127 Film Photography: photo series

Showing posts with label photo series. Show all posts

Sunday, February 9, 2020

The V.P.Pin 127 pinhole magic by Dale Willetts

I love photography in all its forms, formats, sizes, and guises. I love cameras in all their types from lo-fi to sci-fi. I love collecting and I love making.

This means that I have way too many cameras, whether I've bought them myself or been gifted them or made them. Often if I find something I like, especially if it's something a little strange, I'll go out of my way to get at least a second (or third or fourth) in case it breaks. Of course, if the worst happens and a camera does break, that doesn't mean it's going in the bin. It will usually get kept for spare parts, or more often turned into my favourite photographic thing to make, a pinhole camera.

Pinhole is probably my favourite "alternative" process. This is where the camera used to make the accompanying images came from. The V.P. Twin (short for Vest Pocket Twin frame counter) is a bakelite 127 half frame format camera made from 1935 to the late 1950's by the English company E. Elliott Limited. I have two: the first came in a job lot purchase and had a shutter mechanism that was a solid block of rust, and the second cost £2 from a junk shop and had a working shutter but a cracked lens. Two bodies, one lens, and one shutter to me equal a fully working camera and a perfect excuse to make another pinhole camera. The resulting camera has an effective aperture of f100 and gives 16 4x5 cm frames on a roll of 127 film.

- Dale Willetts, @delusions_of_competence

Saturday, September 29, 2018

Hooge Crater, Ypres by David Miles

©David Miles, Hooge Crater, Ypres; Vest Pocket Autographic Kodak camera, c. 1915, Pan 400 127 Film, based on Ilford HP5. Developed using Ilfotec DD-X

Shots were taken in August 2018, WW1's centenary year. Although there are some light leaks, I was able to develop some shots.

Within the grounds of the Kasteelhof 't Hooghe hotel in Ypres there is a small part of what once was part of the Hooge battleground. The area was regarded as a hazardous area for the infantry, where snipers abounded and trench raids were frequent. Both sides saw Hooge as a particularly important area and a key target for heavy artillery bombardment.

These trenches are left almost as they were. Shells lie piled up, barbed wire still in place. Large craters have been further dug out and left as a large pool. The Hooge crater was a massive explosion that took place in the area. There is a museum next to the hotel and a large cemetery called the Hooge Crater Cemetery. 4000 British soldiers lost their lives here on just one day.