Banana village

Redscale photography needs a lot of light. If you’re using a SLR cam you’ll have an exposure meter plus full access to shutter speed, aperture and ISO controls. You can nearly find an infinity of combinations for the desired exposure. Piece o’ cake.

However, lomo or toy cams often do not provide as much control. My Sprocket Rocket has only two apertures and one fixed shutter speed at 1/100 s (there is also the bulb mode, but no ISO control and no exposure meter at all). That leaves only a few combinations, so it’s harder to find a good exposure… To compensate the lack of ISO control, you can set it up to the biggest aperture (even on a sunny day), and try to include a source of light at an edge of the picture (beware of flare). If it’s still too dark, switch to the bulb mode (don’t forget your pocket tripod!). It’s a bit easier with the Holga because it can open to f/8, versus f/10.8 for the Sprocket Rocket. Just practice!

Taghazout redscale

A warmed stroll from Anchor Point to Taghazout heights.

In redscale photography the film is loaded backwards. The light has to pierce through the back of the film (the red layer), which is now on top.  The blue layer, consequently in the bottom, is left unexposed. The result is a dramatic color shift, with warm red, orange and yellow tints, depending on the exposure.

An under exposed redscale film will be dark with intense red and orange tones, while an over exposed one will be golden, with sparkling orange and yellow tones (sometimes you can also get greens and blues, but you will need a lot of light in order to pierce the thick filter). But there’s also a trick to find a correct exposure: always over expose it, from 1 to 3 stops!

Redscale

Lantau island has a totally different feel from its crowded neighbour Hong-Kong.

Ingredients: a red scale film and a Holga. Set it up on ‘sunny days’ aperture (f/11) to under-expose the clichés and enhance the red tint.