Cabin Fever

Tired of COVID 'cabin fever'  I needed to get out shooting so I concocted  a mission to shoot a total of 36 acceptable shots in a 2 day time frame.  Day one would be 12 6x6's and the second would be 35mm for 24 shots... fingers crossed.

I decided to shoot b&w film.  This would not have been my choice a few years ago but the plethora of  digital imagery has turned me off to the point where I'm re appreciating the disciplined 'analogue' mind set. I just flat out love and respect the wonderful tactical aspects of film and the  physical aspects of wet processing. With digital you can't touch the pixels, heck you can't even see 'em, there's nothing to hold on to until there's an ink jet print. Silver lives forever, well sort of...you know what I mean.

Day one - Medium format

Day one. Sunday February 14th armed with my rather ancient Mamiya C2 loaded with HP5 Plus accompanied by my 80, 105, 250mm lenses and my Lunasix Pro, I was ready. As an aside I happen to prefer the crisp snick of a between the lens shutter vs. the clumpty clop of the Hasselblads.

It was a great day beginning at 10am shooting the portraits of my mother in-law Beryl and Zoe my granddaughter at 10am followed by the location shots all. This was a wrap by 4pm. Daylight this time of year in Canada is limited to about 4pm, ergo the shot of the dress shop window at 5pm was in total darkness. In total my odometer recorded a mere 26kms of travel. Murphy's law did not

All images were processed in ID-11 diluted 1+2 for 17 minutes with 5 second agitation every minute or so. Using distilled water with 2 tiny drops of wetting agent

Day two

Day two was the following Sunday the 21st. Up early into my small studio for 5:30am to shoot the tabletops and the selfie. I used two 45w 5200k CFL bulbs with a white reflector, nothing elaborate as I strive to keep things simple and not have the lighting dominate my compositions. My plan for the studio shots was to wrap up by 8:30 so I could head out for what would be a memorable day.

My Domke bag was loaded with my venerable 1965 Nikon 'F' along the legendary 105 f2.5, an 85 f1.8 made famous in the '60's movie 'Blow-Up', the macro 55 f2.8, a Hong Kong black market 35 f1.4 and last but not least my go to 24 f2 along with several rolls of HP5. I put the bag out early into the cold. trunk of my car... more about this later.

The coldest capital in the world

Winter in Ottawa is both beautiful and challenging with snow storms, chilling temperatures and up gale force winds making snow monster drifts like you wouldn't believe. Did you know Ottawa is the coldest capital city in the world?

From my home it's a leisurely 10 minute drive to Parliament Hill where I made the shot of Queen Victoria's statue. I absolutely love this delicate shadow less light (notan).  The weather held nicely until about 2pm when the storm hit just before I did the photo of the rural snow covered railway bridge.

White knuckle time

Driving is now very dicey. When you can no longer see the center line nor the road shoulders it officially becomes white knuckle time especially on unfamiliar roads with swerves and curves typical of these remote county roads. Good news and bad news, the deep snow drifts have filled the ditches and provided a soft cushion, the bad is I find myself in down hill diminishing radius left turn with black ice under the 20cm of fresh snow and ergo an excursion into a deep snow drift. Good news, it's feather soft snow and with 4 premium snow tires it hopefully assures my escape... a special thanks to the photo god's as there were no hidden fence posts.

Warm up

Chilled to the bone I stopped in for a much needed hot coffee at one of my favorite cafe's and photographed Ronnie the owner who always has a chatty moment for me. Then, as prearranged I photographed my friend Rob with his 5x4 Super Cambo and his partner Danni with her much loved Bronica. They're both excellent semi-pro shooters. My last planned shot was of my friend Roger at his favorite pub, then home at 6:45 in total darkness and more than a tad tired, but very happy with this adventure!

Weather tolerance

You might be wondering about the weather tolerance for my rather ancient 'F' and the manual focus lenses in heavy blowing snow with the thermometer hovering around -12. First, these cameras and lenses were made to last a life time. This 1965 F has never skipped a beat other than replacing the light seals and not a single tiny issue with my legacy manual focus lenses.

1. Print drying made on Ilford Multi-Grade Satin paper

Print drying made on Ilford Multi-Grade Satin paper

When it's bitterly cold the camera gear has to stay cold, never ever let it get warm! If you do condensation to form on it and when you take it back out into the cold... it'll freeze solid and it's game over and it's the same for your film... keep it cool.  Snow falling on metal or glass which is at ambient temp snow will not melt, just shake it off. The tolerances of the older film cameras are such they can tolerate stuff which might even challenge a Nikon D5 and how about all the auto focus motors and gears in freezing weather with a wind chill of -35... Canadian winters eh.

I truly enjoyed this challenge and plan to do something similar in mid May. I'm thinking of pin-hole or maybe 4x5 paper negative landscapes or even portraits?

18. Picturesque snow scene in Quebec. 24 f2 shot at 1/500 f8.

Picturesque snow scene in Quebec. 24 f2 shot at 1/500 f8.

Images ©Crombie McNeill