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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Using A Vintage Camera

By shendyNo Comments
One of the cameras I inherited from my father was his parents' camera - an Ansco No.3, which is now somewhere in the region of 100 years old.I'm pretty sure that this is the camera my dad took with him when he cycled through the Alps in 1953, which was a couple of years before he bought his own camera. It's a lovely old folding camera, but with some surprises. It has movements - rise and fall and some swing.It takes 118 rollfilm (more on that in a moment) but also has a separate back for sheet film - quarter plate, for which there are also a dozen (heavy) dark slides.You can see on the photo below that it even has a small built-in stand that folds out - there's another for when you use it landscape. It's always looked in good condition (although I have had to re-stick the leather(ette) cover, and the shutter speeds seemed sensible. The big blocker has...
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Going Back to Film, part 2

By shendy Comment Closed
A bit of a follow-up on the previous post, with some more on my adventures back into film photography. In February I upgraded the TLR, buying an MPP Microcord. Unfortunately it turned out that mine was faulty so it went back to the supplier. The first images on it were taken during the heavy snow we had - I wish I could claim that I was trying to emulate the soft look of some of the early photographers, but no - the shutter was slow and it also had issues with winding on. It did take some slightly sharper shots on a visit to Aust for the spring tides, and at the SS great Britain, but it wasn't good enough so back it went.   This left me with the dilemma about what to try next. In the end I went for a substantial upgrade and succumbed to a Hasselblad, having lusted after them for many years. I found one on Ebay at a...
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Going Back to Film

By shendyNo Comments
Long and a bit image heavy... I was about to post something about getting back into taking and developing my own black and white film when I realised that I haven't actually posted anything at all about starting off with large format photography, which was where the whole film thing started - so this is going to be a long post with quite a few photos. This dates back to late 2014 when I heard about a Kickstarter project that was launching an affordable 5x4 large format camera, the Intrepid Camera Company. That's something I've thought about a few times over the last 20 years, but it's always been way out of my league - far too expensive. But suddenly this made it affordable, so I signed up. It took them quite a while to get production sorted and I didn't get my camera until mid-2016, and it's been a slow process getting used to it. I started with some cheap film,...
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First Cricket Shots

By shendyNo Comments
Back in the 1980s I spent entire summers at the County Ground in Northampton watching cricket, and in 1986 I started taking a few photos - eventually leading to the hobby I have now. These are my first cricket photos, taken with my dad's compact camera - I didn't move on to action photos until I got my first SLR in 1987 and borrowed his 300mm lens. There are some big names, so not a bad start - legendary West Indies stars Clive Lloyd, Joel Garner and Viv Richards, as well as a certain Ian Botham. The Garner/Richards/Botham shots were taken at Northants' annual trip to play at Wellingborough School. In the Sunday League match, Botham (just back from a ban after he admitted smoking marijuana) hit 175no including 12 4's and 13 6's - remember that these were 40 over matches, and he only batted for 27 of them! OK, the ground was very small, but it was probably the most amazing innings I saw.  ...
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