I have kinda been failing at this blog for the last couple of years (wonder if there’s…. something happening in the world that’s stifling creativity lately? Hmm…) so I figured might as well sneak in one last post into 2021. A brief shoot with Paloma on everything from tiny 35mm up to 4x5 and a couple of my earliest 8x10 portraits.

Definitely one of my favorites was almost one of the first photos of the day. Trying to get into the flow and just being goofy with posing hands and we landed on this funky pretzel arm pose and combined with the expired Polaroid 669 film, it really hits hard.

Then came the big boys. Recently borrowed a gorgeous 8x10 Chamonix large format camera from a friend and have been trying to put it to work while I have it. So a couple shots with Paloma seemed appropriate. Once I landed on a pose with 35mm, I grabbed the 8x10 and pulled off the shot below. Nothing like seeing a sheet of film bigger than your face in the darkroom.

And popped of another Polaroid of the red dress with some very bizarre Polaroid Type 79 film that came out beautifully. The colors do not disappoint. Experimented with the generally unusable negative as well. Had to cover myself with a BW shot which is at the top of the post which I really love as well.

Grabbed one last shot in the red dress with my new Lomography LomoGraflok back for large format cameras. Nice to shoot a cheaper instant film like Instax in a good camera.

Then switched up the outfit a bit and added some lace to the mix.

And again, loving the back shot, played with a variation of that for the second 8x10 shot and after messing around with the hair and buttons a bit, landed on something I loved.

Figured we could move from the studio setup and shoot around my living room with my 1940s large format camera and more Polaroids/35mm.

A few last Polaroids and look changes before the end of the shoot.

Yet one of my other favorites from the shoot was the last. A messy hair shot that came out like someone living in a foggy dream. One on expired Type 59 film (my favorite) and a test on the Lomo back.

A good shoot to cap off my 2021 year. Always shooting. Always improving. Always experimenting.

And shout out to Paloma of Crawford Models who killed it on this shoot and not only put up with the weird cameras but was itching to get her 35mm camera back in action in 2022.

Cameras used:

Chamonix 8x10 with 240mm f5.6 // Arista 400 BW 8x10 film

Speed Graphic with Zeiss Tessar 165mm f3.5 and Fujinon 210mm f5.6 // Arista 400 BW 4x5 film / LomoGraflok with Instax Wide / Expired Polaroid Type 59/79

Graflex Super D with Zeiss Tessar 150mm f3.5 // Arista 400 BW 4x5 film / Expired Polaroid 669

Polaroid 195 // Polaroid 669

Nikon S2 // Arista 400 BW 35mm film