Andrew Crocker 4/8/20 Andrew Crocker 4/8/20

Pulling Out the Texture

I shot this image a couple of days ago in the backyard. I had to work quickly because there was a storm a-brewing.

What I love about black and white film is that it has a natural ability to pull out the texture in a scene, particularly Ilford Ortho Plus film. The orthochromatic film doesn’t “see” red, so any warm tones tend to darken and cooler tones—like the sky—brighten.

Intrepid MkIV; Schneider Symmar-S 5.6/210; Ilford Ortho Plus; Ilford Ilfosol

Andrew Crocker 1/13/20 Andrew Crocker 1/13/20

Feeling Blue: Pink Striped Lilies

I found some Pink Striped Lilies at the market the other day. Such gorgeous colors I had to bring them home with me! Despite their vibrant colors, I wanted to shoot them on Ilford’s black and white HP5 film.

Using a touch of color, namely a blue filter on my lens, caused the deep red and pink of the petals and the green of the leaves to darken nicely and create dramatic tones and textures. You can see why blue filters are seldom used for black and white portraits.

Pink Striped Lily 4

Pink Striped Lily 5

Pink Striped Lily 6

Andrew Crocker 1/1/20 Andrew Crocker 1/1/20

Cala Lilies

Happy New Year, everyone! Yours truly is starting 2020 out on the right photographic foot. I did some work with a handful of Cala Lilies. While not colorful, they do have some very nice textures and shapes.

I also did a little experiment with the developer. For two images, Cala Lily 2 and Cala Lily 3, I used a standard Ilford Ilfosol 3 developer. For Cala Lily 6 I used a Caffenol C-L recipe, which is composed of coffee, vitamin C, and washing soda. I’m amazed by the results! Caffenol certainly isn’t as convenient as the standard developer, but the results hold their own.

I’ll do a further write up on Caffenol in the future! Stay tuned. For now, I hope the start of your 2020 goes smoothly!