Australia | Brendon Kearns

Tag: Australia (page 3 of 4)

Found Photography: The Poole Photos

Awhile back I had found some negatives with the name Ms. Poole written on the back- I returned to the same shop over the past couple weekends and was able to dig out another four packets.

I wanted to do a little more research to see if I could identify some of these areas but I spent all my free time this weekend out at Sculptures by the Sea with the Rolleiflex. Its hard to find time to do the homework behind the shots as I never want to waste a minute of day light where I could be out working on my own portfolio.

Found Photography: Country Horse

November 17, 2011 / Brendon / 0 Comments

Another stray negative I found- I can never seem to place these kinds of photographs in a particular decade as I feel like everyone in the Australian country side dressed about the same from 1930-1960

Found Photography: Woman in Rocks

November 16, 2011 / Brendon / 0 Comments

Another stray negative I found while digging through a box of prints this past weekend- if you look closely there’s some graffiti written into the rock behind her, I tried to play around with the image to see if I could make it clearer and decipher but had no luck

Learning to Develop

October 17, 2011 / Brendon / 0 Comments

After much internal debate I finally decided to take a class on doing my own film development over the ACP- so far its been fairly good as I’ve developed a couple rolls of Tri-X and learned about the print process by creating my own contact sheet.

This first shot was with Xtol at 1:1 and yeilded a very fine grain but low contrast image

This second shot was with Rodinal at 1:50 which came out with a grainier and harder feel

I feel like the Xtol seems good for scans as I can always bump up the contrast in the image via Lightroom to whatever is needed- but I like the grain showing through on the Rodinal. I’ve read online that this is fairly common and there has been a lot of experimentation with adding a drop of Rodinal to your Xtol to get the best of both worlds.

While these were just off some test rolls I ran through on the walk to class, this Sunday was the first time I was really able to get back out and shoot straight street so I’m psyched to get those rolls dev’d and the photos up even though I havnt yet posted the slew I’ve scanned from my trip to the states a month ago on top of a mountain of interesting found or loaned slides to scan on the side- should have plenty to keep me busy in the coming weeks.

Found Photography: Christmas Double Exposure

October 13, 2011 / Brendon / 1 Comment

I found this strange double exposure of a man dressed as Santa Claus- it was shot with medium format but has an elongated frame that seems to be common with older photos instead of the straight square I’d get out of a something like a Rolliflex.

Found Photography: 1950s Australian Suburbs

October 12, 2011 / Brendon / 0 Comments

If you look closely at the photo above you can see its the same guy and girl from the previous set I found

All the shots above are off another roll I found at the same second hand shop as the wedding photos I scanned in last night- the stock this time was Kodak Tri X Pan Film.

The promiently shown car looks like a Ford Zephyr Mark II which would place the photos sometime after 1956.

I’m still lost as to the actual location of these or the previous roll although the license plate of the car does indicate New South Whales- it has the look of a new suburb at the time since the houses are all next to each other yet in the middle of nowhere. They’re an odd mix of country and suburban- heavy on the grape vine covered overhangs. As an American, it seems odd to me that with all that empty space surrounding them they would choose to build their houses literately a few yards or meters apart but maybe they were going for more of a town or village feel as everyone in the photos seems fairly close.

Found Photography: Australian Country Wedding

October 11, 2011 / Brendon / 1 Comment

I found this full role of developed film with a paper lining wrapped around a cardboard box which in turn had a cardboard band around it and the film to hold everything in place.

There’s no marks on the box itself- the film stock was Kodak Tri-X Safety Film, which I believe places them sometime after 1954 as this was the year Tri-X was introduced the market. The size of the frames seem a little large to me as I was unable to fit 6 across in my scanning rack- I’m not sure if this alludes to the camera used.

The roll contains mostly shots of a wedding and various families posed near country side houses. Most of the framing centers around the woman in the first photo which makes me think this was probably a relative of hers.

Found Photography: Horseback Riding in Australia

October 9, 2011 / Brendon / 1 Comment

These negatives were wrapped inside a small piece of folding paper stamped with “Milson’s Photo Service 5 Hunter Street Sydney”. There doesnt appear to be any date or indication of the film stock but I would guess they’re from the 1930’s or 40’s based on dress and style.

They also came with prints of the above photos and a small set of 2 x 2 squares featuring some Australian landscape shots but these all seemed fairly average. I thought about scanning them in but without the actual negative I dont think they would come out to much.

The paper they came in has the name of Miss Poole on the back along with the cost of the developing and printing which came to $4.

Newtown Graveyard

July 6, 2011 / Brendon / 1 Comment

Few shots from the Newtown Cemetery

I’ll be in London next week for work so I’m hoping to catch a little bit of the London Street Photography Festival and find some time to burn through a few rolls myself- should have something to show in a few weeks time