As promised, some BW photos taken with the 50mm Planar lens. All shot on on Ilford Xp2 and scanned on a Fuji S2000 scanning station.
This old guy was out for a stroll with the little one in his arms when I wandered by. He asked me where I was from, of which I replied "America" then he gave the standard reply of "ahh...America is a great place". Then he gave a big smile while I took this photo, then the kid started crying...
These old well textured walls can be found all over the more run down neighborhoods here, new buildings are all covered in the same variety of boring beige and white tile with the occasional ugly orange stripe going right down the side. I prefer the bricks myself.
Taking a snooze on a hot August day sounds nice to me. The temperature was hovering around 40 C and this shady spot next to a wall proved to be a nice place to get out of the sun. I wonder if anyone ever came by and snatched one of her walnuts when no one was looking.
The back streets are usually the most interesting places to wander around here in Chongqing. The narrow alleys are crammed with stuff for sale and wandering through them can be pretty fun if you know how to bargain.
One of the common things you see all around Chongqing are these porters who carry stuff from here to there. Most of them are people from the country side who have come into the cities to make money. The funny thing is that they all have mobile phones and sit around in shady spots when not carrying stuff playing cards and gambling away their earnings.
This kid just emerged from an alley way restaurant shop. By the looks of it not the cleanest place but as a rule it will probably taste better then the clean places! Most street side shops you can to walk through to get wherever your going, its kind of like a maze actually.
This guy sits there around the same area just about everyday. His body is completely covered in scar tissue, probably from being severally burned. Its a gruesome sight which is partially why I took this photo from afar. The other reason was because you can see how many people pass by this guy at any given time during the day, most will act as if he isn't there, others will react in disgust. He got whatever coins I had on me for the shot.
This was bizarre to say to least. Right in a busy foot traffic area some people lying on the ground next to a keyboard and amplifier, probably taking a break from playing music to passers. This was taken right in the middle of one of Chongqing's major city centers where all sorts of people can be seen.
People like this kind of get on my nerves, the fact that there are people all over Chongqing like this doesn't help either. This guy wants to get on the bus. This particular bus you get on at the front door and stick your fare into the money slot. This guy is in such a hurry to get on the bus (probably because he is afraid one of those people behind him will take the seats before him) that he tried to pull the door open. The driver finally opened the back door but not before this fine fellow jammed the thing by forcing it. And I used to think American's were impatient...
Anyway, overall impressions are still good. I need to be more careful shooting at f2, the precision needed to focus f2 on the R2a is more then I was expecting, but also a little bit of it was me being slightly careless I guess. This lens gives a lower contrast similar to what you would expect from an older style Leitz lens where bright highlights are not completely blown and still retain a lot of details unlike my moderns Canon EF lenses when shooting in similar situations with the same film and metering technique where highlights will be so blown that there is nothing at all to salvage. The approach of this lens is good, im very pleased, and I have a feeling that negatives shot with this lens will hold up well in the darkroom with all the latitude that is offered. One thing that I seemed to notice is that the 3D effect is less with the bw film compared to the color shots., might be worth exploring later on.
In the meantime I feel like shooting more color photos, so thats what im going to be doing.
