Shinjuku

Night_of_Shinjuku, originally uploaded by clarice & ....

Here's a glorious example of cross processed slide film out of a Lomo LC-A. This is a great night time shot filled with plenty of interesting detail. For me, this photograph has become iconic of one of the busiest districts of one of Asia's busiest cities: Shinjuku, Tokyo. Shooting from a pedestrian overpass, Clarice was able to capture the towering neon billboards and store marquees illuminating the busy street below.

The wonderful contrast and saturation really makes this image shine. It's likely due to a combination of the 100iso film and the cross processing. The choice of film, Kodak Ektachrome, along with the color temp of those street lamps probably contributed the green cast. The sharpness through most of the scene and the vignetting at the edges are thanks to the awesome Lomo LC-A.

I'm somehow drawn to the motif of striped crosswalks, featured at the bottom of this frame, and pedestrians at night. I feel that it's a key element in the concept of urbanity. While the night encroaches from all sides, the metropolis holds the stifling darkness at bay. The deep patches of black night all around serve to set the lights in brilliant relief. Looking at this photo from a distance, or as a thumbnail, the jumble of lights seem to explode out of that vanishing point, moving not just out towards the edges of the photo to conquer that night, but up and off the page/screen to enforce its super-reality.

Nostalgia

The Lone Needle, originally uploaded by = Rebirth.

Can you be nostalgic about a place you left less than a year ago? Or feel intimately familiar with a location in which you've never set foot? It's weird, but it feels like I've been up on this popular vantage point above the Taipei basin countless times when I haven't. I get the feeling that I somehow recognize those two people, gazing out towards the Taipei101 building, admiring the thin mist as it envelops the city in a strangely photogenic mugginess.

False memories aside, I like how =Rebirth has created this faux cross-processed effect with the high contrast and bluish color cast. Cross processing is a technique done with film, where you process slide (positive) film in chemicals meant for negative film, or vice versa. The results vary depending on the film, and can range from looking completely monochrome green or red, to having a bluish super saturated look. One thing that helps exacerbate these wonky effects is "pushing" the film, meaning you expose an 100iso roll of film as if it were 400iso, then telling your lab tech to develop the film as if it were 400iso film (which would be 2 stops).

Alternatively, you could shoot a scene on your digital camera and go to work in your post processing software of choice. Definitely not the easiest route to take. =Rebirth has done a phenomenal job with this shot. Aside from his xpro treatment, I love the composition, and all the details he's somehow preserved in both the figures, buildings, and clouds. Plus, it must be said that finding such a beautifully gradated sky is harder than many might think. Thankfully, =Rebirth was on hand to catch it on this day. I wonder where I was. Probably shut indoors, playing guitar hero when I should have been out shooting.