That’s it, that’s it, that’s it, the new kit is Kiev 6C, Vega-12b 90mm f2.8, Mir-38b 65mm f3.5 provided by Sten. I must say it is one wicked camera – it looks just like a regular 35mm film camera but it is double in size. It does scare people.
In fact, the camera got me stripped in airport security check – I had to lay out all my stuff on the table, sneakers off, lenses off, caps off, bag empty. They checked each of the item individually. I do remember the face on the lady carrying out the check when she took a look at the Kiev 6C – she was speechless and searching for a viewfinder which I opened up (shaft, not prism) for her after noticing the confusion. After seeing the image from the finder, she was satisfied. As a last thing they searched for traces of explosive materials from my bag. I guess it wasn’t just the camera – I do wear 1960s Eastern-Germany military uniform pants and a jacket.

Got first shutter releases during my trip to Prague and London. Although there were a lot of tourists I loved Prague, it has some “mojo” for me that Rome and Paris don’t. London was obviously different experience – way bigger in size = more people, more rushing and it was my first time there. Lucky enough, I had an excellent companion for the trip – a co-worker from London office – Rita.
Prague: we had great fun navigating the city, eating huge amount of meat, some tasty potato cakes, some chillin’ in Hard Rock Cafe, out with her friends from Portugal in Lebanese restaurant and taking photos while at it. Basically I was there to confuse, she was there to fix it all up. Oh, tube (metro) always confuses me.
London: working from the office at the day time, evenings touring the city and stayed at co-workers for the night at co-workers. Staying in an apartment with a Portuguese, Creek and Estonian = great fun and well fed. Places that I liked the most – St James’s Park, Regeant’s Park (very cool view on the city at night), Victoria Embankment Gardens, Camden markets area, the Tube. I must say I wasn’t all excited about the Big Ben or Tower Bridge or Buckingham. What I did like a lot was the variety of people – very-very different cultures/personalities living together – quite inspiring environment though it does not show in the pictures. I think I took altogether ~20 pictures on the 9 day trip.

Yet again, failed to make long story short. Thanks again to Sten for the scans.

Image: Ladies hunting their ice-cream by the Thames.

Equipment: Kiev 6C, Vega-12b 90mm f2.8 / Fujicolor Reala 100

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat_Kiev_6C_2009_2/
(some shots are in next post…)

NB! If the film packaging says: “Load in dimmed light” – do that or face the consequences.

Yes, it is Hasselblad give-away! – I have to give it back to the rightful owner of the camera. So the last film was shot full quickly cause I had delayed enough already. Set is quite short, I took a lot of shots of my bass, no reason to post all of them here, just my favorite.
I have been searching for a replacement for the camera. I have found one, but no hints before the first film is developed and scanned.

Image: Tallinn zoo, the dude goes like “Wow thats a wicked camera!” and the chick is like “Indeeed…”.

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Kodak Professional 120

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat2009_6/

Today I’ve been flash-backing. I don’t know what happened, but just as year 2009 started I got a few fails.

The worst fail was that my grandfather Diki passed away. I really admire the man – that optimism, that will power, that kindness, that fair-mindedness, that enthusiasm. He had all that though he had gone trough a war and imprisonment. For example – how many grandpas are there who at the age of almost 80 decide to learn how to use a computer. We bought him a machine, he had some books and few months later he introduces me Skype. He had bought speakers, mic and was already an experienced user. He used it to keep contact with children/grandchildren here and abroad.
It was really cool how he memorized stuff – as he couldn’t speak English, he had this little notebook where he had written down all the steps to achieve a specific goal. “Click START, click Programs, click Skype.”, same for opening Word. I once explained him how to add an image to a Word document, he wrote it down step-by-step. I find it pretty amazing and I really want this notebook as a memory of him, as a symbol of will power and enthusiasm.
He was also a keen surfer in the Internet. Of course it wasn’t all that easy at the beginning cause on every pop-up he pressed “Yes” and ended up having a lot of malware in the computer that my relative had to remove regularly. That happens to every new user. It all got way better when my mom told him to press “No/Cancel” to every un-expected question. Also, at first he couldn’t re-use browser windows, he opened up a new window for every new page he wanted to visit and did not close the previous, so the computer run out of resources now and then. Again, can happen to every new PC user.
Oh yes, one day he went to a store and bought himself printer-scanner-copier and learned to use that as well.
Looking back, he never forgot those who were around him, I mean never. I can’t remember a single negative experience with him although we shared the World for almost 25 years. Zero. For real. Amazing.  Try performing the same stunt on people close to you - there’s a lot that we can give.
Now he rests in peace.

