Rome
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A jam in via Alessandria
Taking pictures with a fully manual camera is a way to keep practising the basics. Honestly, I would not use a film camera for a professional assignment —at least, not as the main one— but it’s worth doing it in a less challenging condition.As per the technicalities, waiting for the next batch of Ferrania Orto to arrive, I resorted to a Kodak Tri-X 400 roll, which is my favourite film at these ISOs.
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The Expired Film Series – Episode 2 – Ilford XP2Super 400 – Nov. 2017 shot in May 2023
This is the second episode in a series documenting the use of expired film in various contexts (mainly in Rome, Italy). Episode 2 features an Ilford XP2Super 400 shot with a Voigtlander Bessa R2 and a Voigtlander Nokton 35/1,4 in Rome (IT), between Colle del Quirinale and Piazza di Montecitorio. Also in this case, but this time by mistake, film’s ISO and the exposure compensation were not adapted to allow more light to impress the film. Once again, the blacks lack detail and show severe grain.
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The Expired Film Series – Episode 1 – Kodak BW400CN – Dec. 2014 shot in June 2023
This is the first episode in a series documenting the use of expired film in various contexts (mainly in Rome, Italy). Episode 1 features a Kodak BW400CN shot with a Nikon 35TI in Rome (IT), between Piazzale Flaminio and Piazza di Spagna where the world premiere of the latest Tom Cruise motion picture —Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning— was going to be held. As the Nikon 35TI does not allow one to ‘pull’ film’s ISO and the exposure compensation did not work, it was impossible to overexpose the pictures. As a results, the blacks lack detail and show severe grain. Legal Notice Reuse is free for pro bono personal and educational…
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Content Creators
There are many reasons for the lack of details in this image.The main one is that this roll of Kodak BW400CN expired about 15 years ago. Secondly, the Nikon 35TI used for the shot was set to ‘P’ mode, which does not allow ISO to be changed, and exposure compensation is broken: this made it impossible to use longer exposure times, as it would have been necessary.
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Masters of Propaganda
In the heart of Rome, unbeknownst to the horde of tourists heading for Trinità dei Monti and the Fontana della Barcaccia, hidden in plain sight lies silent the headquarter of the Congregazione de propganda fide, the ante litteram master of modern propaganda.
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Guarding Democracy
Maybe it is just me, but I couldn’t get the best out of the Ilford XP2 Super 400.
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Partner in Glam
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Processing DSLR-digitized film with and without Pentax K-1 Monochrome Custom Image profile
Digital Camera Utility 5.0 is a pain to use on a Mac with Monterey. It is slow and laggy. Its only use is to get the photo as shot, with the custom image profiles embedded in a K-1 (and other recent Pentax DSLRs), and export it as a 16-bit tiff for further processing.One might wonder, however, whether editing a RAW file without going through the DCU —and thus losing the custom image profile— would produce lower quality results. We are about to find out.The test is quite demanding, as it starts with a shot from an Ilford SP2 Super 400 (note: this is not a true B&W film, as it…
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Tell me something I do not know…!
This hip shot is the result of a complicated process. It was taken with an expired Ilford XP2 Super 400, a Voigtländer Bessa R2 and a Voigtländer Nokton 35mm f/1.4. Focus was at infinity. There was no time to frame it properly, so in post it was necessary to rearrange the composition with a generous crop.Digitising the film with my homemade rig required 2 stops of underexposure with plus or minus 1 stop of bracketing.The DNG was first processed through DXO Pure Raw, then adjusted and cropped in Affinity Photo, and finally adjusted for simmetry in DXO Viewpoint.
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Stadio Olimpico, seen from Tribuna Monte Mario
The picture of Rome’s Stadio Olimpico has been shot from a very exclusive vantage point: Tribuna Monte Mario. Light conditions were so unmanageable that the only option to get an interesting photo was a heavy, borderline unrealistic post-production
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Red Fan
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Still Ruling
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Get Ready, Set, Go
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Dark Cloud Over San Pietro
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Technological Memento
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Deadly Bored
Once again, the meaning of this picture is counter intuitive and “made up” by the composition. The scene is seen from the perspective of the mannequin: at the end of a hard day spent sitting on the street-front, it (or he?) looks deadly bored and tries to kill the time before the shop closes by casually looking at the next passerby. The directional effect (from the mannequin to the passerby) is achieved by the diagonal connecting the tip of the hat, the feet of the mannequin and the cast of the shadow. Taken as a whole, these elements drive the eye from the mannequin to the persons and not vice-versa.
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A Virtual Glance Dance
The essence of this photo is all in the glances of the protagonists. The man looks at the woman, the woman looks at the luxury car. The essence of this photo is all in the glances of the protagonists. The man looks at the woman, and the woman looks at the luxury car. It is this subtle game of glances that tells a story and turns the photography from a casual picture into something worth seeing. Once again, it is not relevant whether the people portrayed are actually involved in the “glance dance”, as what matters is the image to convey the meaning created by the overall result. This confirms…
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When Tilted Photos Work
Tilted photos are very challenging to take. It is easy to break the composition, lose an essential part of the scene, or take a bad picture. Furthermore, making sense out of a diagonal orientation with a ratio that is not square (Hasselblad people, I can hear you loud and clear!) adds layers of difficulties. As counterintuitive as it might look, this photo taken in a “normal” orientation would have lost all its visual impact.
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Good Plan, Poor Execution
The idea behind the composition is entirely correct. The mannequins and the girl form a triangle, as does the direction of the stares, conveying both a sense of symmetry and counterposing the liveness of a human being to the puppets’ lack of. A poor execution, though, led to the mannequins’ head cut, turning a visually appealing photography into a meaningless shot.
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Light as Meaning Shifter
The original idea behind this picture was to match the emptiness of the shop with the facelessness of the mannequin posing as a store clerk, to convey a general feeling of depersonalization. Unfortunately, the big lightblot represented by the poster close to the mannequin catches the observer’s attention and reduce the effectiveness of the composition. Instead of connecting the mannequin with the internal part of the store thus making sense of the whole picture, the eye just “sees” an ad poster.
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Photopanning in Rome
Photo panning is an art in itself and – when adequately practised – is able to deliver a stunning visual experience. In this picture (that has not been altered but for contrast and clarity) the overall experience reminds the Impressionism aesthetics.
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Keep Out!
This photo conveys a message of “rejection”: first, a security guard who blocks access to the jewellery and then a signal of a prohibition of access reinforces the concept, thanks to a composition that guides the eye to a diagonal that goes from the bottom to the top, from left to right. Obviously, there is nothing “true” about all this because the overall result is the result of the organization of the spaces and the management of the perspective that allow connecting semantically elements that, in reality, have no relationship between them. It would have been enough to shoot from a different angle – or not juxtapose the security guard…
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Beer or Spritz?
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Fast drivers in Via del Tritone
