkroom is consistency. For example: it is OK if your developer is half a degree warm, as long as it is always half a degree warm. Your negatives would be more contrasty than “normal”, but you could reduce the time instead, or print differently. Also, you have to load the film in complete darkness. Red light will destroy undeveloped film, too.

If you are going to shoot film, learning to develop your own film is a joy, economical, and gives artistic control.

Get More from Film: Medium Format Black and White Film

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My grandpa's Rolleiflex, from the attic.

My grandpa’s Rolleiflex, from the attic.

The easiest way to get more out of black and white film for your darkroom experimenting is to use medium format film. Medium format is sold as “120 Roll Film”. Developing medium format film in the darkroom is the same as 35mm format, but the film is way broader, making it easier to handle. If you have a developing tank big enough to handle two rolls of 35mm film, it can probably handle one roll of 120 film.

Different cameras give you a different size negative, and different format. The classic medium format size is 6x6cm (2 1/4 square inch), which you get with most Rolleiflex and Hasselblad cameras. Or with a Holga. Mamiya makes a bunch of cameras that shoot 6×4.5cm or 6x7cm. There are plenty of others. A Holga is the cheapest way to jump in the game. A few weeks ago I bought a perfectly functional Rolleicord (6x6cm) for 40€ from a shop.

Why medium format? Because the negative is bigger, way bigger. Going from 35mm (2.4×3.6mm) up to 120 (say, 6x6cm) roughly triples the size. If you are thinking digital, it is not at all like going from a smaller sensor to a larger one. It is like tripling the number of megapixels and sensor size at the same time.

I enlarge ISO 400 negatives shot on HP5+ in my darkroom up to 30x30cm all the time and get no grain whatsoever. Perfect resolution. This gives you a lot more room to play. If the exposure is off, or there are a lot of highlights or shadows in your picture, you can get more out of the negative without loosing quality. It like shooting with a state of the art digital camera. Indeed, I find I can get more tonal range on HP5+ film shot at 400 than I can with my Nikon D800 at 400, similar to what I get shooting digitally at 100.

Shooting medium format film is a fifty dollar solution to get a lot more room to play in the darkroom. You could buy hundreds of rolls of medium format film for the price of a digital camera with a similar resolution…

 

 

First Steps for Black and White: Get a Camera!

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The first step into the wonderful world of analog photography is to get a camera. Before you work in the darkroom, learn to develop film, enlarge your own prints, or anything else of the sort, you need to get a camera. Fortunately, countless were made throughout the 20th century, most still work, and most go unused.

For most of my artistic black and white work, I used old medium format cameras, like the Rolleiflex which was once my grandfather’s. Your parent’s attic is the first place to look. Old lenses like these still work great for black and white photography.  I use a lot of 35mm film cameras (“normal” size), too. You can get some of the classics (like a Canon AE-1) for a hundred bucks. Unlike in digital, the camera doesn’t affect the pictures. The photographer does, as does the lens, the film and plenty more. For Berliners, don’t buy something at Mauerpark – it isn’t likely to work. Try ASA90 in Neukölln instead, the cameras will work and are warrantied. Plus, the guy is awesome.

My grandpa's Rolleiflex, from the attic.

My grandpa’s Rolleiflex, from the attic.