I also failed to measure light properly the whole film. I decided to do some fail-posting to kick myself in the butt a bit by showing my totally failed shots also. As they say: “Good photographer is the one who shows only his best shots”. I’m not good photographer, I’m just another enthusiast doing it for the fun of it.

Image: The only and failed shot on film from my grandpas funeral.  

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Illford Delta 3200

The Fail Set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat2009_5/

Let me introduce you to my friend Von Sten who is well known as a graveyard photographer. He is the guy who suggested me my first film camera Sears TLS and after years of digital took me back to film photography. He equips me with films, hosts the development events and scans the negatives. He’s a great guy and friend with photography for a very long time. He’s studying photography right now and I like how he goes – while others represent their work as 10×15 digital image printout, while shooting medium/large formats, his works negative can be the same size and the final result A4, A3 or whatever. He experiments with all sorts of old cameras and related equipment, he has always something interesting coming out of his sleeve.
As I have to give back the Hasselblad to it’s owner, Sten lends me Kiev 6C medium format camera. Let’s see what comes out of that piece of equipment.
I’m thankful for all the help he provides and I suggest you check out his stuff @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/vonsten/

Image: The graveyard photographer after hard working day with 2 gravediggers. 

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Kodak Professional 120

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat2008_4/ (mostly 2nd film from France)

So there I was shooting “homeboys” from rock-group Fliplike. Pretty funny and educating experience.

My setup contained one old Norma flash unit (220V powered) and another old National PE flash unit. I used 1 second shutter speed and triggered the flashes by hand – Norma was triggered by a DIY trigger out of a pen and the National was triggered by Dörrs slave adapter. All the light measuring was on “try and fail” basis.

So, as my first multi-flash experience I noticed that it isn’t all that easy. I got a lot of shots where fill light was not enough and guys ended up having hard shadows around eyes or some other guys hand shadow on their face or dogs ear shadow just between the eyes. The truth is, most of that I noticed at home and that’s a fail. A lot got “Photoshopped away” but you can still discover a lot of basic errors by browsing the full set linked below.

All and all I got way smarter and fortunately it seems that guys themselves are OK with the images.

Now, there is one more thing about this band – their latest video which was also done with near to no equipment and no significant expenses. For example as lightsource they had 5 construction lights (yes, those “great” warm light “heatblasters”) and for the fog/rain they used good old gardeners poison squirt. It was done purely on enthusiasm and fanatism. Might just be the best music video produced in Estonia. Respect! Enough said, have a look @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tbkPnZIxxk

Image: Imm as an air-guitar hero

Equipment: Canon EOS 400D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM, Norma & National PE flashes, Dörr slave adapter and DIY pen trigger.

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/fliplike2009/

PS!The truth about not posting medium format images for a while is that I messed up a few films of pure stupidity and I don’t want to talk about it. Thanks for understanding.

There was a nice video clip distributed around about how in America they’re deploying video conference solutions to the nursing homes so the habitants could have virtual visitors. The clip shows a grandma having her grand daughter and grand-grand children as virtual visitors on her birthday. They’re virtual cause they live a 3 hour trip away.  

First of all, nursing homes are the places where you but your parents when they “stick around for too long”. Secondly, it’s a great idea for daily communication but it’s her birthday, how hard is it to take a 3 hour trip once in a year? All I think about is that in capitalistic world you loose all your humanity in the end. You just spin around some fake values ($…) and forget the really important stuff in life – the people around you. I mean the real people, who are up for you, not the things you’ve got. Some would say, give them a break, they did make a virtual visit. Nope! This is cheap way of making the guilt a bit smaller and thats selfish.

As a friend of mine once said: “There is nothing I’m afraid more than dying alone”. 

Think about it…

I was in France from 22th to 29th Nov. That was some amazing trip I must say. I have a blog post draft that I’ve been writing for a day or two and maybe will even publish it some day. Meanwhile take a look at the first roll as a teaser.

Picture: I had a bit time to tour on the streets of Angoulême. There it was, a perfect condition Mini Cooper on the streets looking shiny as an easter-egg.

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Kodak Professional 120

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat2008_3/

Picture: Meet my friend Imm in one of his trademark positions. Can you resist a perfect cheezeburger?

Excuses: I see a lot of scratches on the images, I guess Photopoint didn’t handle the film carefully enough. The film was given to me rolled into 35mm film tube. How cool is that?

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Illford 400 C41

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat2008_2/

So, here I was going all fancy about returning to real photography. So, here I am with first results. I’d say I missed a lot when it comes to exposure and focus. But still I have more quality in my last 10 shots on film than I had in my last 1000 digital ones.

Picture: My father and my mother. Happy people I must say and I’m happy with them.

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Arista Ultra 400 (developed in rodinal).

Thanks to Sten for another fun development event and Tanel for scanning.

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/firstmediumformat2008/