ilford hp5 – Cheap Camera Adventures

Spring is an incredible time of year in Norway. This spring has been incredibly cold and slow, and even now, in the middle of May, we are bothered with snow in the forest. The good thing about that is that you, as a photographer isn’t very bothered with other people along the paths and you in most cases have the place to yourself. Today, I went out into some local woodland that I know quite well. Yesterday was a very rainy day, and it rained all night, so I figured that the snow was most probably melted away in the forest by now. I was very wrong, and I was not able to walk further into the forest than about four hundred meters before the snow was too deep. Also, the path looked more or less like a stream, and I had the feeling that most people would go for a swim rather than a walk on a location like this.

Traces of winter – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, Ilford HP5 plus, Ilfotec ID-11 1+1

Nevertheless, I went out this morning and waded myself through the soaking wet forest floor searching for nice woodland-compositions. These kind of conditions, grey, wet and misty days, are the conditions that inspire me the most. They makes the location stand out in a very different way than you would see it on sunny days, and you spot details and areas you wouldn’t see if the light was brighter.

On this particular outing, I went for the Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, a TLR-camera that I have owned for a while, and that I absolute love using. There is something about this camera that inspire me. The world looks very nice through the waist-level viewfinder on the Ikoflex, and there is something about the way the lens renders the images that really suits my eye. I chose to shoot at shallow depths of field in this particular outing for two different reasons.

First of all, I wanted to emphasis the relaxing bokeh-feeling this lens gives and how smooth the sharpness of this lens is at around f3.5 and f4. It gives a very relaxed feeling to the scene. Secondly, my particular Ikoflex has some faults with its slower shutter-speeds and below 1/50th can give a very unpredictable result when used. From no activity at all, to just a random shutter-speed. I should probably have it serviced, but I guess fixing this one would be too expensive compared to its value, and it serves me well as it is at this point.

Scene of melting – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, Ilford HP5 plus, Ilfotec ID-11 1+1

For that last reason, I chose to go with a very flexible film to give me some wiggle-room with my exposures. I went for a roll of Ilford HP5 plus that I shot at its box-speed of ISO 400. After seeing the conditions in the forest when I came there, with that layer of mist that I didn’t expect to find there due to the conditions in general, I was very happy about this choice of film for that reason as well. Ilford HP5 plus is fantastic at capturing the mood of a misty forest.

Old mans beard – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, Ilford HP5 plus, Ilfotec ID-11 1+1

Even though the walk this time wasn’t that long, and the way there was rather wet and unpleasant; I actually had to jump across a stream of melting-water to reach the path; I got some images that I am very happy with. I also really enjoyed my little adveture into the wet and misty forest, and I will certainly be out again in these kinds of conditions soon.

From a wet and misty day in the woods – Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, Ilford HP5 plus, Ilfotec ID-11 1+1

Some days ago, I was tidying up my darkroom, and I found what I assume to be a previous test-roll. I assumed that the roll was around half, but it turned out to be around 24 exposures of HP5 plus. I then got the Idea of trying to capture the miserable weather we have had in the area lately. I figured HP5 plus would be brilliant at that, it has grain, but not too much and coarse. I also chose to go with Ilford’s Perceptol developer, to reduce the grain in the whites a bit, but not eradicate it.

My aim was not to get razor sharp images, but rather to capture the feeling and mood of this time of year. I am thinking more in the direction of a charcoal drawing than a crystal clear image of the mood. I know some photographers would have gone with a Holga or something similar to that on an outing like this, but I have never really befriended my Holga camera, and I prefer the effect the Petri Racer gives.

Snowy and wet December day – Petri Racer w Ilford HP5 plus@250. F8 1/60s – Ilford Perceptol stock

For that reason, I chose to bring along the Petri Racer. For long term readers of this blog, you know the Petri Racer camera very well. It was the first camera I bought for this blog, and the camera that inspired me to make a blog about cheap cameras, hence CCadventures – Cheap Camera Adventures. Not that all cameras featured on this blog is «Cheap», but they are reasonable and affordable alternatives that in some way sparks my interest.

Reklamer

The day was very snowy and it was unpleasant walking around in the snowy weather. I also had to wipe and dry the Petri a few times during the outing, to make sure it was not soaking or that the lens got fogged up. The camera had been in the car for a few hours before the shoot to «climatize» somewhat, but the wet snow and humidity made it fog up slightly anyway. I therefore let the film reach room-temperature before developing it. I often do this when the weather is cold to avoid swift temperature changes during the process. Not that the weather this day was very cold, only around -2 degrees, but it never hurts to be on the safe side.

Even capturing the snow falling – Petri Racer w Ilford HP5 plus@250 f8, 1/4 sec – Ilford Perceptol stock

The whole outing took me around half an hour, and I was soaked afterwards after wading in deep snow to reach a dam with view over the little lake Skumsjøen close to Gjøvik.

For the images, I am quite satisfied with the images as I find that they convey the mood and feeling I was aiming at conveying. These are not my strongest photographic moment by any means, but in terms of conveying the unpleasant Norwegian December-wet snow, I think I did a decent job.

Stikkord: ilford hp5

Misty Woodland

Capturing the mood