It feels like it has been far too long since I’ve had the chance to work with St. Merrique. We’ve been working together for at least a decade now and even though during COVID times it feels like we lost touch a little bit working together again felt as natural as visiting with a long lost friend.
I have to say that sometimes I feel very fortunate to collaborate with some amazing people.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I haven’t given much use to my Hasselblad 120mm Makro-Planar and so I’ve been trying to correct that a little bit. The working conditions in this image were tight for such a long focal length so I was forced to compose my shots in such a way that I had to fill up the entire frame with my subject. There were a lot of images on this particular role that I didn’t like (all the fault of working with a lens I’m not used to) but I feel like this one came out really strong.
Photographed with a Hasselblad 500cm and Ilford PanF ISO 50 medium format film.
At a certain point during the session I decided to more or less give up on photographing a “nude” and just decided working with the goal of making a simple portrait was the better way to go. I think I’m happier with that direction overall in this case.
I also can’t help but note how well the Ilford Pan F film stock worked out here. I’m always nervous working with Pan F because the contrast can get out of control so quickly. I’ve never thought of myself as a skilled enough darkroom wizard to really get a handle on this stuff but sometimes I like to risk it. The low grain, forced shallow depth of field, and incredible detail are just gorgeous here and I don’t think looking at these images on a computer screen will ever do them proper justice.