吉姆 JIM HOFMAN | Photography Faces & places in China
Portraits
Analog | The Village – Fall 2023
Back at the village to visit friends, take photos – and watch the rice get harvested. All photos were shot on a Leica M7 with a Voigtlander 28mm Ultron V2 lens. The film stock was either Kodak Portra 400, Kodak Gold 200, or Fujifilm Superia 400. Processing & scans were done in Hong Kong / […]
Analog | Village in the Summer
I took the Hasselblad Xpan to the village for some pano images. It’s usually a challenge to compose a panoramic photo in a small area like a village, but I’ve started using a wide 28mm Nikon lens on the Xpan which has made it easier.
Analog | Ningbo in the Heat
Wow – it was stupid hot in China during the summer of 2023. I had a choice of weather conditions – extreme heat + humidity or heavy rain. Neither was very conducive for street photography.
Analog | Returning to the Village
It took me over 15 months before I was able to return to China to continue my documentation of the final years of this 400-year-old village.
Analog | One Year in China
This week is the one-year anniversary of coming to China in March of 2020. I came to Ningbo with the plan to stay for 6 weeks for a business trip. A few days after I arrived China closed the borders (still not reopened a year later) and the Covid cases in the US spiked.
Analog | January 2021 – 10 YEARS!
This post marks the 10 year anniversary of this photoblog. It also coincides with the publication of Volume 2 of my village series.
Analog | Winter Travel & Ningbo
Some assorted photos using assorted cameras and assorted film stocks. These are the final photos taken in 2020.
Analog | Village Formal Portrait Session
I decided to try a formal portrait session of some of the older people in the village a few weeks ago. Many of them had never had a formal portrait taken, so I decided to do it pro-bono as a learning exercise.
Analog | I’m YouTube-Famous Now
I met a YouTuber on the bus from the Shanghai airport to our government-mandated 14-day quarantine hotel in Ningbo. He was returning from the US with his family trying to out-run the COVID-19 virus that had just hit the US. I was doing the same thing – for slightly different reasons.
Analog | Black & White Film
Because the local photo lab is getting slow and expensive I decided to start developing and scanning my own black and white film. I already do that in the US, but it requires some gear and chemicals to get it done here in China. After I was here for about 6 months I decided to set up a film processing lab in my AirBnB kitchen – which I never use.
Analog | New 4″x5″ Camera
After jumping into analog photography about a year and a half ago I’ve slowly acquired cameras with larger and larger resolution (negative size). Over the summer I took the ultimate step into large format photography when I purchased a ShenHao 4×5 camera in Shanghai.
Analog – Summer 2020
My six-week trip turned into an “indefinite” length trip because of COVID-19 related issues (closed borders, lack of flights, lockdowns, etc.). I had plenty of opportunities to work on my photo project in the village and travel around China to capture analog photos on my Mamiya 6 and Hasselblad 500 C/M. Most of these photos were taken using Portra 400 film.
Analog | Ningbo Village 5.20
More street portraits from the village in Ningbo. I’ve entered a new stage in this project because in early May I printed a photo book with all of the images I had shot and distributed the book to everyone in the village who had allowed me to take their portrait. This created an incentive for […]
Book Release Day in the Village 5.11.20
I self-published my first book of analog photographs in early May of 2020 and distributed free copies to everyone in the small village outside of Ningbo where I took the portraits. It was quite the event in the village. Smiles, bewilderment, and a few tears. No one knew I was publishing a book. I would […]
Analog | Ningbo Village 4.20
I’m back at the village after my 2 weeks in prison (Covid-19 quarantine). The weather is gorgeous in Ningbo and my friends in the village missed me.
Analog | Ningbo & Yangjiang 1.20
More analog photos using a medium format Hasselblad 500 C/M. All photos were shot on Portra film. I visited my 99-year-old friend in the village again and met her 67-year-old third son. I asked about her secret for longevity and her answer was “I eat rice, vegetables, and meat every day.” That’s pretty much what […]
Analog | Thailand Monks 1.20
We took a trip to Chiang Mai in Thailand right before the Chinese New Year. On the second day of the trip, I woke up and decided I wanted to take portraits of Monks at a Buddhist temple/monastery about 3 blocks from the hotel. All of these images were shot using a Mamiya 6 medium […]
Analog | Ningbo Village II 11.19
After spending a month this summer photographing the people in a small village outside of Ningbo, I returned in October to continue my mission of taking environmental street portraits of the inhabitants. As has become my custom, I returned with prints of the portraits to give to anyone who volunteered. Apparently my project went viral […]
Analog | Ningbo Village 8.19
My summer project was a little different than my usual street photography. I took environmental street portraits in a small village adjacent to a factory I collaborate with in Ningbo. I also created a video of the process and included some of the back-story about the village.
Hong Kong & Shanghai 4.19
Everything was shot using one lens – the amazing Fuji 16mm f1.4. One of Fuji’s finest lenses.
Analog | Hong Kong & Shanghai 4.19
So, I’ve gone all-in on analog photography, having purchased several film cameras in the last few months – including medium format, 35mm and a point-and-shoot. I’ve started developing and scanning my own negatives to speed-up the cycle. I’m really enjoying the “craft” of photography again.
Tibet 10.18 | #Twice in a Lifetime
Seven years after my first trip to Tibet I retraced my steps and was able to take a lot of my photos all over again with much better gear and a lot more experience.
Ningbo 8.18
Ningbo was incredibly hot in August. I visited the Tianyi Ge ancient library twice to take some photos on the grounds. This is the oldest library in China that dates back to the 1500’s.
Hong Kong and China at f0.95
I typically dedicate posts to a single location on a trip, but this post is dedicated to a single f-stop – f0.95. Mitakon makes a 35mm lens with a wicked-fast f0.95 aperture. Shooting wide open with this lens yields a razor-thin depth of field.
