Taking the Graflex Century Graphic on a ghost hunt
Some months ago my family and I spend a couple of nights in Savannah, Georgia. It is one of the oldest cities in the USA and has a rich history that includes pirates, major events from the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, and.... ghosts...
Although this was a family vacation and not a photography trip, I brought several cameras with me; one being the Graflex Century Graphic my wife had given me a couple of weeks before. It is a cousin of the famous Graflex Speed Graphic 4x5 cameras used by many press photographers from the 1920's to the 1970's. You can see these cameras often in older movies, being handled by journalists and used with humongous bulb flashlights. One of the most famous photographers to use the Speed Graphic was Arthur (Usher) Fellig, better known by his pseudonym Weegee.
The Century Graphic model I have is from a series build from 1949 until 1970, and uses 120 medium format film rolls instead of 4x5 large format film sheets. Since I happened to have some rolls of Ilford Delta 3200 Professional in the fridge, I thought taking these to Savannah for some ghostly night shots would be a nice idea.
I shot the film at an Exposure Index of 1600, and had it only recently developed at its box rate by TheFindlab. I took the images handheld while roaming the streets of Savannah, composing some shots with the optical tube viewfinder and some with the retractable sports viewfinder. Focusing was accomplished with the attached Kalart rangefinder that came with the camera, and apperture and shutter speed were selected with support of a hand held Sekonic light meter. For ease of use I had a cable release attached to the shutter release, which helped making hand held shooting a bit more steady.
It was quite an experience walking the streets with this huge camera, and it was funny how many people noticed and made remarks or asked about the camera. Some even recognized the make and model!
I am rather pleased with the results: the images below are exactly as they came scanned from the lab, with only in one case some minor cropping applied; no other changes made. Most are made hand held, in some cases using walls and lamp posts to brace myself. For the fountain image, however, I placed the camera on the ground to capture the shot; which made composing quite challenging. And in one instance, as you can see, I probably forgot to forward the film; which actually created an unintended but nice double exposure.
Now have a look at the results below, and let me know what you think. Do you see the ghosts?
