Newtown with a toy camera.

Recently I took a stroll around Newtown, Johannesburg, the site of the city's old market. Built in 1913 to serve the growing population of the expanding mining town, today it is home to Museum Afrika and the Market Theatre.
These pictures were shot with a plastic Holga toy camera that I am growing to like more and more. In fact I like it that muc that I am going to start using it in my wedding and portrait work.
And yes, the opening image in the spread is a DELIBERATE double exposure!

Images of a nation under threat.

December 16 is considered, by many Afrikaners, their most holy day.
It commemorates the December 16, Battle of Blood River in 1838 when they believe God gave them an unlikely victory against thousands of Zulu warriors.
Each year, thousands of Afrikaners gather at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria to celebrate and remember that day and reaffirm their culture values and beliefs.

New Blood River

In many ways they are once again engaged in a 'new battle of Blood River' as whites - and in particular Afrikaners - are increasingly marginalised and denied opportunities in South Africa.
When I shot these pictures a week ago, it was obvious to me that Afrikaners feel they are a nation under threat that needs to stand together to protect their culture.
But somehow this year's event was different to those I have previously witnessed. Gone was the bravado and arrogance that previously characterised such "saamtrekke". They appeared resigned to their future - or maybe they are just battle-weary.

Shaft of Sunlight

The monument is designed in such a way that every year, only on December 16, a shaft of sunlight moves up the steps of the cenotaph and is centered on it at precisely midday.
I sincerely hope I was not photographing a disappearing nation.
The images were shot with a Nikon F3 film camera on Fuji Neopan 400 and developed in a local version of ID-11.

Portraits at Ceilidh's birthday celebrations

On Saturday 10 April I got hired to photograph Ceilidh Vigoriti's 30th birthday. The celebrations took place at Pomodoro Ristorante in Morningside, Johannesburg.
We set up a "photo booth" with studio lights where guests were photographed when they arrived, many choosing to ham it up with supplied props. Throughout the rest of the evening I shot digital pics of the proceedings which were printed out on the spot and given to the guests. It was a great idea and worked wonderfully.
In addition I shot a few pictures of Ceilidh and her mates with the Bronica on black and white film that was processed in Rodinal. The others can be seen here.

Kitchen table film developer

I've been scouring the Internet in search of easy-to-make "kitchen-table" developers. Why, when there are good commercial developers available?
Firstly because it is fun and secondly because I am committed to film and do not want to have to rely on the whims of companies whose only consideration is whether a product makes a profit or not.
In previous postings I wrote about Caffenol and Caffenol C but, with current the price of pure coffee, I wanted something cheaper. My search led me to a recipe published over 20 years ago in Shutterbug magazine. The beauty is it requires only two easily available components, in addition to water and the results were remarkably good. I adjusted the Shutterbug-published amounts slightly, to take into account the size of the tank I was using. The recipe is as follows: 300ml tap water (my water is pumped from a borehole so I am not sure if that makes a difference or not), 5 1/2 teaspoons of vitamin C powder and 7 teaspons of sodium carbonate, which can be purchased in a supermarket as washing soda.
Mix in that order until the powders are dissolved. The vitamin C powder I had on hand was coloured and flavoured orange and made the solution look a bit strange but appeared to have no effect on it's functioning.
Once the brew was concocted I scratched around for a roll of exposed film to develop and could only find a forgotten 35mm roll of Konica Chromogenic film. This is a film that gets processed in chemistry designed for colour negatives. I think it expired about 15 years ago.
I processed the film at 70F agitating for the first 30 seconds then two inversions every 30 seconds for 30 minutes. It was tedious and time-consuming but the results blew me away. The negs came out a dark, chocolatey colour but with lots of definition, sharpness and surprisingly fine grain.
I have published a few unaltered -- other than cropping and adjusting levels -- examples below.

Blown away by a cheap rangefinder

It's been months since I last wrote anything on my blog, mainly because the financial crunch has forced me into survival mode. I've had to hustle and do all sorts of strange photographic jobs, ranging from golf days to end-of-year company functions.
Let's be honest, this is a tough business to be in right now.
But enough of that.
I recently shot some pictures of the little son of one of my best friends. Little Grant Cachia is one cute little tyke who never stops moving.


I wanted to do the shoot with something different, so I fished out an old Ricoh 35RF rangefinder camera that I've dabbled with on a few occasions.
The same, basic, Ricoh was produced in a number of guises and sold as a Ricoh 35G (I think) as well as under the Sears name. They can still be found regularly at bargain prices and are capable of phenomenal results.
I loaded up with Ilford's excellent XP2 Super black and white film. It's a very convenient film option as it produces incredibly fine-grained images and can be processed at any one-hour lab. I find it is best if under-exposed slightly and normally set my exposure meter at ISO 320.


The prints blew me away. Because the little guy moves so fast, and it was a dark and gloomy day (sounds like the start of a novel!) I was generally shooting wide open, at f2.8 and sometimes as slow as 1/15th of a second.
This resulted in some of the images not being blindingly sharp but I think they better captured the energy of the little guy. Sometimes sharp focus can be boring.
I have posted a couple of the shots below but you can also check them out at www.bighilt.smugmug.com
Also take a look at my new website www.bighilt.yolasite.com
Quite by chance I came across the work of Cheryl Jacobs. I think she is one of the finest portrait photographers you'll ever encounter. She is also one very good looking lady.
Do yourself a favour and look at her work at www.cheryljacobsportraits.com

Some pictures from the Rollei

Please note that all images and text on this site is copyrighted material and may not be used with my written permission.

I ran a roll of Ilford FP4+ through the Rolleiflex I swapped for a Nikon SB600 Speedlight and now, more than ever, I am convinced I got the better deal in the trade.
The film was rated ISO64 and developed in D76 for nine minutes.
I am absolutely delighted with the results. In my opinion the quality of the large neg pretty well blows away any image created on a DSLR.