Eliott Erwitt

Eliott Erwitt died today.
Here my photo of him peeking into the room before his lecture in Miami in 2014.
Taken on Tri-X / Leica M2 I think.

Miami's Overtown

Overtown is a place just north of Downtown Miami.
Its use to be a real black town up until early 60s when the major highways (Dolphin, I95) were build through the area; its remnants of the past now, in a form of half-empty old structures with modern condo towers popping around here are there. Once a year,there is a street fair called "Overtown Music and Arts Festival" which I am trying hard not to miss. Yes, its not the biggest one; the weather of mid-summer is atrocious; and it is scheduled for the hottest time of the day. Still, its the best event in Miami one can photograph. Every year I bring something interesting from it.
Here are some of this year's catch:

The Night at Ocean

This Saturday I've got a chance to stroll the South Beach. The Ocean drive was packed with folks celebrating, flirting, kidding, snapping selfies. My Olympus XA died after years of exemplary service but Lieca M2 worked and these are the pictures (Tri-X shot at E.I.1600 and pushed to E.I.3200 in TMax developer):

Printing in dark room vs film-to-digital workflow

I started in darkroom in my early teens, somewhere in 68 or 69. Back then, everything was simple: not too many graded papers available, one developer, water from the tap, fixer and free time, which I had aplenty. I did not use any advanced techniques. Masking with my fingers for dodging and burning was the farthest it went. Because of this, there were negatives I could print easily and some I did not know how to print, the negatives too dark or too contrasty...when I had one, I just skipped it. Here is one of the prints from the time: some TASMA film pushed to 500 ISO, some old paper my father gave me:


(View from my darkroom AKA attic room. Yelabuga, 1973)

Current content

Rain and shine, night and day, June and May...

Some of my recent shots in no particular order. Downtown, Opa-Locka, South Beach...enjoy (:

Walking Downtown again

+ some more Downtown shots I took last month:

Independence Day

Few frames from morning SoBe walk with Hector Isaac. Bessa L/25mm/Dark Red filter/Tri-X @ E.I.3200 in TMax developer.

Overtown

Morning at Haulover Beach

Haulover is my favorite beach. In the morning it is usually deserted.

South Beach in the morning

Leica M2/35mm Cosina lens/Tri-X

Hammock park

This is from RRT gathering in Matheson Hammock park on Old Cutler road. RRT AKA "Russian Round Table South Florida" is a social club I am visiting sometimes; here we were celebrating the Soviet Army day Feb the 23rd. Nice weather, beautiful SF scenery and mother's tongue all around; the further in the event, the louder it was:) For this occasion I used something appropriate: FED 2 camera with 50mm Industar lens.

Lucas, I'm watching you

Again, Olympus XA/Tri-X

In Wynwood

Olympus XA again

I switched few things last week: went to TMax developer from Diafine for Tri-X and stopped pushing the film; I tried again little Olympus XA which had been sitting on the shelf for the last 2 years. So far I like both changes. What killed my interest in XA last time was Ilford HP5+ at E.I.800; it was not very good combo. Tri-X @ E.I.400 is much better.

Wynwood at night

It was...windy, dark, surreal. Miraculous.
I had just few frames left in my M2...have to return there soon.
Leica M2/28mm/Tri-X at E.I.1600 in Diafine.

Kentmere 400 film vs Tri-X in Diafine

I have not recently reviewed any film/developer combinations in this blog. There is a reason for this: film is well known thing, why bother with the reviews anyway? Well, if it is Tri-X of HP5+ then it's true, they have been around for a while, along with Diafine 2-bath developer I'm using here, but Kentmere 400 is all new animal, at least for me. So I bought 100ft roll for $29.95 from Adorama and tried it, along with Tri-X, in the same Leica M2 with 50mm f/2 Planar lens from Zeiss. It is not very scientific comparison per se; I just needed some feeling of it. I exposed Tri-X at E.I.1200-1600 and Kentmere at E.I.640-800, as recommended for Diafine. I looked at the resulting film strips on the light table and scanned them.
Looking at the negatives: Kentmere is drying flat, which is good. My version of Tri-X (Arista Premium 400 from Freestyle Photo) is not. The Kentmere is a bit "flatter" in terms of tonal gradations, compared to Tri-X. The Tri-X grain is bigger but I also like it more, the dense grain of Kentmere has not impressed me much (see the fragments below). On the night shots, Kentmere has denser blacks with less details in them. Ok, here are the shots, face to face --

November Witch In Downtown Miami

November 31st, Olympus Stylus Epic/Tri-X at E.I.1600 in Diafine

Ii's coming

Three Graces

Taken downtown last week with Olympus Stylus Epic camera on Tri-X film