For the 91st edition of the men’s fashion fair “Pitti Immagine Uomo” in Florence, I had the idea to use Fujifilm Instax film to create a little photo project with some of the visitors.
The idea was to photograph the guests with the Lomo Instant camera, then to re-photograph them with the digital camera. The Instax film was going to be a gift for the guests, while the digital picture was published on the official website of the Pitti Immagine Uomo organization.
When I thought of this project, I didn’t know how the reaction could be. I have to say honestly that it exceeded my best expectations — people really loved it. In a digital era where we are used to seeing pictures on screens, they loved the idea of having a printed image of themselves to take home. Some were even amazed by the development process and by seeing the picture slowly appear in their hands.
Another great side of the idea was that we had to wait about 4 to 5 minutes for the film to develop. In this way, we slowed down the usual fast process of digital capture. In those 5 minutes, I could talk to the person I took the photograph of, get to know a bit more about them, what they are doing, and where they are coming from. It was a great opportunity to chat with people from all over the world at this amazing fair.
During this work, it was nice to meet again and photograph Mr. Scott Schuman from thesartorialist.com. You can see his picture as the last of the series.
Technically speaking, I used the Lomo Instant camera. I chose this camera because I can add a different lens to the front native optic to get something a bit different. For instance, for this project, I used the 35mm adapter to get a better frame for the photos.
About the exposure of the pictures: the Lomo Instant comes with different exposure modes. Some of them use the camera’s flash automatically. For the photos in this set, I used the last mode, the one that is shown as a “C” letter on the bottom dial. With this mode, the flash doesn’t fire. In this way, I was able to get a better idea of the exposure.
Let’s start by saying that the Fujifilm Instax film has an ISO speed of 800. Then the Lomo Instant camera has a fixed shutter speed of 1/125th of a second. Then the lens has a normal fixed aperture equivalent to f/16. Knowing this, the only parameter I could change for the exposure was the aperture: I could, in fact, select it with the little dial in front to open or close the aperture. In this way, I could get f/11, f/8 (and, unnecessarily, f/22 and f/32).
So how to judge the right exposure with the Lomo Instant? Unfortunately, the camera hasn’t a built-in exposure meter. For this reason, I used my Fujifilm X100T which was set with the same exposure value as the Lomo Instant (ISO 800, 1/125″). In this way, I could see whether to use a brighter aperture.
To photograph the fashionable guys of Pitti Immagine Uomo, I used the Fujifilm X100T. I set the aperture to f/2 and focused on the Instax picture held in the guests’ hands. This way, I was able to capture the foreground picture and the man in the background with interesting bokeh.
Here’s the complete gallery.
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