The reason why shooting Ilford Pan F outdoors is perfect for shooting on the Yashica Mat 124G is because it suits subjects ranging from architecture and still-life to portraiture as well as fashion. It offers slow speed, high contrast, black & white film offering exceptionally fine grain, sharpness and detail.
How often have you tried to point your TLR up to shoot? It’s not very practical to do so unless you have a tripod and a very steady hand. For the casual person in public they’ll probably be curious why someone is pointing a black box upwards looking through it as if it were a periscope from a submarine. I think this picture came out pretty well, the sharp dark lines in between the bright glass contrasts well and gives an illusion of the building disappearing into the sky.
In contrast, no pun intended, this picture taken of the Shard a little further away is a more common shot you may have seen of the same building. Have any of you been to the top of the building? Must have a pretty epic view up there forsure!
Ilford Pan F comes in 35mm and Medium Format. It is rated at ISO 50, and is known for its high contrast, super sharp black & white film with very fine grain. Ideally you need to shoot this film studio or on a natural bright sunny day.
Naturally, I did the opposite of what was recommended on the film box. It was another dull cold wintery day in Central London and I had a roll which I needed to use up. In hindsight, this was a mini win, namely because the high contrast of the film was the best way to communicate the physical environment and feel at the time.
Daido Moriyama says that, ‘make sure that you really look at things, the objects, whether food or other goods, in all their variety’. You’re probably thinking, obviously! Sometimes however it's the simplest piece of advice that can get you going again. Moriyama also suggests for anyone heading out to the street to ‘put aside ‘concepts’ and/or ‘themes’.
Ultimately, get out there and shoot, shoot, shoot. It might be that once you have gone somewhere and got a feel of the place, you’ll be able to look back at your photos and reassess. It may be that an image stands out and you may want to go back and explore that a little further with your camera.
This is one of my favourite images from this walk. I love the dark intense contrast on the edges of the frame with the light illuminating through. It almost feels like going back a 100 years and imagining what street life may have been like with market vendors out on the street and people involved in the hustle and bustle of daily life.
This tiny Rotherhithe watch house was established as a base for constables of St Mary's Parish in 1821. You can see that the rectangular stone plaque above the door confirms both the function and the date of the building.
Everytime I walk in London I find something new. This watchhouse, as well as being a base for monitoring the streets at night, was in a very useful position on the edge of the churchyard, or guarding against body snatchers.
Body snatching was a very lucrative and commonplace back in the 1800s in London. It was of course totally illegal, because fresh bodies were always in demand by anatomists at Guys & St Thomas’s Hospital for dissection and teaching purposes.
Until 1832, the only other corpses legally available to hospitals were those condemned to death and dissection in the courts or the unclaimed bodies of people who had died in hospitals and poor houses.The hospital which is literally around the corner is still very much in operation today! However the Watchhouse closed down back in 1836 after the Metropolitan Police was formed in 1829.
The fine tonal grain gives the images taken on Ilford Pan F that classic feeling and look. Would be quite cool to shoot some actors in a Peaky Blinders look somewhere along here.
I know that Ilford Pan F is rated 50 ISO however I was really impressed by how well it handled in extremely low light conditions. Take this picture, taken inside with little to no natural light coming through. I guess one of the advantages of having a TLR or any Medium Format camera with a leaf shutter is that you can really bring that shutter speed down. As such, with a steady hand, or even with the camera resting on the surface you’ll be able to capture something delicate in the most light challenging situations.
Have you shot with the Yashica Mat 124G or similar Medium Format cameras such as the Mamiya? Which one was your favourite picture from this video? What do you recommend shooting with or how to use this film for projects! Let me know in the comments below, thank you!
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