I have a quiet fascination with self-portraits that I cannot fully explain. I am not vain. Or at least I do not think I am. I generally dislike photographs of myself and I could pick holes in my appearance all day. But there is something specific I am chasing when I try to take a self-portrait that other photographs of me do not capture, and I keep coming back to it.
This article is about a morning I spent in the woods near home, alone with my Bronica S2A, trying to make some honest self-portraits on film. I will talk about the work itself, the practical difficulties of doing this on a manual film camera, and two interesting bits of kit that helped: the Reveni Labs Remote Release (which I had wanted to exist for years) and a Meyer Optik Trioplan 100mm lens on a clever adapter that Simon Forster designed for the Bronica S2A.
The photographs I made that morning are not finished work. I am not entirely sure what finished work would look like in this context. But the process taught me things, both about self-portraiture as a discipline and about the specific cameras and lenses involved, and the article is honest about both.
If you have your own quiet interest in self-portraits and have not really known how to start, this may help. If you are just here for the Reveni Labs review or the Trioplan-on-Bronica adapter, jump to those sections. I will not be offended.
On self-portraits
A note before the practicalities, because the practicalities only make sense if you understand what I am actually trying to do.
Self-portraits are not selfies. Selfies are quick captures of yourself in a moment, usually with another person or a place, intended for social sharing. Self-portraits are something else: a deliberate, considered attempt to make a photograph of yourself as subject, the way you would make a portrait of anyone else who happened to be sitting for you.
Why this is hard: you are simultaneously the photographer and the subject. The decisions a portrait photographer normally makes about the subject (where they sit, how they hold themselves, what expression they are wearing, where the light is falling) you have to make about yourself, without the feedback of looking at the subject through the viewfinder. You have to imagine the photograph, set up for it, then enter the frame and hope.
Why it matters to me: I genuinely do not know. The honest answer is that I want to make photographs that capture the essence of me in a way that other photographs of me do not. I cannot tell you what “the essence of me” means specifically, which is part of the problem. I will not know what a successful self-portrait looks like until I make one and recognise it.
This morning was not about making the successful one. It was about practising, getting used to the process, learning what the difficulties actually are. Trying things out and waiting for inspiration to find me, which is exactly the kind of passive approach I would criticise myself for taking in the next article. But for self-portraits specifically, I think there is a place for the open, exploratory approach. The active version comes later, once you know what you are looking for.
The setup
Camera: Bronica S2A with the 75mm Nikkor for most of the shoot, then later swapped for the Trioplan.
Film: Ilford HP5 Plus, rated at 400. Conditions were overcast and low light under tree cover; HP5 gives me more flexibility than my usual FP4 Plus.
Tripod and Reveni Labs Remote Release for triggering the shutter from in front of the camera.
Location: a quiet stretch of woods near home, picked specifically because I was unlikely to encounter anyone else. Self-portraiture in public is awkward in ways I had not previously considered, and being alone with the camera makes it possible to actually do the work without performance anxiety.
The Reveni Labs Remote Release
This is the kit story I want to start with because it solves a problem I had given up on solving.
The problem
Shooting self-portraits on a fully manual film camera requires you to be in front of the camera while triggering the shutter. The options are limited:
1. A long bulb cable release. Works, but the cable has to be long enough to reach from camera to subject position. Mine is long enough but cumbersome to get out and even more cumbersome to put away. The kind of accessory you only use when you have planned for it.
2. A self-timer. The Bronica S2A does not have one. Many film cameras do not. This is a non-option for me.
3. An assistant. Defeats the entire purpose of self-portraiture. If someone else is pressing the shutter, it is a collaborative portrait, not a self-portrait.
4. Asking the camera to do something it cannot do. Not an option.
For years I had been thinking that surely someone would make a servo-driven remote release with a wireless trigger. Not technically demanding to build. A small box with a servo motor that physically presses the cable release plunger, triggered by a small wireless remote you can hold in your hand. Solves the problem completely.
The product
Reveni Labs made exactly this.
Matt at Reveni Labs has a habit of releasing products I had been quietly wishing for. The Reveni Labs Remote Release is a small black box, roughly the size of a matchbox, containing a servo motor. You screw a standard cable release into one end of the box. When triggered, the servo extends a small pin inside the box that pushes the cable release plunger, firing the camera shutter.
The trigger is a small wireless fob, the kind you might recognise from a car key fob. Switch the box on (a blue light flashes to indicate ready), screw your cable release in, position yourself, press the fob. The shutter fires.
There is a small bracket included so the box can be attached to a hot shoe or cold shoe. Mine attaches to the camera body directly.
