People – tim dobbs photography

I don’t take portraits … well maybe I do? .. latest zine project

I have been making my own zines for a few years now and find the whole process very enjoyable especially when you get a finished copy of your work in your hands.

“I don’t take portraits” is my latest offering and is a slightly misleading title as it only features portraits that I have sort of unknowingly shot over the past few years.

What I mean is I never intentionally go to shoot portraits but I have seemed to have accumulated at least one frame from most of the rolls of film I have shot either as a way of testing the film/lens/camera combination or just to start/finish a roll.

Last month I went totally out of my comfort zone and agreed to an interview with Euan over at Biblioscapes … https://biblioscapes.com/ to talk about this new zine.

I don’t usually do this type of thing but Euan made the whole process very relaxed and easy.

Biblioscapes is a great site featuring a wide variety of photographers and styles and I enjoy listening to all of the interviews, I am honoured to be amongst such good work.

Here are the links to my waffling if anyone is interested ..

https://biblioscapes.com/in-discussion/tim-dobbs

and the zine itself ..

https://biblioscapes.com/library/i-dont-take-portraits

I had the zine printed by the wonderful Mixam who always do a great job.

Here is a link to the online proof that they generate before it went to print.

https://mixam.co.uk/share/6161d5d06810b6546dda72c4

Comments on the zine and my waffling all about it will be gratefully received.

Also I still have a handful of copies left so if anyone of you would like one please get in touch either through Twitter .. @timdobbsphoto or email .. timd.photography@gmail.com for details.

I have a few spare zines left from previous and I will be giving one free with each Portrait zine.

I don’t take portraits … my latest zine

A slightly misleading title but it is something that I did believe until I was going through my archive of images a couple of months back looking for an older image to print for someone.

More often or not I seem to take at least one image per roll of film especially on 35mm either deliberately or as a test for the film if I have not used that film/camera/lens combination before or as a last shot off the roll.

Anyway they all seem to build up when you go back through the numerous folders/years in my Lightroom catalog.

I have taken peoples portraits when asked or if I am doing some sort of project but it is not something I have ever steered my photography towards, I did shoot a few weddings a couple of years back and didn’t really enjoy the overall experience .. shooting was the easy bit ha ha!

So I decided to pull together all of my film portraits and attempt a zine which is different to every other zine I have produced so far.

Whittling the images down to what would be a nice little zine was hard and it eventually ended up 52 pages and could have easily doubled that.

It is A5 size saddle stitched, Soft touch laminated cover, 52 pages B&W/Colour on 150gm matt stock printed by Mixam Print.

As per usual the twitter film community responded to it well and most of the 30 copies sold pretty quickly which was nice as when I do a zine I use the monies from the sales to go for my next zine that way I seem to be able to produce more zines almost free of charge after my 1st zine.

I still have a few copies left and if anyone is interested you can DM me on Twitter .. @timdobbsphoto or email timd.photography@gmail.com or I have an etsy shop too … https://etsy.me/3vd9H4p .. for the last few copies I will be including a free 2nd zine featuring a friend who makes Lovespoons which is also in my etsy shop if you want to take a look.

Anyway here is a sample selection of the portraits featured in the zine ….

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek

Sunny day walk with my Daughter & some Kodak Portra 400VC …

I have been working all the way through this pandemic lockdown which is a blessing as I think I would have gone nuts if I had to stay home so on the weekends I make the most of it by going on a long walk here in our lovely Garw Valley.

Most weekends if she isn’t working too I have been joined by my daughter who has been eager to explore the many different walks we have here in our vicinity.

I bought quite a few rolls of Portra 400VC from Mr Cad ages ago so I thought it was about time that I shot some of it so I loaded my trusty Mamiya 645 and went out on a hot Saturday morning to do a 8 mile trek around our valley.

After developing the roll I had some issues namely strange light leaks in different places and of different intensities so I immediately thought the camera was at fault even though I have never had a problem like this on any other rolls.

