Author name: Bill Thoo

In love with his wife, landscape, travel, and night photography.

One Page Zines – By Bill Thoo

Have you ever thought that everything you wanted to say could be printed on one page? Now you can do this with a zine.

I have come across concepts for a one page zine several times, but never attempted one myself until recently. These zines are printed on a single sheet of paper, but with clever cuts and folds that morphs that one paper sheet into a multipage publication, albeit in a much smaller final size. There are various formulas for doing this, and I will show you the one I used.

Hasselblad H1 – An Accidental Journey into Phase One P Series Digital Backs – By Bill Thoo

I bought a Hasselblad H1 by accident. Like it’s older cousin, the Hasselblad V, the H series is modular. It has options for batteries, viewfinders, and camera backs, in addition to lenses. Sometimes, it turns out, coming into possession of just one camera component can start you on a camera journey.

A while ago I had bought a Phase One P30 back for my Hasselblad V at a price I had thought acceptable. It turns out, of course, it doesn’t fit the V. I had bought a H series back, and there was no mechanism of adapting it to a V camera. The P30 went into a box in a drawer. Play the montage of time passing. Then last year I saw a Hasselblad H1 camera for a reasonable price.

Spectra

Polaroid Spectra / Frustrating Beauty – By Bill Thoo

If you are an instant photography veteran my revelations may not be for you, but I confess that I am a late comer to instant photography. I never photographed with Polaroid when instant photography was in its prime, even though I photographed on film through the 1980’s through to the early 2000’s. Even when I started shooting a Holga in 2010 I managed to miss the resurrection of Polaroid in the form of the Impossible Project. It was not, in fact, until the end of 2019 that I photographed my first instant photo on Instax.

Shooting Star Trails with 120 Cinestill 800T – By Bill Thoo

As you may recall, my initial attempts at star trails on film were with my Olympus OM1 and Fuji Natura 1600 in early 2019. The results with the 35mm film and camera were a little hit and miss, but they were promising enough that I was encouraged to keep trying, and wanted to try again with medium format. I fulfilled my desire in October of 2019 – this is the story of that experience. 

Kodak 2238

5 Frames with Kodak 2238 in a M4 with a Canon LTM 50/1.4 – By Bill Thoo

I am no Kodak 2238 expert. In fact, I was introduced to Kodak 2238 by Michael Bartosek when I was lucky enough to be included in his project to shoot this film. The Kodak 2238 Project produced a zine, created a Facebook group (Kodak 2238 Project), a spin off group (The Ultra Low ISO Club), a podcast (The Ultra Low ISO Club with Michael Bartosek, Edward Conde, and Jason Konopinski), an instagram (@Ultra.Low.ISO.Club), and an Etsy store (HandRolledFilm). Everything I know about this film has been learnt from these guys, but any factual errors will be my own.

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