Cumberland Basin, July & August 2020

By shendyNo Comments
The photos here are from two separate visits to Cumberland Basin in Bristol, pretty much my favourite concrete place to photograph. The first, in July, was my first post-lockdown photographic trip out and was an all film affair - some of the shots are on the Hasselblad (mainly Fuji Acros, with a bit of Kodak Tri-X), while the others are from the Intrepid 5x4 large format (on Ilford Delta).These are fairly standard stuff, the sort of thing I take a lot of. For the second visit, at the end of August, I actually went out with a plan - I wanted to shoot a lot darker than normal, and to use shadow a lot more.I used the Fuji digital on manual mode (I'm normally on aperture-priority), and sometimes with an old Helios lens I bought. I also used my dad's old Pentax MX with some old Ilford Delta film. And I'm really pleased with what I took, it's quite different to what I...
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Arnos Vale, September 2020

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Making the most of some time off work in September, combined with a relatively relaxed period of lockdown, I met a friend for a socially-distanced wander around Arnos Vale. It's been tidied up a lot since I first went there back in 2003, but there are still large areas that are heavily overgrown - it's a fascinating place, well worth a visit. The square ones here were taken on the Hasselblad, with Ilford XP2 film. ...
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Abbey House Gardens, August 2020

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I visit Abbey House Gardens in Malmesbury most years, but this one was a bit different to the usual trips - I normally go to their clothes-optional days, and this was only the second time I've visited and kept my clothes on. As well as wanting to visit (and support) what is a rather lovely garden, they also had a sculpture exhibition on, which is something we've taken quite a liking to - see previous posts Quennington Fresh Air Sculpture and Quenington Fresh Air Sculpture, June 2019. Most of these were taken on my Fuji digital, but I was also shooting on slide film in the Hasselblad (the last one is from that) as well as some expired film in what was my dad's Pentax MX (a lovely all-manual SLR). The expired film thing was a bit of an experiment, not hugely successful if I'm honest. ...
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Tammy, January 2020 (very slightly NSFW)

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I'd worked with Tammy once before, back in 2016 (see pics here - she's the third model), and we'd kept in touch and always talked about working together again without it actually happening.As I had some spare time over the Christmas/New Year break, we managed to find a day that worked for both of us and had a really positive session. I actually went into this more prepared than I have been for any other model shoot - I actually had a clear plan of things I wanted to to, the look I was trying to achieve. OK, it wasn't original - I'd just come across the photographer Noell Oszvad via Black & White Photography magazine and thought there was something we could work on there.We also discussed trying something with some gauze - which actually ended up with the gauze wrapped right round Tammy's head. I thought it worked quite well - really not my normal sort of thing, but...
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Ezku – December 2019

By shendyNo Comments
As I had some time off over Christmas, I planned to head down to Cumberland Basin to further explore the concrete structures and harbour structures.As it happened, I saw on Purpleport that a Bristol-based model was looking for someone to take some portrait & fashion shots for their portfolio - so I suggested we could meet at Cumberland Basin and do some shots. So we did.Although as it turned out, it was heavily foggy that morning - and cold - but actually I thought this led to some interesting and atmospheric portraits. Ezku has a really interesting look - 6ft tall and an asymetric haircut that gave very different looks depending on which side you shot her from - and photographed really well, especially for an inexperienced model. I particularly liked the Mondrian dress she had - some of those images (especially the ones on the spiral staircase) look really 60s. ...
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