I used Readyload film which expired 20 yrs ago for peaceful swan portraits

Shooting wildlife with a large format camera.

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Because I know this swan family for two seasons now, I am fully accepted and can come very close to them and their nest. They even trust me so much, that they sleep in front of me. It’s such a wonderful feeling for me to spend time with these guys.That’s also the reason I wanted to shoot large format portraits of them. My first idea was to shoot a collodion wet plate, because the swan mum was most of the time in her nest breeding her eggs. But because of the lockdown back then, I wasn’t allowed to stay outside that long. So I decided to shoot large format film with my Linhof Technika camera and a borrowed 400mm Tele Xenar lens on 4×5 Kodak Readyload film. I have my own fridge for them, because most of them are about 20 years expired and some of them are very unique for me, like the Kodak Ektachrome E100S or the Portrait 160VC. Because I like one of a kind photographs, I shot also Fujifilm FP-100C peel a part film (also expired) to get kind of a wet plate experience 🙂
I documented the whole story, inclusive a bad blooper and the outcome of the breeding in my latest YouTube documentary (I guess after 3,5 months its not just a vlog anymore). If you are interested in prints, check out http://prints.mhaustria.com – there is also one limited hand enlarged (Title “I am beautiful”) print series available.