After posting on Twitter asking if anyone had any idea what it could be most people suggested the camera which would have been the obvious choice so I loaded up a roll of ilford SFX and shot that the following day under the same sunny conditions only to find they were all perfect … no leaks so on this occasion I think the problem was with the film itself.

I bought about 20 rolls and have shot 7 or 8 previously and all were fine except this one.

As most of the leaks occurred on the edges I managed to salvage quite a few frames with a little cropping which was pretty easy as it was a 6 x 4.5 frame.

See this original scan sample here

Anyway here are the final images … please click to view larger ….

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Forgotten roll of Lomo CN400 from the summer ….

I have been getting really behind with my blogging … I have loads of rolls that I have shot over the last few months that I have scanned but have only edited one or two frames that I have then posted to social media but not done anything with the rest.

This roll is a case in point … last August there was an event in Bridgend town centre with stalls, street entertainers and live music.

The weather was pretty good and I took my Olympus OM2s which was already loaded with my favorite colour negative film stock Lomography CN400 which I had shot 2 frames already from a trip to Cardiff.

I only shot about half of the roll during the event as I somehow found myself in the pub so I finished the rest the following day which is why there is a strange juxtaposition of images here 🙂

The Lomo film worked great as usual I love the colours it produces especially if you slightly over expose it 1/2 to 1 stop but process as normal.

Here is a selection from the roll

Click any image to view larger ……

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Lomography Color Negative 400 at the car show ….

A couple of weeks ago there was a small classic car show here in Bridgend town centre and as we were blessed with a bit of sunshine I loaded the Nikon F100 with my favourite colour film stock .. Lomography Color Neg 400 along with the Nikkor 50mm f1.4 and went down with the intention of getting closeup and detail shots as well as the normal car shot.

This film always gives it’s best when shot in good light and didn’t disappoint this time with lovely popping colours along with excellent detail.

I had the roll developed and scanned by Filmdev which as usual gave great results.

If you have never tried this film before then get your hands on some and give it a go I am sure you will be happy.

Anyway here is a selection of images ….. well to be honest it is almost the whole roll 🙂

Please click a photo to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Trying ilford XP2 at different ISO ratings on one roll ….

This started off as a proper test as I had read in various places that you can shoot XP2 at different ISO ratings without changing the development times.

My plan was to load up my FE2 and over the space of a few days/weeks shoot the roll in different situations that required possible pushing/pulling and write down the setting to see what happens when I develop the roll eg. does it work??

The experiment went pretty good initially but about 20 frames into the roll I managed to lose my little notepad with my settings on which essentially ballsed up the whole thing as I do not have the settings to correspond to the images.

What I can say is that I shot the roll between 200-3200 iso … the shots in the bright sunshine were at the end of the roll after I realised I had lost my notepad so I think they were all 200-400 while the shot of my son on his phone was definitely at 1600 iso.

All in all after a little tweaking in Lightroom every frame I shot was perfectly useable with the higher ISO shots exhibiting quite a bit of grain but I like grain so to me that was an added bonus.

Well here is a selection of images … comments most welcome …

Please click a photo to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

100mm focal length as a walkabout lens ……..

I have had my Canon FD 100mm f2.8 for ages but I have never really given it a proper runout, I have shot less than 20 frames with it in total so just to try and give my photography a different slant I decided to shoot a whole roll just at 100mm.

I mounted it on my Canon T90 and loaded up a roll of the lovely Lomo CN400 and went out for a walk.

Viewing the world at 100mm was a bit strange at 1st with a lot of backing up with the compositions but after a bit I started to get used to it.

I decided to get the roll developed and scanned by Filmdev and when the scans arrived I was very happy with the results, Lomo CN400 colours especially in good light are gorgeous.

To be fair the lens isn’t the sharpest wide open at f2.8 but still looked great and focussed spot on most of the time.

It was fun just shooting at this focal length it definitely puts a different perspective on my usual look, I need to take this lens out a bit more whenever I use any of my Canon FD cameras.

I have an FD adapter for my Fuji X cameras so I may give it a go on one of them next.

Anyway here are the images …

Please click a photo to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

First time shooting JCH Street Pan …. at the wrong iso!

