Stopping overnight in Bilbao gave me the perfect opportunity to go and see the Guggenheim, truly a photographer's dream, and nothing better for black & white film!
On the way to Asturias for a short camping holiday (see Week 43), I had the opportunity to stop overnight in Bilbao as I was picking up my brother the next day to drive to the campsite. My brother in-law, Matt, also joined and we had a day to check out Bilbao, drink and eat loads of great food, and of course go photograph the world famous Guggenheim!
Despite growing up in Spain, I have never been to Bilbao and it's somewhere I have always wanted to go, and for good reason, it is a great little city! With a population of c.350,000, but nearing 1 million for the greater metropolitan area, this place really punches above its weight. It has a strong port, heavy industry, HQ to a large Spanish bank, and is strong in the automotive sector. Whilst small, you get the sense there is a lot of business here, just by looking at the number of international flights it services (from an the old but really well designed small airport). Twice daily flights to at least 3 German cities as well as London and other European cities.
Enough about its economy though, and back to this week's film and the plan for the day. I chose Fomapan 100, as I figured it would be a bright summer's day and I would also be using a small tripod around the Guggenheim. I have also had good experiences with Fomapan 400, and was curious to see how this film stacked up.
We had no other plan than to walk around the Guggenheim and take 12 good shots. We also visited plenty of the bars in Bilbao, their food is really well presented as small tapas ontop of the bar area, with so many varieties it makes it hard to decide what you want! And don't get me started on the prices, unbelievably good value! To give you an idea, a (large) glass of Spanish Rioja reserve wine cost me €1,60, goodness knows what the regular wine costs...it's probably free. Wine is cheaper than beer up here.
A typical view in a Bilbao bar area!
The wonderful Guggenheim. This is probably the only "normal angle" shot I took - I tried to take close-ups and different angles as opposed to the traditional postcard view. Great contrast in this image, although I did edit it slightly given the lack of a yellow filter on my camera (which would've helped add contrast). Film has great exposure latitude, so I was able to recover a lot from the bright sky to bring out the clouds more.
A through the viewfinder shot, I really enjoy taking this and comparing with the final photo.
Definitely one to frame - I love this shot! Great contrast and sharpness in the image -well done Fomapan!
Side view of the museum, what a wonderful collection of shapes and angles. The lighting is very interesting too as the surface of the aluminium type material is not flat, creating lots of really cool reflections and shadows as you walk around it.
Another through the viewfinder shot - I got great value out of the longer Sonnar 150mm and wider Distagon 50mm on this trip.
Even better than the previous one - great sharpness and probably my favourite shot of the week!
There are unusual sculptures all around the museum, this is one of my favourites. The reflection was really strong as it was such a bright day.
And to prove it I took a close-up. This photos is cropped and still retains plenty of sharpness, that's medium format photograph for you! What a great sculpture!
At the side of the museum and leading up to another elaborate art exhibition - not for the faint hearted though you can see right through the railings to the bottom below!
Looks almost like fish scales - definitely another one to print and frame I think!
I tried to get an interesting angle here, not sure the photo works though but still decided to include it.
Taking literally lying on the floor looking up - I was drawn to the different shadings across the museum and bottom part of the road bridge above it.
The famous spider sculpture.
Actually I had to work on this one a bit as really hard to expose for a bright sky coupled with the dark parts of the sculpture, not a bad result given how dark the spider came out initially.
Overall impressions
I really cannot fault this film and for the price point (c.3 euro a roll), you simply cannot go wrong. I had good results with the 400 version and still have the ISO 200 version to try. The film overall has a really nice characteristic to it, but super sharp when it needs to be.
It is also nice to support well established (Fomapan is actually a really old film company) but smaller film producers. I would like to try using this or the 400 version for portrait photography, as I have seen some really good results from other photographers.
Oh, and as far as Bilbao and the Guggenheim go - well hands down I cannot stress enough what a great little city this is. Definitely worth a trip back, maybe this time with some colour film!
So there you have it, under 10 weeks to go for this project! As you can see I have dabbled with some "special posts" in-between shooting this project, but welcome any feedback or ideas for new themes - gotta start planning what I do after my 52 rolls of film project is finished!
Upcoming films and themes include the special Kodak Vision 50D and 500T (that are in development now), and the brand new Cinestill 50 in 120mm format and Fuji Acros 100, which I have saved for a special holiday trip next week - all will be revealed!
Cheers and thanks for stopping by,
Neil