Total kit: small box, fob, mounting bracket. Easy to carry in a pocket. Easy to set up. Easy to use.
How it actually performed
Genuinely excellent for the Bronica S2A. The S2A has a standard cable release thread on the shutter button. The Reveni Labs unit screws on, the servo has plenty of force to push the cable release plunger, the shutter fires cleanly every time. First real outing and zero failures.
A small quirk worth knowing: when you trigger the unit, the servo pin extends and stays extended for the duration of the button press. If you keep your finger on the fob button, the pin stays out. Which means on the S2A, if you wind on while the pin is still extended, the shutter fires again immediately. I do not have a use for this but you could in theory rip through an entire roll by holding the button down and winding rapidly. Worth being aware of so you do not accidentally double-trigger.
What it does not do
One real limitation: I tried the Reveni Labs unit on my Speed Graphic 4x5 and it did not have enough force to trigger the Speed Graphic’s focal plane shutter.
This is partly a Reveni Labs limitation and partly a general cable release problem. The Speed Graphic shutter requires significant force to trigger, and many cable releases I have tried struggle with it. The steel cable inside the rubber tubing buckles rather than transmitting the force cleanly to the shutter button.
So you cannot use the Reveni Labs Remote Release with a Speed Graphic if you are firing the focal plane shutter. You can use it with any lens-shutter setup (the leaf shutters in modern lenses on a Speed Graphic, for example), because those require much less force.
For the Bronica S2A and any camera with a normal cable release trigger force, the Reveni Labs Remote Release works beautifully. Highly recommended.
Reveni Labs is the website. Matt’s other products are also worth looking at, particularly the Reveni Labs spot meter which I use regularly.
![PLACEHOLDER: the Reveni Labs Remote Release unit attached to the Bronica S2A, showing how compact the rig is]
The Trioplan adapter for the Bronica S2A
The other interesting bit of kit on this shoot, and one that opens up real creative possibilities for Bronica S2A owners.
What the Trioplan is
The Meyer Optik Goerlitz Trioplan 100mm f/2.8 is a famous lens with a strong cult following. Originally made in East Germany, it has been reissued by Meyer Optik in recent years. The defining characteristic: a 15-blade aperture that produces extraordinary bubble bokeh on specular highlights in the out-of-focus areas.
If you have seen photographs where the out-of-focus highlights appear as clearly defined circular bubbles rather than soft blurry shapes, you have probably seen Trioplan work. The effect is distinctive and instantly recognisable.
The lens was originally made in various 35mm mounts (M42, Exakta, others). It does not come in a Bronica S2A mount because it predates that camera’s existence by decades.
Simon Forster’s clever adapter
Simon Forster is a photographer and engineer who runs Simon Forster Photographic and does two things primarily: bright orange 3D printing, and adapting old and famous lenses to work on cameras they were not designed for.
Simon got himself a Bronica S2A and looked carefully at what is happening inside the body when you remove a lens. He noticed something I had completely missed in years of using the S2A: there is a thread inside the camera body, behind where the standard Bronica lens mount sits. This thread is not used by Bronica’s own lenses, but it is the right size to accept a standard adapter.
Simon also noticed that the interior depth of the S2A body is unusually generous. There is a lot of space between the front of the camera and the mirror, much more than most SLRs need.
The combination: an adapter that screws into the internal S2A thread, projects forward into the lens mount opening, and provides a mount for a different lens family. The Trioplan, mounted on the adapter, sits within the S2A body and projects forward through the lens mount opening.
When I first saw this I thought it was a piss-take. Then I tried it. It works perfectly. The S2A focuses normally (Simon’s adapter accommodates the focal distance correctly), the shutter fires normally, the negative comes out properly exposed. You are looking at Bronica S2A bodies with vintage lenses from completely different systems, and it is genuinely a brilliant bit of engineering.
Using the Trioplan on the Bronica
On the morning’s shoot, I switched to the Trioplan for the second half. A few notes from the experience.
Focusing is the same as any other manual lens on the S2A. Through the waist-level finder, focus is achievable but takes practice given the wide aperture and shallow depth of field.
The bubble bokeh is gorgeous. Wide-open at f/2.8 in dappled woodland light, the out-of-focus areas behind the subject produced exactly the distinctive circular highlights the Trioplan is known for. The lens earned its reputation.
Self-portrait focus is harder with this lens because the depth of field is so narrow. I used a fixed point in front of me (a fence post, the bracken) and tried to position my head at the same distance. Got close. Not perfect. For successful Trioplan self-portrait work, you really want either an assistant to confirm focus or a tape measure.
