Blog

The photographic blog of Sean Wood (aka motionid)

Looking for faces

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So I'm looking for faces to shoot. I will be shooting in black and white with film so the image above is not really true to what I am trying to achieve. Actually I am trying to develop a particular style and so require a lot of people to shoot. Male, female, young or old, it does not matter to me. I imagine that I will use the images as some kind of photo series at some point but I have no real fixed plan. Obviously I am not going to use your face commercially but if you choose to participate your image may end up on this blog or on my site sometime in the future.

If you are interested in having your face shot by me please send a mail to sean-at-50mm-dot-jp People who's picture I take that provide me with an email address will receive a copy of the image if it is to my liking (i.e. if I think I've done a good enough job)..

Kodak Autographic Brownie

 

A recent comment on a Tokyo Tower photo I took a while back prompted me to write this post. I shot the photo with a early 1900's Kodak Autographic Brownie no.2 using a Fuji Polaroid back. The camera originally took a different kind of film that is no longer made. After checking the camera I thought I might be able to get away with using 120 film but could not work out a way to modify the original camera back without destroying it. And given the camera is actually not mine and kind of on permanent loan I figured that would not be a good idea. So I though perhaps I could connect a Polaroid back to it. After checking the size of my Hasselblad back with the camera it looked like the idea was going to work. But I needed to find a back that did not have a little window (like the Hasselblad or Mamiya) but had the film area fully exposed when the dark slide was out. A trip to the local camera store immediately paid off. I found myself a Fuji back in the junk bin for ¥525 which was quite lucky because I didn't want this little test to cost me and end in failure. I figured the easiest way to connect the back to the body would be with electrical tape and that once I had proved it would work I'd figure out a more permanent solution. After reading on line and discovering that the aperture would be around f/9 at it"s widest I took a shot and hoped for the best. The image you see above is the result I got. I was quite surprised at how the image turned out. You will see from the other images below how I modified the camera and the controls it offers. F/9, f/19, f/22. T, B, 25th, and 50th of a second shutter. And a viewfinder that is very cool and at the same time very hard to use. Feel free to share your old camera mod stories in the comments area below.

 

Tokyo Big Scooters

I had met this bunch a week before. They had these amazing bikes. And at the time I had B+W film in my camera. I rewound it and stuck in some colour (still yet to be developed!) and shot some frames. I thought these guy's would be a great story for my mate Skorj so I asked them if they were around the area much. They said they were in Shibuya every Friday so I said casually that I would be back next week with my mate. He usually shoots for a few foreign bike magazines and I figured it would be a good match. In the process of trying to reach Skorj and arrange him to shoot these bike guy's I discovered I had somehow given them the impression that this would be a full blown shoot for a big magazine (There was definitely a good bit of imagination being used by the bike guy's at this point). The next Friday came around and Skorj was busy. I sent a mail to them explaining it was off and they called me up and got all pissed off. Joy! So, rather than giving up and making enemies of them I explained that while my mate could not make it, I could shoot them then try to get them onto a CNN site. At worst they would have a set of nice pics and at best they would appear on an international website.That night, the usual bunch of photographer friends were turning up to the usual drinking hole about the time I was due to shoot the bikes and I was loathed to meet up with them because I knew I would have to explain my early exit and all the gear I was carrying and I know these guy's are all like Vultures when it comes a shoot and would basically take over and claim the entire plan as their own. Lucky for me everyone was feeling semi respectful and didn't completely take over what I had organized. And, as it happens it was good thing a few of them came along. Brian and Eiichi were there to lend a hand with interviewing the guy's which was really lucky cause had they not done that and also been kind enough to send me the recordings / notes I could not have written the little story for CNNGO.

So, all the drama kind of paid off in the end.

Lens fun

So just for fun I asked several people, including my friend Stephan, for a photo. I usually use the Hasselblad and have tweaked my settings so I can use the 80mm lens to take close-up head shots. I was, however, surprised to see the result when I developed the film. I wasn't expecting him to look so different. And I always thought that the 80mm lens on the Hasselblad was a 50mm equivalent on a 35mm SLR. What a difference a lens and a bit of fiddling with the settings makes. Stephan prefers the digital shot. Probably because of how different the lens makes his face look. I actually like it more. Most likely because it's difficult to replicate the look. In any case I'm surprised to see how well the film version turned out when putting it side by side with the digital one. More of these to come.

Abandoned

A trip to Malaysia late last year had me jumping fences in between conferences to shoot these amazing abandoned houses. They can be seen everywhere and are usually locked away behind tall fences. If you find yourself there one day, just go easy while finding your way over the fence and back.