show me your duds: mira 800 T (with 85b filter)
Rick Alarcon is a US photographer in Paris , France, specializing in portraits, events, and artistic photography.
Shooting on analog, with all of its quirks and limitations, can lead to spectacular failure. I’m not some magician that shoots pure gold everytime I use a camera. As much as photography is work, it is also a kind of play, allowing me to try and experiment, in order to reach new ideas an try new techniques. Sometimes those moments of play lead to brilliance, other times to failure. Failure, sometimes, is needed.
Here is a roll of failure: technical problems, poor choices, bad timing, time lost working, money and energy down the drain. Here is what went wrong, unedited.
Red line static electricity. I thought this was interesting when I first encountered the problem. To review, it’s being caused by me, and not on purpose. When I wind the camera to the next photo, I’m doing it so fast or hard that it is creating a static charge. I’m basically too quick, or too overenthusiastic, or too caffeinated. These type of high iso, tungsten films (cinestill or mira 800T) have a tendency to also produce this effect, as well as red halation, so this is not helping.
The first shot of all of my rolls are usually black anyway, as it allows for a bit of safety when shooting. Technically, this is half correct. But the correct part of things, what makes it a good or bad image, would only be good to someone as high as a coconut. Then, the disasters happened.
Cool, until it is not. 100% excitement leading to 100% user error. In some, I don’t even remember what or why I thought it was interesting to shoot, as there are some weird frames there that not even I can explain. It gets better.
I pass by this seagull almost everyday. He’s great. I grew up with lots of seagulls and the ocean. He reminds me of that place, with its docks and salty air and waves and clouds on the horizon. He is the reminder that not every trip out to sea will yield the best catch, that there’s no luck in fishing here.
This is just one of many failed rolls. But failure is needed to create. To try once, twice, a hundred times to bring about the one time where it does work. A hundred trips out to sea.
Unfortunately, this experimentation takes a bit of money and support to make happen. Please consider supporting my analog photography work and practice, which you can learn more about here. Providing assistance for the materials and processes of this type of work can only exist with your help. Thank you to those who have supported, very much appreciated.
Next time, the good catch!
boreal afternoons: cinestill 800 T (with 85b filter)
Rick Alarcon is a US photographer in Paris , France, specializing in portraits, events, and artistic photography.
Gonna start off with some self-promotion: Help support my analog film work, could really use your help! To find out how to do so, visit SUPPORT here.
The groundhog has emerged from his hole. Cinestill 800T shot with an 85b filter shot over the course of this winter. Tungsten film is really nice with the 85b filter, gives the whites a more bluish tone, which looks nice for the season. I wanted 800 ISO because it gets dark out here real early, safer choice for things (though I could do without all of the grain), but have to use the filter, otherwise everything comes out blue during daylight shooting. People shoot it without the filter though, at night, makes the shops and resto lights look real nice. Too cold to sit out in the evening.
What’s all the red? Two things:
Halation effect from the Cinestill film itself. This is just a characteristic of the stock, see also my post here. This will occur mostly in the highlights. Some people like it, some don’t.
The more linear red streaking is actually caused from static electricity! Crazy, eh? It can happen from a hard/quick advance, especially shows up on Cinestill films. I like that I’m adding electric charge to my images (see ‘embers’), makes things a little more visceral feeling. I’ll have to make sure not to advance so quickly next time, or maybe not and really go for it.
methods many: portraits - kodak portra 400 + tri-x 400 + ilford delta 400 + digital
Rick Alarcon is a US photographer in Paris , France, specializing in portraits, events, and artistic photography.
Got the chance to do a test shoot with Nicolas (@nicolas_sacroug) on a few different rolls. An excellent experience working with him, trying different things on different formats, and I think we were able to create some great portraits together. Great energy (despite the freezing temperatures) made for an excellent session. Thank you Nicolas.
Care to support my analog film work? Find out how here on the Support page. Thank you everyone.
seesaws: november 2025 - kodak portra 400 + tri-x 400
Rick Alarcon is a US photographer in Paris , France, specializing in portraits, events, and artistic photography.
Just wanted to get a few more of these out there. Not really into Portra for color, it just feels like too rosy for my taste, plus you don’t need to spend that much to have good color and in some cases, better color. I’ll mess around more with Portra 160, I guess, just cause apparently it’s what pros use, blah blah blah. I shot the Tri-x on my junk plastic point and shoot and honestly liked the experience more than anything else, from shooting to the final results.
I have a bit more coming from these rolls, but here’s a few from each for now. Also, haven’t heard about how to help support me and my analog film work? Really? No, really? Well, click here to learn more! I’ll put in a good word to Santa.
* The first image (“grounded.“) isn’t some kind of Photoshop trickery. Looks like something happened during shooting or development, but I like the effect, so we’ll go with it.
colors of grey days - Kodak Pro Image 100 (pushed one stop)
Rick Alarcon is a US photographer in Paris , France, specializing in portraits, events, and artistic photography.
Shooting on color in Paris can feel quite drab, making it understandable that would make this a great city for black and white, but the color is nice here. Kodak Pro Image is a good stock for adverse weather conditions (well, hotter temperatures at least) at its price, so I wanted to see how it performed, as it could prove to be a useful stock for the future. I’ll probably get to it again to try with some hot, hot sunny weather, an once there is more light available throughout the days here. But otherwise, the colors are pretty pleasant. Sun goes down real fast now.
Feedback would be great, so feel free to leave me a message about what you think. Also, if you would like to support my analog film work, you can do so here. Until next time.