Syros, Part 1: black and white

May 10, 2019 – Photo Blog

This Easter, we visited the island of Syros for a truly relaxing holiday in Ermoupoli. This was my first holiday with the M7 and, in the 8 days of the trip, I ended up shooting about 15 rolls of both color and black and white film. The color films are not yet back from the lab, but yesterday I finished developing and scanning the 7 black and whites and the results are pretty good. I was particularly pleased with the sharp results of zone focusing on street shots. Last year, I visited Bodrum in Turkey and tried a lot of zone focusing on digital (on the Leica Q with a 28mm Summilux lens) and most shots still looked slightly out of focus. I think film is much more forgiving than digital when it comes to zone focusing and the 35mm Summicron was made for this type of shooting. It was a great joy. 75% of the photos where shot with the 35mm Summicron, and the rest with the Voigtlander Nokton 50mm 1.2. This is going to be a long post, so strap in :)

1st roll: Ilford Delta 100, developed in Kodak HC 110, dilution H:

2nd roll: another Ilford Delta 100, developed in Kodak HC 110, dilution H:

tried to take a more interesting photo of the typical view of the Resurrection of Christ Church in Ermoupoli:

was very happy to have black and white film loaded in the camera when I stumbled upon these white chairs with black markings on their back:

not the frame I wanted, but the frame I got:

Unfortunately, I came across this beauty right at the end of the roll (I think it was frame 39). The marks on the right side are from the wooden pegs I used at the bottom of the roll when I hanged it up to dry :) :

3rd roll: Ilford HP5 @ 400, developed in Kodak HC 110, dilution H:

urban cowboy:

two versions of the view from the café in Ano Syros:

in the church of St. George, built in 1200:

fire walk with me:

4th roll: Kodak Tmax 400, developed in Kodak D-76:

golden hour, barely maxing out at 1/1000 and f16, but the following three came out great:

5th roll: another Kodak Tmax 400, developed in Kodak D-76:

I hadn’t pre-set the camera, but I pressed the shutter release any way when I saw this dog suddenly coming out of the door in front of me and the leash extending like that. Not perfectly focused or metered, but good enough :)

6th roll: Kentmere 100, developed in Kodak HC 110 dilution H:

Following the suggestion of a friend who knows Syros well, we visited the Municipal Cemetery of Saint George at Ermoupoli, which features some masterful sculptures and decorative elements bearing the marks of classicism, decorating the graves and mausoleums of prominent Greek families with a deep involvement in the formation of the New Hellenic State following the Greek Revolution. Here are some examples:

This cemetery is located next to the modern-day municipal cemetery, where I took the next photo. It is a photo of the wooden electricity pole outside the cemetery with all the recent left-over pins from previously posted funeral announcements. I don’t normally shoot this type of photo, but this was too excellent a subtle example of our mortality:

love this portrait of a stray Russian-blue cat:

7th roll: Kodak P3200 @ 1600, developed in Kodak HC 110, dilution H:

My first go with the “new” P3200, shot at iso 1600. I shot the entire roll while waiting at the port and during the 5-hour boat ride back to Leros. The boat left Syros at 23:00 so most passengers were asleep. The film looks pretty good, through next time I think I’ll shoot it at iso 800 (which is its real speed anyway).