Clevedon & Portishead, June 2019

By shendyNo Comments
We don't visit other towns in the area quite as much as we should, so made the effort to go out to Clevedon and Portishead on a midweek day off. Obviously one has to visit Clevedon pier - although with our customary bad timing, the far end of it was closed off for decoration work.We also ambled along to the open air pool, which is somewhere I need to investigate more from a photographic point of view - I'm thinking long exposures with smooth water, smooth sea and just a hint of a line between them.Some bits of it made me think of 70s eastern Europe, stark concrete that's seen slightly better days. We also headed over to Portishead as I'd see that there's an art trail and one of the exhibits had caught my eye - "Full Fathom Five" by Michael Dan Archer, the stone columns.And as we found, some of the buildings around the marina photograph quite well too. ...
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Hauser & Wirth, May 2019

By shendyNo Comments
As I had a random day off, we headed out to Hauser & Wirth in Somerset. We had discovered that their current exhibitions had finished the Sunday before, but we went anyway to see their other galleries and their grounds. To start with, the other galleries and the main shop were closed as the space was being used for bits & pieces while they took down the exhibitions - which meant that there was pretty much nothing to see.About the only thing there was a couple of Don McCullin originals - his landscapes. On sale for a mere £8250 plus framing plus VAT. But there were still the gardens (designed by Piet Oudolf), which were actually quite nice. There's an odd modern building at the top of the garden though - you'd think something like that would be quite out of place in a rural setting like Hauser & Wirth but it doesn't grate and it is photographically quite interesting - its's...
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Bristol Aerospace Museum – May 2019

By shendyNo Comments
A few shots from our first trip to the Bristol Aerospace Museum - we'd been to see Concorde when it was on display out in the open, back in 2009 (see Previous Concorde post). Lots of really interesting exhibits to see, plus of course the incomparable Concorde - now safely under cover.Plus of course a few photos of the area - I'm a sucker for warehouses and suchlike. See also http://www.shendy.co.uk/2019/03/concorde-2/ - photos from when that Concorde last landed in Bristol. ...
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Severn Beach 2019

By shendyNo Comments
The logical follow-on from Aust photos is Severn Beach - just along the Severn estuary, and another slightly bleak landscape. These were taken in March and April 2019, and are all on film - I probably went out and shot film more times than digital last year.These are a mix of 35mm (when I was testing my dad's Pentaxes), medium format (Hasselblad) and large format. You will notice one recurring subject - that tower, hugely photogenic. Well, for my definition of photogenic anyway.One on 35mm, one on medium format, one on large format! ...
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Aust 2019

By shendyNo Comments
As ever, I kept going back to Aust just outside Bristol - my favourite bleak location. The first visit was in February - the forecast looked promising and when I got up early (for a Sunday), it looked even better as it was a bit misty. When I got there, I saw a lovely bit of mist with the pylon and the old Severn Bridge in bright sunlight above it. However as I walked the last bit, it got foggier and foggier - to the point that I couldn't actually see much at all. These shots were taken on a variety of film cameras - I was testing some of my dad;s old Pentaxes before selling them. So we have an MX, and ME Super and a Z1 - some shot on Ilford FP4, some on Kodak Tri-X 400, all developed by me. The second visit was on a June morning, when conditions were very different - lovely bright sunshine. Most of these were...
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