that big bear

Last year in January I was facing a huge backlog of pictures to post-process after not editing anything for about 2 or 3 months. I thought that I needed to catch up to be able to show some more recent pictures and so I spent hours and hours editing. In the end, a lot of these pictures were never shown, although many of them were good. That’s just how it goes if you shoot as much as I do. With film I obviously take less shots, but the editing takes quite long as well, because I need to develop and scan. In the end it’s all perfectly manageable though if I only shoot one roll a day, since this is also how much I scan and post. With 365 days in the year and last year some 140 rolls shot I don’t think I need to worry that I can’t keep up, unless of course I get quite trigger happy this year. At the moment I have 13 rolls to scan and 10 to develop from before, and another 25 to develop and scan from the last trip. Plenty of stuff to keep me busy!

In what order I post these pictures is still a little undecided. Of course I’m plenty curious about my Leica shots, but I also want to get through my older rolls from the trip in October and before. Last year I wanted to show recent pictures, but by now I have learned that pictures need to lie in the drawer a bit to mature. I like to be at least 10 rolls behind on my development so that I can’t remember the shots on each roll anymore. Distance helps. Tomorrow for example I’ll show you a roll of Portra from last summer that was lying in a drawer until I started doing my own C41 development. I only remembered taking one shot on the whole roll and the rest was a pleasant surprise. And after that I’ll probably scan a roll of 120 film, because I was missing my Rolleicord quite a bit these last two weeks. I will actually take it out for a spin tomorrow as well, so that it doesn’t feel too neglected!

All pictures taken with: Leica M6 and Zeiss ZM C-Biogon 35mm f/2.8.
Ilford XP2 stand-developed in Rodinal 1:100, 60min.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

That was one big bear! Moments later someone from the shop came out and asked whether she should take a picture of me with the bear. I said “Ah, I think my camera is too difficult to use!”

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Focus guesstimation. Not too bad I’d say!

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

I like that the train is in testing mode. I was testing too!

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

XP2 doesn’t have much latitude in Rodinal, so the very dark and rainy day was kicking up some grain. I was shooting from the hip and the settings were a little off I guess.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

After a near collision.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Ah … bookshops! We went to another one later as well.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

For coffee addicts. I just develop my film in it these days, but boy does this make me miss coffee!

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Makes me feel right at home. I was born in a place that used to be called Karl-Marx-Stadt.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

I think subway pictures with Nancy (my Leica) could work really well!

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

A bit dark for a low latitude ISO 400 film, but it still worked! Shame that the rest of the subway pictures were accidentally exposed to light – I opened the back without rewinding. There was at least one more that would have been nice.

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

© Lilly Schwartz 2014

Obligatory train station picture.

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