Today the wildlife is H. sapiens medicalensis: portraits of medical workers taken by reader Christopher Moss in the hospital where he works as a doctor. To show how intrepid he is, he took one of these when he himself was hospitalized for a bone marrow transplant. (Normally he’s a doctor there.)
Christopher’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
These are all portraits taken on film, with a variety of cameras. Many are taken on a weekend morning after rounds at the hospital, when I used to torment the nurses and fellow docs by taking a camera into the hospital. I see there are notices all over the place now declaring photography forbidden except with permission of the micro-managing administrators, so there can be no more such photos.
Emily. Pentax 645N, 75mm/f2.8, Tri-X @400, HC-110, Nikon 9000 scan:
Holly. Nikon F6, 85mm/f1.4, Ilford XP2 @200, Rodinal 1:100 semi-stand:
Treva. Rolleiflex 2.8GX, Rolleinar 1, HP5+ @400, TMax Dev, Imacon 848 scan:
Terry-Lynn. Rolleiflex 2.8GX, HP5+, TMax developer, Imacon 848 scan:
Khaled. Nikon F6, Nikkor 85mm/f1.4, XP2 @ ISO200, Rodinal stand, Imacon 848 scan:
Dan. Nikon F6, Nikkor 85mm/f1.4, XP2 @ ISO200, Rodinal stand, Imacon 848 scan:
Elaine and Chelsie. Nikon F6, Nikkor 85mm/f1.4 AFD, TMax 400 at 400ISO, TMax developer, Imacon 848 scan
Brenda. Leica M7, Summarit 75, TMax400, Rodinal stand, Imacon 848 scan.
Lockdown lunacy. I was not allowed to shave because of a bleeding tendency! Nikon F6, 50/1.4, XP2 @200, HC-110, Nikon 9000 scan:
Post-BMT and hairless! Nikon F6, XP2 Super, Diafine, Nikon 9000 scan.
Thomas. Hasselblad 503cx, Sonnar 250mm/f5.5, TMax 100, Diafine, Nikon 9000 scan:
Hasselblad selfie. Hasselblad 500c/m, Distagon 50/4, XP2 Super pushed to 3200, HC-110, Hasselblad X1 scan.
Thank you for these portraits, Christopher. The candid of Emily, unaware, unfazed, and at work is my favorite. Hope your transplant was successful.
Those faces…they make you love the human kind. Thank you
Beautiful.
Or, alternatively :
Beautiful!
Not sure which I should write, so there they are.
Astoundingly good. I love that people are still shooting B&W film. Best wishes on your recovery.
Fantastic pictures. I used to love black and white portraiture, and these pics reminded me why: they somehow seem to capture people’s image and personality better than full color.
Jim: three years in and no recurrence as yet! It has been interesting to have a brand new, naive, immune system. You have to have all the infant vaccinations afresh, in an accelerated schedule (most was eight at one time), and I find myself suddenly allergic to all sorts of things (eczema, wheezing, and sneezing up to 12 times in a row), so if the hygiene hypothesis for the genesis of atopy is correct, it fits: I have had an ultra-clean second childhood. One correction though, I retired from practice when I achieved only a partial remission after my first six months of chemo for leukemia back in 2015, so I’m no longer on the staff at that hospital.
So very interesting. Since I teach undergrads who mostly aspire to be doctors and nurses, it is interesting to me to see the end product. The years of education that go into getting there blows my mind.
So… if a doctor, nurse, or patient makes a video call from their mobile phone are they breaking the No Photography rule? If they record an instance of poor medical
care are they protected as a whistle blower?
It’s quite possible that patients who are not at their best might find photography intrusive and from courtesy alone you should refrain from photographing them. But a blanket ban? Sounds authoritarian to me.
You have no idea how much pleasure it gives a health care administrator to impose rules, and the more arbitrary, the better! And in publicly-funded health care, there is little or no requirement to perform well; in fact, failing just gives them an excuse to appoint some more underlings to “effect change”! You might call me jaded, but having watched the exponential growth of administration costs at the expense of patient care, I realise we have a problem and have no idea of how to reverse it, just like an oak tree covered in parasitic ivy.
I would not photograph patients in the hospital, as that would be intrusive and raise all kinds of privacy issues. I provided 10×8 prints to my subjects, and the nurses used to keep them in a binder at the nurses station for their own amusement. I bet it is still there. I expect the “site manager” put up those notices simply to annoy me, as I had a habit of not keeping my opinions to myself….
Nice photos. There’s something about film that is captivating.
Very nice phots!
Well done! Always pleasing to see a fellow film shooter.
Wonderful photos, and you took them with an impressive collection of cameras!
You say that you processed Ilford XP2 in Rodinal but it’s actually a chromogenic film so it is processed in C41.
Here we go again! Like all chromogenic films, and colour C-41 films, it can be processed in standard B&W chemistry (obviously colour films will only develop in B&W this way, and that’s how I discovered the trick: I mistakenly developed a C-41 film in B&W developer when I had two films and two tanks in a changing bag!). I spent some time seeing how it can be pushed and pulled like a traditional film emulsion, and the answer is that it certainly can. Most of my experiments were done with HC-110 (ISO25-3200), but it responds nicely at ISO200 to Rodinal stand development, and for convenience, I often use Diafine. Ilford published an article by me about the process:
https://www.ilfordphoto.com/ilford-xp2-super-in-black-and-white-chemistry/
XP2 is normally grainless but lacks the sharpening effect of conventional black and white film.
Did Rodinal and HC 110 make it look more like a conventional black and white film?
Rodinal normally gives enormous grain.
HC 110 was always my favourite developer.
I’ve just reminded myself that Ilford messed up the editing of that article somewhat. The full version with some later results is at:
https://drmoss.ca/xp2.htm
My whole reason for doing this was to minimise grain. I know some kids today think film has to be or is best when it has huge grain, but when I was young we tried hard to avoid grain. You can judge the results at the link above. BTW, stand development of traditional silver halide films in Rodinal is a good way of minimising the grain it causes, as long as you have an hour to spare while you wait! You’ll see at the bottom of the last link there is a triptych taken with a half-frame camera, at ISO1600, and developed in Diafine, so a bit of a torture test for grain! It came out with some acceptable grain.
Excellent portraits Christopher! Thanks for sharing these! You’ve got a lot of nice, old film gear!