Cafe musicians

More from a two year project to photograph musicians at a local cafe.

MP, 50/1.4 lux pre-asph, and Kodak TMax 3200 @ 1600 EI









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• Mark Ehlers (formerly 'markE')

http://www.pbase.com/marke



'Good street/wildlife photography is a controlled accident,
a vision of preparation and surrender materialized.'

Hey Mark,

These are great. I always love your musician images and they are perfect in B&W.

Steve

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digislr said:

These are great. I always love your musician images and they are perfect in B&W.
Steve

Click to expand...

Totally agree with Steve. These are great and I love the contrast. I especially love the last one of the drummer.

Amy
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Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
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Wonderful and evocotive images, I think the film grain adds to the mood, fading memorys of a greag gig. Vic

Nice. Always amuses me how people moan about digital noise but like film grain. I don't mind either but then I shoot a D2x and M8!
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cheers

Ian

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• Mark Ehlers (formerly 'markE')

http://www.pbase.com/marke



'Good street/wildlife photography is a controlled accident,
a vision of preparation and surrender materialized.'

Mark - in the shot of the drummer, the film offers a lot of pop or definition. I haven't been able to do this using Rodinal and my beginner's lack of skill in developing. What developer was used here?

Looking at photo #2, the exposure level on the bassist's (?) face is quite high. I have seen digital images of faces in a strong stagelight, and usually the highlights are so overblown, that they seem to bleed into the shadows of the rest of the face. In your shot it seem as if the overexposure is still well handled, and maybe represents the slight superiority film has over digital in terms of broader dynamic range.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/12191517@N05/

Too many musicians in your photo's Mark. I guess that's the reason for the noise, err... I mean grain. Nice to see these as I remember your series from your other postings.

You are doing a great service by introducing film to the younger photographers. Never stop Mark.

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jeff hladun said:

Mark - in the shot of the drummer, the film offers a lot of pop or definition. I haven't been able to do this using Rodinal and my beginner's lack of skill in developing. What developer was used here?

Click to expand...

Kodak TMax dev. I've never tried Rodinal. I've heard that it can offer a bit more sharpness in the TMax films, but at the loss of some shadow detail. Not that there was actually any shadow detail to lose here.

jeff hladun said:

Looking at photo #2, the exposure level on the bassist's (?) face is quite high. I have seen digital images of faces in a strong stagelight, and usually the highlights are so overblown, that they seem to bleed into the shadows of the rest of the face. In your shot it seem as if the overexposure is still well handled, and maybe represents the slight superiority film has over digital in terms of broader dynamic range.

Click to expand...

I think you're right about that, Jeff. That guitarist's face (he's not bass, BTW) still has some facial structure to it, and I was a bit suprised when I first saw it. I was tempted to do a bit of burning, but then decided it could stand on it's own. This is one big reason why I have spent so much time shooting film again. I'm no expert at this, but from what I understand, it's not only the broader dynamic range of film that differes from digital, but also the way each responds to such things as curves in PS. Due to the extreme contrast of lighting in this venue, I think film proves to be the better choice.

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• Mark Ehlers (formerly 'markE')

http://www.pbase.com/marke



'Good street/wildlife photography is a controlled accident,
a vision of preparation and surrender materialized.'

Peter Nelson said:

Too many musicians in your photo's Mark. I guess that's the reason for the noise, err... I mean grain.

Click to expand...

Peter Nelson said:

Nice to see these as I remember your series from your other postings.

You are doing a great service by introducing film to the younger photographers. Never stop Mark.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Peter. I'm not sure how much of a factor I am in introducing the younger photographers to film, but your words encourage me to possibly persue something in that direction. I have been hearing that colleges have been seeing more interest from students in shooting film and learning traditional darkroom process. Hmmm...

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• Mark Ehlers (formerly 'markE')

http://www.pbase.com/marke



'Good street/wildlife photography is a controlled accident,
a vision of preparation and surrender materialized.'

mark,
i really like the b&w feel to those images.

thanks for sharing.