After the last time I shot Phoenix from both sides, I knew that’s what I wanted to do with the precious few rolls of it remaining in my fridge. And what better tool to try it with than the Splitzer+ lens filter I’d tried for the first time recently.
I’m far from the first person to do this lens splitter EBS technique. It’s such a natural combination that it was almost stressful to me. I can’t handle the kind of pressure that comes with making good photography choices.
Luckily I kept my choices pretty modest here. I think someone with a strong vision could create some really powerful images using this technique. Best I can do is “anti-ICE sign with some flowers next to it.”
I chose to shoot all flowers on the “normal” side, for a few reasons. They’re easy to find, come in a variety of colors, and they’ll still look nice even if they’re upside down. Shooting all the same thing on one side also meant I didn’t have to worry about what paired with what when shooting the other side.
Speaking of which, the frames paired up much more smoothly than they did last time. I’d love to say that I magically cut the leader perfectly so that everything lined up, but I think my subject matter was just very forgiving. You can see hints of a soft dark line in the lower left corner of some of these, which could be a frame line.
For the redscale side, I decided to pick urban things- fences, signs, and the like. The splitter causes each image to fall off gradually in the middle rather than leaving a sharp dividing line. The flowers bled into the urban scenes, flowing together rather than standing in dramatic opposition. This was exactly what I wanted- not to show a harsh divide between the subjects, but to see them intermingle.
The only shots with strong dividing lines were those with a light background on one half of the frame and a dark one on the other.
I also got a couple shots only exposed on one side, at the beginning and end of the roll. Presumably this is because you lose a bit of film when redscaling. These shots give you a good idea of just how far your subject can bleed past the theoretical halfway dividing line of the filter.
Honestly, I’m really happy with how well this technique worked.
My only regret is not shooting bluer subjects. There are only a few frames where you can really tell the bottom half has blue light coming through. The whites showed up really well, though.
Realistically, though, even the greens and magentas I was getting were cooler-tinted than I would’ve gotten just shooting redscale.
I have just a spark of an idea for my next roll of Phoenix. I’ll have to wait and see what it turns into. In the meantime, here’s some more from this roll:
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