5 frames in Ouro Preto with Ilford Delta 400 and a Nikon 35Ti

In 2017, I was able to travel to a place that I wanted to visit since I was little, you know one of those places that captivates your mind when you see it on television – in my case was through Brazilian telenovelas – or when you were in your 4th, 5th grade in a Geography or History class, and that place was always there, omnipresent, all along.

This place for me was Ouro Preto, a small, baroque style and UNESCO World Heritage site since the 1980s, that has been the centre of Brazilian history throughout the Gold Rush period, and once the capital of the State of Minas Gerais.

Ouro Preto is one of those places that makes you to reflect about the colonialism in the Americas. Its wealthy past is certainly reflected in the constructions, churches, and the town’s public squares. The former estates of barons in that city are now mostly museums, a glimpse of its violent past can be viewed in the estates’ basements and the tools they had to keep slaves under control. In the estate’s upper levels, their contrast offers a walk through glorious dining and library rooms that are remarkably stunning.

The town also made headlines in Latin America with the first Pharmacy degree in the continent, and you would be surprised to see Cannabis Sativa in its museum used as an analgaesic treatment, which would later be prohibited in Brazil from the 1930s. Ouro Preto, too, was home to sculptors, writers, and artists who have shaped Brazilian culture and literature, and that we needed to study in classes of Literature and Liberal Arts.

Travelling to Ouro Preto and its neighbouring towns was like a school field trip that I was never able to do when I was younger, mostly because I lived in another state, and interstate school trips were not something common when I was growing up.

During my stay, I fell in love for the food and the hospitality of the locals, we call them “mineiros”. The area was very safe, and the local economy is moved by tourism and higher education. Remarkably, it was my first time in a tourist place without people pushing to sell their services straight away. It felt the locals were just going through their day, and if they ever stopped you, it was just to let you know. Then the food, I can’t think of a place where you can eat any better.

The Nikon 35Ti came to me around 2015, when I wanted to improve my photographic skills and dive deeper into film photography. I wanted a reliable camera that I could do a little more than a few snapshots, and by actively looking on the second-hand market, I came through one at the right time.

At that time, there was just one or two reviews online, and not much else to find out about those cameras. The Contax T2 wasn’t quite there yet, and there was speculation that film was a dead medium. Thus, I took my bets, and I’m so glad that I did.

For long I planned to write on how amazingly crafted and useful that is the Nikon 35Ti top dials, once you learn to half-press the shutter and adjust the settings to your needs. My little finger could reach the flash button, but for most people I recommend carrying a toothpick. The batteries probably lasted me for about 35 rolls. Though, to be short: “I consistently produced frame after frame, and many rolls after, better than average results”. I am not downplaying it, but to have an entire roll with good frames means an economical and surprising way to shoot film.

You can control exposure to compensate ISO and lighting conditions, and override shutter speed and aperture control. As the camera manual read: “a sophisticated, high-tech camera that has been designed not only for automatic, masterful simplicity of operation but also to enable you to apply creative techniques to your photography”. A more in-depth review can be found here, and other recommend reading here.

The camera has a manual control for everything that you need, and it was with this very camera that I truly learned how exposure rating and tonality range of different film stocks work, and what you can achieve with most available films. In other words, I read the film technical information or spec sheet even if I am not a developer, because it does contain a lot of information about how they designed a certain product to be, and what market they aimed at when they trial and test a product.

The other thing that stands out is that Ouro Preto is quite colourful, with residences in baroque style that are well maintained with painted facades. Due to unstable weather in that weekend, I decided on B&W and shot a roll of Ilford FP4, Delta 400, and for colour I went with Ektar 100. Moreover, this was my first experience with Delta 400 Professional, and to be honest I felt that I achieved such a beautiful tonal range with deep blacks without an extra grain while highlighting the architectural details of the place.

Thank you for reading all this,

Ian Do Carmo

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