Black and White, 35mm and Manual – Classic Photojournalism – Sewing Machines Los Angeles

Photography is about capturing the image; photojournalism is about capturing the image – quickly and often without any chance of a re-shoot. With that in mind, when you’re out in the field you need to be comfortable with your equipment; it should be second nature, the camera an extension of, not only your arm but your eyes, your brain and often, your soul.

My preference is black and white. On one hand I could say I don’t know why, on the other hand I could probably write a book about it. The fact is I respond to it, I visualize the image as such, I understand it and for whatever reason or reasons, I relate to it.

Same goes for cameras and lenses: I shoot digital all the time, I’ve used big rapid-firing film SLR’s, yet for me, I’d rather keep it simple and light and pack a few prime lenses, manual bodies and as much film as I can carry.

Recently I headed to Uganda, Kenya and Cambodia on a freelance photojournalism assignment. I took two camera bodies one for colour, one for black and white, but I’ll focus here on my black and white set up.

My camera body is a Nikon F3. The F3 is an outstanding camera in all respects and has won the respect of photographers since it’s release in 1980. I bought mine second hand in 1994 and it just won’t die despite heavy use over the years and mostly in a salty coastal environment.

It’s solid but not too heavy, is wonderfully comfortable in the hand and has an amazingly accurate centre-weighted exposure meter, which I rely on heavily.

My F3 functions flawlessly despite many knocks, bumps, drops and even having a wave break over it once. When you’re heading to war-torn northern Uganda, the slums of Nairobi and rural Cambodia, it’s just the kind of camera you want with you.

Lenses consisted of a 50mm f1.4 and a 135mm f2.8. I did have a 28-85 with my colour gear to handle the wide stuff but found the 50 handled the majority of work while the 135 gave me a versatile telephoto with a little more reach than say a 105. It proved to be an exceptional portrait lens allowing me to stand far enough back so as to not intimidate anyone I was photographing, people who were often timid and reserved.

Being prime lenses and Nikkors at that, they are sharp, I mean really sharp. One advantage is that if you do have to shoot wider than you’d like and therefore crop in at the printing stage, you still hold amazing detail, an important consideration with 35mm and 400 speed film.

With my fine art photography, which I use 6×7 medium format, I generally use Ilford FP4 and Pan F, a 125 speed and 50 speed film respectively. They are both extremely fine-grained films with beautiful characteristics.

Out in the field, however, I was going to need a general purpose workhorse film that I could hand hold and with enough latitude to get me out of any potential problems. I chose Ilford’s 400 ASA, HP5, bought two 100′ rolls, stocked up on canisters and bulk loaded as much as I could.

HP5 is a film I’d only used a handful of times. I’ve always tried to keep grain to a minimum so generally avoid 400 speed films. Nowadays I’m going to be hard-pressed using anything else and am looking forward to running some tests with it in 6×7 as I think the results will be stunning.

HP5 has a smooth transition from dark to light tones making it easy to control and a joy to print. Although I was excited to be back in my darkroom after a month away, I was also conscious of the sheer amount of developing, proofing and printing that lay before me.

As soon as I saw the negatives I knew I was in for some easy printing sessions and as it turned out, it was some of the easiest printing I have ever done.

To complete the set-up, I put a K2 (yellow) filter on each lens. Although I took other filters, the yellows stayed on. I did remove them once when I needed an extra stop of light but in hindsight, should have kept the filters on and pushed the film a stop in development.

For everyday black and white shooting, ie photojournalism, a yellow filter gives a natural amount of contrast and separation of tones that might otherwise blend together – white clouds on a blue sky for example. It’s hard to pull something out of a print if the information isn’t on the negative and I found the yellow gave me a great basic palette to work from.

Although I’m very mush a ‘manual’ kind of guy, out in the field I like to use Aperture Priority – the only ‘feature’ I’ve ever found useful. Simply put, I choose the aperture depending on my needs and the camera finds the corresponding shutter speed. I’m still controlling what’s going on and a quick check on the exposure readout in the viewfinder tells me if I’m within the useable handholding shutter speed range.

I find Aperture Priority useful because it’s quick and frees me up to concentrate on the composition. Because your hand is already on the lens, it’s easy to adjust the aperture if need be. To adjust the shutter speed, you have to take your fingers away from the shutter release button and move them to the shutter speed dial, placing you at risk of missing the shot if it’s unfolding before you.

If time and the situation permit, I like to use a hand-held light meter, take a reading, set the camera and forget about it for a while, leaving me to simply focus, compose and shoot. This is a good habit to get into if you can and will go a long way in helping you understand the differences between incident and reflective readings and how they affect your exposure. Just remember to compensate if you have any filters on.

Overall I found this set-up worked very well – for me. The idea is to find what works best for you, especially where photojournalism is concerned. Here are a few good tips: use what you’re comfortable with. Don’t go with the latest and greatest simply because it’s the latest and greatest, go with what you know you can work with. Design a workflow that suits you and your style (where do you keep exposed and unexposed film, do you wear a photo vest, use an over shoulder camera bag or a backpack); what do you shoot: black and white, colour or digital; are your cameras manual or automatic; are your lenses manual or auto focus, primes or zooms?

All these need to be carefully considered and tested. Remember, fortune favours the prepared so don’t be left fumbling with your gear; be prepared, be ready and be good at what you do.