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.
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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.
nevermind the darkness - Ilford fp4
Rick Alarcon is a US photographer in Paris , France, specializing in portraits, events, and artistic photography.
Few things, real quick:
Going to shoot more black and white than I thought. Winter is a bit yuck for color sometimes and it just opens up more chances to shoot. Thoughts lately feels now good for some Lomo-type stuff though, so I’ll try to work that in too, but only if it’s good enough. The wacky colors of the holidays could be interesting on wacky rolls.
Shooting film feels a bit more seasonal (besides being circumstantial) than I gave it credit. I’ll put that in better words someday.
And speaking of seasonal!…Did you know you can help support me this holiday season to create more film photography? Visit here to learn more!
Can’t support financially? That’s alright, sharing is free! Cheers.
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.