Film Photo Series: Mayan Temples Shot On Kodak Aerochrome by Rob Hawthorn
Film: Kodak Aerochrom EIR infrared
Rob on working with this rare film: I never thought I’d get a chance to shoot on Kodak Aerochrome EIR, and when I finally picked some up I didn’t quite no what to do with it. Arguably it’s just expensive, novelty film. The pressure to think of something original to do with it was pretty great. Into the freezer it went, hidden under the ice cream with the other films, where my wife pretends she doesn’t know about it. When, some time later, a trip across the Atlantic to Yucatan in Mexico came up, this idea struck me.
Keeping my fingers crossed that the films would survive airport security and the intense heat of Mexico, I set out. I chose my Olympus OM40 for this trip. It’s a really under-appreciated camera. Sure it’s the ugly runt of the OM litter and often suffers from a mirror lock fault (easily fixable by the way), but it’s extremely capable, with A, P and M modes, manual exposure compensation, and “ESP” metering, a sort of matrix metering that automatically compensates for backlighting and other tricky scenes. Perfect for slide film.
I shot on a 19mm lens stopped down to f/8 or further, a yellow filter, and bracketed my shots +/-1 stop. Bracketing is really key with this film. I know this film is rare and expensive but if you ever shoot any don’t be tempted to go for quantity over quality. The exposure is just too unpredictable. Sometimes my initial exposure was the best one, sometime the +1, sometimes the -1, and sometimes neither.
Did I achieve what I wanted with these shots? Sure, I think so. I’ve shot something that’s never been shot before. For me, these shots show the Mayan city of Uxmal in a beautiful and alien landscape of infrared, something fascinating and otherworldly. Like the ancient Mayan culture itself, so unfamiliar to our western and European eyes as to almost feel like fiction.
Check out more of Rob Hawthorn’s photography, including more infrared work, on his website or follow him on Instagram.
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