Many of my frames are out of focus. I am genuinely OK with this for the kind of work I was doing. The bubble bokeh works almost as well with a slightly soft subject as with a sharply-focused one, and the soft self-portraits have their own quality. But for crisp work, you need to be more methodical than I was.
If you have a Bronica S2A and you have been wishing you could try a Trioplan, Simon’s adapter is the answer. He has loaned me his (which I should probably return at some point, sorry Simon), and the experience has made me consider buying my own. The adapter approach also opens up other adaptable lenses on the S2A, which is a rabbit hole I will return to.
![PLACEHOLDER: the Trioplan adapter installed inside the Bronica S2A body, showing how the lens projects forward through the mount opening]
The self-portrait work itself
So with all the kit set up, what was the morning actually about?
A few attempts at different compositions.
The chair in the woods: I came across an abandoned chair in a clearing (which I suspect was someone’s Woodland activity area, perhaps a hideout or a meditation spot). Sat on it, set up the camera with the 75mm, triggered with the Reveni Labs. Got a frame of myself sitting on the chair with the trees framing me.
The fence post leaning shot with the Trioplan: changed to the Trioplan and tried a composition where I rested my head on a fence post, looking sideways. The light filtering through the trees behind me produced the bubble bokeh I was hoping for, with my head and shoulders softly framed by the highlights.
A lower angle frame: dropped the tripod down and set up a composition looking up at me slightly from below. Tried to find an expression that felt honest rather than posed. Got a frame I am quietly pleased with, though I would not show it to most people.
These were not technically perfect. The Trioplan frames are slightly soft. The 75mm frames are sharper but less interesting. None of them quite caught the “essence of me” I was vaguely hunting for.
But they were real attempts. And looking at them later, I learned things about how I look on camera that I did not know. I have a particular way of holding my shoulders. My face does specific things when I am unobserved that it does not do when I am being photographed by someone else. The self-portrait process surfaces information about yourself that other portrait situations cannot.
The honest tension
I want to acknowledge something that is uncomfortable to write about.
I generally do not like photographs of me. I look at most pictures of myself and notice what is wrong: the line of my chin, the asymmetry of my expression, the way I hold my body. The list is long. Standard insecurity, probably no different from most people’s.
But the self-portraits I make myself are different. I dislike them in the same ways I dislike other photographs of myself, but I am also looking at them as photographs first, not as photographs of me. The aesthetic of the image, the composition, the light, the lens character are all things I can engage with somewhat independently of the subject.
This is liberating. I can hate myself in the photograph and still appreciate the photograph. It also means I can make self-portraits without the same crushing dissatisfaction I would feel if someone else made the same image of me, because the work of making it gives me something to value beyond my own appearance.
Is this a healthy place to be? I genuinely do not know. But it works as a way of approaching the practice, and I am going to keep doing it.
What I learned
A summary of the morning.
1. The Reveni Labs Remote Release is excellent and solves the practical problem of triggering the shutter from in front of the camera. Recommended.
2. The Trioplan on the Bronica S2A works beautifully thanks to Simon Forster’s adapter. The bubble bokeh is real and worth the lens’s reputation.
3. Self-portrait focus is hard. Especially with shallow depth of field. Use fixed reference points and be methodical about your distance from the camera.
4. Find quiet locations. Self-portraiture in public is awkward and inhibits the work. Privacy is essential for honest self-portrait practice.
5. Accept imperfection. The photographs you make in early self-portrait practice will not be your best work. The point is to learn the process and develop the practice, not to make masterpieces immediately.
6. There is a tension between hating yourself in the photograph and appreciating the photograph. This is OK and possibly even productive. The work matters even when the subject is uncomfortable.
What’s next
More self-portraits at some point. Maybe on the channel, maybe not. This is the kind of personal work I am genuinely uncertain about sharing more widely.
On the channel directly next: I had been planning some Mamiya RB67 repairs and a portrait shoot with that camera afterwards. The RB67 needs work to get into shooting condition. (It would actually take a fair bit longer than I expected to get the RB67 properly working and out shooting on the channel, but we got there eventually.)
After that, more medium format reviews. Plenty in the pipeline as always.
Useful links (no affiliates)
- Reveni Labs Remote Release: reveni-labs.com
- Simon Forster Photographic (for the adapter and other clever bits): simonforsterphotographic.co.uk
If you have your own self-portrait practice or have tried the Reveni Labs Remote Release or the Trioplan adapter, I would love to hear from you in the comments. Self-portrait photographers are a quieter tribe than most film photography subcultures and connecting with others doing similar work is genuinely valuable.
Are you a self-portrait fan? Drop me a comment below.