‘vespa sprint’ on film © Lilly Schwartz 2012
This was taken with my Zorki 3C. I finally got the pictures back from developing today, so I thought I’d give you a first impression and tried to digitalise the picture with a sheet of white paper a lamp and a plastic cover used for the ring binding of one of my university texts. As you can easily see, my attempt had quite pathetic results quality-wise. I can assure you that the test print actually looks decent (as good as 5 cent machine prints can get) and all the blotchy stuff is not on the negative. The white paper was blotchy, the plastic cover scratched from carrying the reader around and I was unable to actually retrieve the colour from the negative, because I’m inexperienced in these matters. Somehow I liked the lo-fi look of this attempt though and decided to show it to you guys, just to let you know that my pictures are back. There are even some decent pictures in the bunch, apart from about 6 or 7 which are slightly off-kilter, oddly framed or ridiculously out of focus. Some I actually quite like, although I’m actually moderately disgusted by the colours in the prints. It’s either the paper or the 2 for 1.75€ film. I’m suspecting the latter.
Don’t change a thing! This look is gritty. It’s great! Retro. Fab. I like this.
Thanks! I’m glad you like it! Although it’s good to know that I can get this look through this kind of scanning, I still would like to have the option of having good quality scans, since the negatives are just fine and seem to have a good image quality. Well, apart from the lab cutting off some bits and pieces here and there. That’s what I get for using the cheapest lab around.
You could do an entire show of these. The blotchy style!
Thanks liramusic! I’m thinking of doing a series of portraits in a more lo-fi style, but I still need to think about it a bit more. 🙂
SO excited to see your first results, Ms. S! Understandably frustrating on the conversion / digitizing front, but I really like the effect here, too. It almost feels like some kind of hand-printed alternative method to me… which I find particularly interesting with the inclusion of the sprocket holes, etc (since those are two things I haven’t seen a lot of in the same place before). The whole thing has a bit of a dream-like feel to me, too… very, very cool!
🙂
Thank you so much! I’m glad you like it. I also appreciate how it turned out although it was such a lo-fi scan. It’s idiotic that I didn’t think of using my computer screen as a light table. With the help of that I managed to digitalise a few more, although not with all of them I could retrieve the colour. They still don’t look anywhere close to even the quite poor machine test prints. I guess I have to get a flatbed scanner to really get it right.
You are doing an outstanding job! I’m a bit spoiled in that I have access to a flatbed scanner – also really useful for use as a quasi camera and documenting art (paintings / drawings) etc. in a pinch.
🙂
I think I’ll get one of those as well. These quick and dirty scans are fine for getting a feel for the picture, but to really work with the pictures and make prints that are not entirely overpriced I’ll have to get a flatbed scanner as well. I had a very old one years ago and I used that for all sorts of things. I even remember making fonts for a website once. At school we always used the Xerox machine for strange things. I might still have a copy of my face somewhere 😉
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Nice!
For quick-and-dirty scanning, I find that the best light source is a computer or smartphone screen. Cut a piece of cardboard into a slide mount to hold the negative reasonably flat, and position it a couple cm above the screen surface so that the pixels are out of focus. Make sure it’s parallel with respect to the screen to avoid uneven illumination, and that’s it!
Thanks Damien! Daaah, how did I not think of that myself?!
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