I’ve been experimenting with different systems for processing 5×4 sheet film, so decided to start keeping some notes. First up is a small modification to my Paterson Orbital Processor to allow the anti-halation backing to wash off when processing sheet film.
On Saturday night I took my Canon 5D out to the Falls of Clyde with McInnes to do some more night shooting. We had made the same trip (in the dark) the the previous weekend, but as I had only my 5×4 with me the best I managed to do was fall down a hole while attempting to lightpaint a ruin. This time out I shot the falls instead, but managed not to fall in.
Working with Polaroid material in the field can be a bit hit-and-miss, particularly when attempting transfers in the cold – it seems to always end up as a sticky, but colourful mess. Last time out I tried using warm water to wet the paper and so bring everything up to temperature, which seems to work quite well.
I had a shoot with Kat Love at the end of January, and shot some art nude stuff onto very outdated Polaroid 579. The watercolour transfers are in the Polaroid Nudes gallery.
Finally got around to doing my first shoot of 2007 – with the utterly fabulous Skin. Shot some more Polaroid 679 and did some on-the-spot watercolour-paper transfers – always fun.
Still have the Kodak HIE infrared to develop, but that’s a job for later in the week.
Shot Sammie B on Friday night, and decided to avoid digital entirely – so I took my Shen-Hao 5×4 field camera and a big pile of Polaroid film. I’m finding the learning-cure with this stuff to be quite steep, but did manage to take one shot that I’m pretty pleased with.
