Photo Set – Redscale London

These photos were all taken a year or two ago on an old family camera, an Halina AF810, using what’s called “Redscale” film. All 35mm film has a protective orange-coloured layer on the back to prevent light from escaping, and redscale film is wound backwards onto the spool so that you’re effectively shooting through this layer, which tints the photos a deep red in a different way than a typical filter would. If you’ve followed me elsewhere on the web you might have seen these already, but I wanted to put them here and talk a bit more about them.

Monmouth Street, just off Shaftesbury Avenue. I was very luck with the light here, with the sun going down just behind the buildings on the right. Strong light is always a boon for photography, creating stark contrast and shadows, more so for basic film cameras since working in low light produces a lot of grain.

At the crossroads of Neal Street and Earlham Street, looking back along Neal Street. For a clear redscale photo you need a fair amount of light, and as you can see here the shopfronts lit by electric lights are dark whereas the more distant buildings still in the sun’s glare stand out, but I like the effect it’s produced here.

Covent Garden, outside the actual market itself but around the edge of the square. Again, there was fantastic light that day, so I was able to get a good contrast of light and shadow. Given the direction of the light I thought that this would be a good spot with it coming in from the right, casting highlights on the people out shopping.

I think this one is on Shaftesbury Avenue, but I’m not entirely sure. I was enticed by the classic car and someone who looks a bit like James Dean conveniently walking behind it.

The Strand. This time I didn’t expect that only people’s faces would be visible, but I’m happy with the result – when you’re shooting with film you’re never entirely sure what you’re going to get back until you get your roll of film developed, or at least that’s the case when I do it, which probably means I should keep practicing.

And finally, another on The Strand, with the cars and buses catching the reflected light of the sun as it goes down.

Shooting with film is a completely different experience to digital, naturally. You can’t just “spam” photographs, taking shot after shot and hoping that one comes out OK. You have to be careful and consider each shot, even with an automatic camera. For someone like me who’s spent most of their time photographing things purely digitally, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable education.