Aidan Dunbar

What do you get when you mix strong geometric lines, a wide angle lens, off-axis-off-camera flash and black and white film?

This.

A girl in my halls had a Where’s Wally themed birthday party and I decided to burn through a few rolls of Neopan 400 with a wide angle lens on the Bronica - partly inspired by Bruce Gilden’s work (with any luck I’m not as much of a dick…)

Wireless trigger, flash at 1/4 power with a wide angle diffuser and the lens at f/16. The depth of field at this aperture was enough to allow for guestimation of distances using the scale on the lens, allowing me to look through the WLF less and get the pictures quicker. Stand developed in Rodinal for an hour for smooth tones and maximum shadow detail while preventing the highlights from blowing out too much if I messed up the flash-subject distance.

This is the first time I’ve developed four 120 films on two reels, and I’m happy I only messed up one frame - the emulsion touched and stopped it being developed in a large chunk across the subject’s face. Unfortunately this was the only picture of Zowie, but I’m sure there will be other chances to photograph her. Next time absolutely make sure the reels are bone dry.

Contact sheets are on Flickr - they definitely get better as the night went on as everyone drank more. Scanning workshop coming up during the Digital Production sessions in a few weeks as well, so I will get better quality scans then - these ones are showing more than a bit of banding.