Boško Martinović Photography

Archive for August, 2013

Greenet café, downtown Belgrade

This photo was initially supposed to be a contrast test, that is, how the (analogue) camera behaves in cases with high contrast. Now, this photo is one of my favourites from the first film. Had I known that I would get this film noír effect, I would have continued to shoot more. The car from the 1980s and the old tram in the distance just contributed to the magic. Of course, the composition of the shot is awful, details are nice,  it’s going to be a big help for future work.

greenet cafe

Making of a matchbox pinhole camera

In 2011, I stumbled upon this website http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/ and was instantly bought – I just HAD to do try this stuff! Instructions were rather simple, and I felt up to the task.

So, everything was ready to start, as I gathered all of the stuff required. You can see the early stages and almost finished pinhole camera.

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The only thing I replaced during the work was the can opener, as I found a better replacement (an opener from a beer cap). I don’t know about your matchboxes, but the ones I had could not be cut perfeclty clean. There were small tears and particles everywhere, which in fact produced an interesting result. The most important thing was the black tape! It keeps the light out (most of it), it makes the setup rigid. If you cut it nicely when you finish, you can reuse the camera several more times (until it falls appart, of course).

This is how it looked in the end:

Matchibox pinhole

Thanks http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/  for this interesting project!

 

And what about the photos? Did I succeed? You’ll be the judge of that, but as far as I’m concerned, the achieved results exceed the expected ones (failure). Check them out below.

Details: The photos in this serieswere all taken using a hand made matchbox pinhole camera I made in September 2011 (see it in another album). Exposures range from 1 second to 20 minutes. Film used was the common Fuji ISO 200 film. The edges of photos were produced by unevenly scalpel-cut matchbox cardboard. The first photo studio scanned the film automatically, which cut off  parts of photos and skipped a few. The second photo studio did the positioning manually so I have everything. Anyway, I am happy to have some results from project, this challenge of mine. I hope you like them and try it out yourself. Anything is possible. Thanks to http://matchboxpinhole.com

#1    Students’ Park

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#2  Students’ Park

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#3    Students’ Park

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#4 Students’ Park gate and Philological Faculty in the background…

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#5 Students’ Park gate and Philological Faculty in the background…

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#6 Students’ Park

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#7    Republic Square, National Museum and Prince Mihailo monument

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#8    Greenery

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#9    Greenery

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#10    Greenery

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#11    Mess in the kitchen

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#12    These two photos overlapping were cut when scanned, so I reconnected them, regardless of the error.

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#13    My love Milica

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#14    I want to ride my bicycle

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#15    A test shot of the Church of St. Petka, as seen from Milica’s stroller. You can see my finger tips as well 😀000036

#16    George the cat

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#17    George

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#18    George the cat moving his head000040

#19    Walker

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#20    From my balcony

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#21    Room

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#22    Zeleni Venac bus station, and a glimpse of the market

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#23    Night shot from my kitchen window. Exposure approximately 20 minutes.

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#24    A bit distorted perspective of my living room corner. The face on the wall is usually beautiful.000001

What projects?

From time to time I get the urge to try something new in photography.  The stuff I try may be old news to you, but it’s a challenge to me. I could even say that trying out that old Yashica SLR and shooting film after so many years was a serious challenge as well. All the benefits of the digital gear that have spoiled us over the years made me learn the basic principles again. So, stay tuned. I just might come up with a new challenge. So that’s what the “Projects” category is going to be all about.

Kids enjoying winter

This scene reminds me of childhood so much. The grain only adds to the feeling that this is distant past. In fact, it was 2012.

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Winter in the park

Yes, I could edit these photos to make the daylight brighter (it was twilight), but they appear more gloomy like this so I left them like this.

In the park

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Dive

I like to remember photos from this series from Greece. The angle is very interesting, since I was above the birds, taking photos from a ferry. There was a great number of seagulls nearby and it was pretty tricky to isolate one or two. Anyway, I had a great time trying to make a photo worth keeping, and I think this is the one! What do you think?

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Still life

Ilford HP5 plus 400 really gives that special grain to photographs. This 30-year old camera does wonders with the right film.

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Yashica FX-3

Ok, my uncle gave me a 30-year old SLR camera in Fall 2011. So I bought Ilford 400 black and white film and began shooting (without plan). These are some of the shots, and I am definitely getting a new roll of film! I love what this camera does with a 50 mm lens. Photos here are mainly unedited and uncropped – just scanned film.

Check out http://mattdentonphoto.com/cameras/yashica_fx3.html for camera specs

 

Yashica