An aspect that certainly has defined my photographic journey of the last ten years is the desire to make compelling street portraits – mostly candid shots, occasionally posed ones upon my request. (I much prefer candid ones, as I don’t like forced smiles or distorted poses – but I also prefer to take them from up-close, not sneakily from a distance with a tele lens, preying from afar like some kind of a pervert.)
This is partly to do with my admiration for the work of some of the great photographers out there – from Vivian Maier to Bruce Gilden to Martin Parr to Dougie Wallace, to name but a random, well-known few.
It is also partly to do with a desire to overcome my natural shyness in public – as well as my desire to remain unseen, even with a fairly conspicuous photographic contraption that issues a rather audible ‘clunk’ upon pressing the shutter button.
As I, unlike some of the just mentioned sources of my inspiration, do not use a flash, I often face the problem that a resulting lack of contrast does not bring out too well what struck me about a person or a scene.
I have learnt, of course, by trial and error, how to offset that, at least to an extent.
But one way for me to address this is the use of a somewhat niche, but rather exciting and powerful, type of film – Film Washi F. (No, I don’t get royalties for advertising their products: I just happen to enjoy their range, as you can see already here in an earlier post on Film Washi V.)
What is so special about this film? Well, essentially, it is a re-cut x-ray film, developed for the screening of lung disease, giving (i) a very high contrast between shiny whites on the one hand, and really dark and moody gray/black tones on the other, with elements of diffusion and ‘runny’ colours, and (ii) very fine grain. This is the result of the absence of an anti-halation layer.
As a result, the whites are really white. The dark colours are really dark. And there’s always a distinct danger of over- or under-exposure. But when it works, it really works. Or so I think.
Let me show you some of my more recent attempts at street portraits with that film in this following gallery (click to enlarge):
These, I feel, sit rather nicely with some of my earlier photos that relied on the same film, e. g. those that I made at London Pride some years back –
or just London street shoots more generally:
I really enjoy how intimate and tender this film renders these portraits, while at the same time also introducing a certain dramatic element to them, and I cannot wait to use this film again!