A new online film store opened up recently at Analogue Wonderland which as a film shooter I was keen to support.

I bought a varied selection of films some of which I have never used before … this roll of JCH Pan Street 400 being one of them.

I have seen loads of images online of how this film looks and I loved them so I was looking forward to seeing what I could capture.

As you know I develop my own film and when using B&W I use the Massive Dev app on my iPad to get the dilutions and developing times.

For the developers that I had to hand that were featured in the app database I used Rodinal at 1+25 dilution for 11.30 minutes which was 1 minute over compared to the app because somehow I managed to shoot most of the roll with my OM2S set to 1000 iso.

I have no idea how and it could not have been accidentally knocked to that setting as you have to lift up the ring quite high to set the iso.

Anyway I was not holding out much hope for the 1st half of the roll that I shot in poor light and rain at a local event in Bridgend where the town centre was sent back to the war years featuring soldiers, vehicles etc.

To my surprise when I got the film out of the tank the images looked ok, maybe a little underexposed but I was confident that once scanned I could get useable photographs which was the case in fact they were really good … the contrast/sharpness and especially the grain were excellent.

So here is a selection of the photos that I liked …. I will be buying more of this film for sure … it’s look is right up my street 🙂

Click on an image to view larger …..

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

and finally I have a new zine for sale if anyone is interested featuring the incredible “Merlin Maddock” friend and neighbour for over 20 years and inventor extraordinaire.

DM me on twitter or email me for more details ….

My new zine hot off the press featuring "Merlin Maddock" & his final project .. DM for details if interested .. very limited quantity @EMULSIVEfilm @FfotonWales #Wales #zines #printyourstuff pic.twitter.com/kUfQpQPzZV

— Tim ….. (@timdobbsphoto) July 9, 2018

It goes all the way to 1.1 …..

A twitter friend posted the other week that he was selling a recently purchased lens for a really good price that I could not refuse.

I have the Voigtlander 35mm Ultron f1.7 for my Leica M2 so the chance to add a 50mm to my bag was welcomed.

The 7 Artisans 50mm f1.1 is a pretty impressive piece of kit to be honest, it felt really well built and is pretty heavy to boot.

And when attached to the M2 it felt well balanced but it was noticeably heavy when carrying but was great to shoot.

I loaded a roll of Kodak Ektar and set out to test how well it performed.

The viewfinder on the M2 is lovely and bright normally but maybe it was in my head but it did seem brighter and the focusing patch was very easy to get focus quickly.

The lens barrel did creep into the finder but not into the 50mm framelines so it was not a problem.

Anyway here is a selection of images shot at various apertures … only the one of my son at the end was shot wide open at f1.1 as it was too bright when I was out and didn’t have an ND filter with me.

Overall I am extremely pleased with the lens, it is not as sharp as the Ultron wide open or even at f2.8 but how it renders the out of focus areas is lovely so its a keeper for me for sure.

Anyway thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂

Sunshine & Shade .. Provia 100F and my Yashicamat 124G ….

The weather here in South Wales has been pants over the last few weeks and I have some E6 chemistry sitting in my darkroom quickly going off as I have not had the light I need to shoot my recently acquired Fuji Provia 100F.

But last weekend we had some reasonable sunshine breaks so I loaded up my Yashicamat and went out to chase the sun.

But as it turned out there seemed to be more poor cloud cover than sunshine so as you can see from my 12 frames here how Provia changes its look depending on the conditions.

It goes from a cool, subtle palette to a vibrant glowing look when the sun shines.

I quite like both looks to be honest.

I was happy that my Tetenal E6 chemistry still had some legs on it and I was very happy with how the roll looked …. and managing to get 12 out of 12 keepers was a bonus.

While on my walk I met 3 gents who were quite taken with the Camera requesting a photo be taken which I duly obliged.

Anyway thanks for looking ….

Click on an image to view larger

All images on my blog are available as prints just drop me an email

I also have a film only blog over at usingfilm.wordpress.com if you want a peek 🙂