12 Frames: Kodak Portra 400 on a Yashica D TLR in the Studio

I haven’t known Amanda for very long, just over a year. We used to be colleagues, and now we’re friends and occasional collaborators.

In a year that’s depleted people’s motivation to create, she’s gone ahead and launched an entire clothing line. She named it Lou Lapel, after her aunt. She also got engaged (shout out to Omari).

When Amanda asked me if I’d be willing to show up to a studio at 7am on a Saturday to shoot a few of the pieces for a look book, I jumped at the chance. Along with my money making camera (a full-frame Nikon dslr), I also brought my Yashica D medium format TLR camera. In between looks, I took a few shots portrait shots of the models, the outfits, and Amanda herself.

If you’ve read previous posts on my blog, you will know that this was only my second time shooting the Yashica D. The first time was incredibly successful considering the film was expired and I had no idea if the camera was even capable of exposing film. I wrote about it in this blog post: 11 Frames of Expired Fuji Reala 100 on a Yashica D TLR.

I’ve added a few shots at the end of the blog post that I took on the Nikon dslr, for comparison. They’re not the final images that Amanda will use.

Anyway, here are all 12 frames, unedited, taken on Kodak Portra 400 120mm film.

Lou Lapel on Yashica D TLR

When I got the processed and scanned photos back from Accurate Photo Shop, I saw what I already knew after I snapped each frame. That the first two would be underexposed (they were away from the window and I didn’t trigger strobes), that a couple of them had missed focus, and that a couple more were blurry due to them being handheld and shot at 1/30. Hopefully this will get better over time.

Now, take a look at a few of the digital shots I took the same day for Lou Lapel’s website and look book.

Wait, before that, you can find me on Instagram here and my film photography account here. You can find Lou Lapel’s Instagram here and Amanda’s here.