London | The 35mm Project

Kodak T-Max 400

On May 1st London’s street’s fill with thousands of people that take part in the May Day March. London has been celebrating May Day since the 1880’s and this year I wanted to come along and take part too….by documenting it at least anyway!

I had finished University submitting my work early so that i could get to Trafalgar Square where the march finishes at 1pm (i figured this would be the busiest spot as they give speeches afterwards).

I was able to finish a roll of Fuji Superia 400 (will publish at a later date) by the time that the march arrived.

I haven’t used Kodak T-Max before but i love the results from this shoot, the negatives (other than the DP3200) are crystal clear when scanning. The photographs are super sharp along with contrasts and tonal range being pretty good. I’m a bit let down by the exposure of some of the photographs however thats a technical error on my part when metering as i gave the camera aperture priority (so i controlled aperture, camera controlled shutter) this was essentially a speed thing. I used my Sigma 50mm f/1.4 during this shoot, i would of preferred my 24-70 f/2.8L MkII lens for this type of photography however i didn’t have it on me at the time.

There were times where i was sitting on the max shutter speed. What i should of done is raise the aperture to compensate however i wanted some bokeh.

Currently im favouring the T-Max as my ‘go to’ film, its sharpness and fine grain at a speedy iso with great contrasts has won me over….for now! We’ll see how long this feeling lasts once i have finished the Delta 400.

Ilford Delta 3200

Following from my previous post Kodak Portra 800 this is the second part of the day shot on the beautiful Ilford Delta 3200.

This was the first time that i have shot on DP3200 and and to be honest with you i’m blown away by the quality of these photographs, the grain, contrast, quality and overall look is just stunning (especially when looking at the original scans).

This is truly a breathtaking film and I love shooting with it, so much that i have another DP3200 ready to be developed. I used my Sigma 50mm f/1.4 as i prefer shooting with a wide aperture to create a gorgeous bokeh surrounding my subject. Typically when shooting people i cycle between f/1.8 and f/2.8 however with the higher speed 3200 it can be difficult to reach this aperture unless in lower light conditions. I could of pulled the film which would have given me room to use a lower f/stop however i think the results of this shoot were fantastic and i didn’t want the grain etc to suffer. I will try pulling/pushing film at a later date. Technically the 3200 is actually 1000 iso that is set to push to 3200.

Thank you to my friends involved in the creation of this film.