Just A Summary

James Duncan Davidson

I’ve finally started uploading the scans from RailsConf Europe last week. There’s still one more roll to scan and another 9 shots in the camera, but I’m pretty pleased with the results so far. I didn’t really start shooting until about halfway through the last day. The light in the hotel was horrible and I just wasn’t in the mood, then suddenly I’d shot three rolls and was wondering where I could find another roll of Neopan 1600 at 9pm in Berlin. It didn’t hurt that I found some really nice light (at least for a black and white photographer with fast film). The shot of James Duncan Davidson above was shot using one of the large LCD screens that were dotted around the hotel as a softlight. It’s the sort of trick that can cause endless pain when you’re shooting in colour, because the white balance is such a bear, but the magic of fast black and white film means I just didn’t have to care.

Later on, I found an even better lightsource – in the atrium there were columns with 3 or 4 big LCDs displaying conference information, which meant they were mostly white. I spent a chunk of the evening grabbing people and asking if I could take their picture in “The best light in the building”. I just wish I’d spotted it earlier in the day when there was more daylight as well, that really would have been gorgeous light.