How the Berlin Kino 2019 Sees the City: First Impressions by Maya Jacoby and Nikko Knösch

When it comes to vintage cinema aesthetics, the Berlin Kino 400 knows how to widen the possibilities of monochromatic photography. As street photography continues to be as popular as ever and with black and white being a favorite among the city shooters, we reformulated the Berlin Kino 400 into the Berlin Kino 400 2019. offering a wider tonal range, finer texture and a whole new level of fine artistry. Now, this film is adaptable and versatile for any analogue project. Let's see how the cities of Tel Aviv and Stockholm look like through the eyes of Maya Jacoby and Nikko Knösch, using the new edition of the Berlin Kino 400.

Maya Jacoby on the Monochromatic Metro of Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv-based photographer and art student Maya Jacoby, a.k.a. mjaa, usually does not go with her analogue routine without color, but for the Berlin Kino 400 2019, she makes an exemption. When shooting black and white, Maya tries to imagine a world without colors, going after textures and details that people don't usually see when seeing in color. Using her Nikon f5.01 with the Nikkor 35-70 mm f/3.5-4.8 lens, Maya decided to burn the entire roll in a summer stroll by the beach in Jaffa. She took photographs of everyday city life.

Maya then took the film to her favorite film lab in Tel Aviv, Interphoto. She was surprised by the outcome of her free-spirited shooting and spontaneity with the film, loving the atmosphere that the Berlin Kino 400 created.

"I enjoyed the film a lot, I think it made me fall in love with b/w film again. The grains and tones are just beautiful, and the details and textures look really good. Thank you so much, Lomography! I can't wait to use it again."

Nikko Knösch: Silver Stockholm on Medium Format

Swedish punk drummer and photographer Nikko Knösch also works as a photo retoucher in his start-up company, Layer 1 Retouch. After a day of working with large-scaled digital files, polishing pixels and colour-correcting digital images, Nikko finds solace with film photography. Nikko admitted that it's been a while since he picked up photography; so he decided to take his film camera with him every day. He also began taking pictures in dark basements during his gigs and stand-up shows. For Nikko, basements of their punk show venues are rather unattractive but noticed how a black and white film manages to 'tidy' up such areas, taking away the focus from hideous colors to draw more attention to his subject. To further push his experiment with black and white film, he chose the new formula of the Berlin Kino 400 in 120.

Using his Hasselblad 501 cm, Nikko captured anything that crosses his way in his daily life -- around his home, his path to work, the workplace itself, as well as his rehearsal studio with the band. He wanted a series of photographs with varying tones. Afterward, he developed the film at home with Rodinal 1+50 for 17 minutes and scanned them with an Imacon Photo scanner. He became even more enthusiastic in using the Berlin Kino 400 2019 for his other analogue experiments.

"I shot some subjects which have a lot of different tones in them at different distances and I think the film did a nice job catching information from the whole spectra between the dark and the bright. I really like it! I’m excited to try the 35mm on my Yashica T3 Super D and push it a few steps to compare with my Kodak Tri-X photos."

Paint the city in black and white with the Berlin Kino 400 2019 in 35 mm or 120 format, available at the Online Shop and Gallery Stores.

2020-01-30 #equipo #black-and-white-photography #berlin-kino-400 #maya-jacoby #nikko-knosch